Plas Rhiwaedog

Plas Rhiwaedog is a gentry house, dating from the 17th century with additions and alterations. It is irregularly planned, roughly in a T-shape, with an advanced wing to the east and a two-storey porch set to the left end of the main range. A walled garden lies in front of the house, accessed through a gatehouse to the northwest of the porch. An agricultural range is set at an angle to the northwest corner of the main house. A 20th-century brick block now connects the house to the adjacent farmhouse.

The house is constructed of roughly coursed masonry with a slate roof, advanced eaves, and shaped kneelers to the porch roof. Tall stacks with dripstones and capping are prominent. The main entrance is through a two-storey porch which features a large segmental stone doorway with a datestone above, said to bear the date and initials “L LI S / 1664” (referring to the Lloyds family). Windows are predominantly casement windows, some with ovolo moulded mullions, hoodmoulds, and leaded lights. A rooflight is visible in the front (north) roof pitch. The east wing has irregularly placed windows and gabled dormers.

The agricultural range at the southwest corner of the main house is a 19th-century lofted cartshed constructed of rubble masonry, with a slate roof, rough stone kneelers, and a brick stack to the southern gable.

The interior was not inspected during the survey in 2004. However, a plan of the ground floor, as illustrated in the Royal Commission on Ancient and Historical Monuments Inventory of Merioneth (1921), shows the porch entrance leading to a large hall with a staircase to the rear (southeast). A drawing room occupies the rear (south) wing, and the kitchen is housed in the advanced wing to the east. The Inventory also mentions a “good 17th-century oak staircase with turned balusters.” P. Smith’s book, Houses of the Welsh Countryside, details various interior features, including windbraces and cusped trusses in the main range, post and panel partitioning with double ogee doorheads, and a fireplace dated 1699. Williams' leaflet, ‘The History of Rhiwaedog’, records internal carvings featuring the coats of arms of Owain Gwynedd and Rhirid Flaid. Furthermore, the leaflet describes underground cells with fifteen-foot thick walls, a subterranean passage leading under the nearby hill used as a refuge, and a well in the cellar.