Llewelyn Cottage (also known as Ty Isaf)

Llewelyn Cottage (also known as Ty Isaf)

A sub-medieval vernacular storeyed end-chimney house of rubble construction with boulder foundations. The building features a modern slate roof with tiled ridge, expressed rafter ends and skylights to the rear. The squat chimneys, which were reduced early in the building's history, have weather coursing and modern capping; the heightened roof-line is visible on the north gable end.

The front elevation has an off-centre entrance to the right with a recessed late 19th-century 4-panel door, the upper panels glazed, with whitened reveals and renewed slate lintel. To the right of the entrance is a large 20-pane 19th-century horned sash window, and to the left is a renewed 16-pane sash. The upper floor has two 12-pane sashes flanking an off-centre 6-pane sash. The rear elevation has a corresponding off-centre entrance to the left with a deeply-recessed boarded door, flanked by a recessed 16-pane sash window and a 12-pane sliding sash to the left and right respectively, both from the second quarter of the 19th century, set in primary openings. A small 4-pane 19th-century casement is positioned diagonally above the entrance. At the far left of the rear is a square, squat masonry buttress, apparently of modern construction.

Adjoining to the right, set back and stepped down, is a later addition dating to around 1700, one-and-a-half storeys with 2 bays of similar rubble construction. This addition has a 9-pane renewed 19th-century sash to the upper floor at the right and a modern boarded door to the rear, with a small square plain-glazed light to its left.

The building follows a cross passage plan, with the rear half of the passage now occupied by a later stair. The front part of the passage is flanked by sections of primary post and panel partition of standard type; the section to the right has a renewed sill beam, and the shorter left-hand section has a glazed cut-out with an arched head. The former hall to the left contains a re-used, broach-stopped and chamfered lateral beam with plain oak joists, whitened rubble walls and a Buckley tiled floor. A gently-cambered bressummer spans the wide end fireplace, with a bread oven, probably of 18th-century date, to the right. The chamber to the right of the passage, the former parlour, has joists of the same type with multiple modern soffit timbers to the front-facing window and slate flagged floors. A 19th-century stair, relocated around 1980, has a primary stopped-chamfered oak doorframe to the rear entrance beyond.

The first floor is open to the roof and retains good early oak and elm floorboarding throughout. The roof comprises 3 bays with primary stopped-chamfered trusses surviving beneath a later roof structure, dating to around 1700, planted on top; the primary purlins, collars and rafters have been lost. A blocked window at the hall gable end suggests that primary access was originally via a newel in the front corner, leading up to the left of the hall fireplace, though this arrangement was probably superseded early on by a stair in the passage. Two good vernacular oak partition screens, belonging to the secondary phase, are positioned below the trusses; each has a vertically boarded lower section and a horizontally-boarded upper section, with 2 old boarded doors apiece. The end chamber to the right, the parlour end, retains its primary fireplace with a chamfered oak bressummer; this is reduced and contains a crude arched slatestone fireplace within, probably of late 18th-century date, with a contemporary iron grate. The parlour-end addition has a simple 2-bay collar truss roof.