Pyllau-Clai

Pyllau-Clai is an early 18th-century, two-storey house with an end chimney. It is constructed of locally-burnt brick with limestone and sandstone dressings, set on a tall rubble plinth that is cemented over on the garden front. The roof has been renewed in slate with rendered, two-stage chimneys and modern capping. The gable parapets are coped and kneelered, with sandstone kneelers and slate-stone copings; the kneelers to the left gable on the garden side are modern replacements in sandstone.

The six-bay, near-symmetrical front features a stringcourse between the ground and first floors, composed of a dentilated course of diagonally-set bricks with a plain, projecting stretcher course above. Large limestone quoins mark the left corner, with none to the right. The near-centre entrance is positioned in the fourth bay from the left and is approached through a single-storey Victorian brick porch. This porch has a pointed arch with counter-changed red and yellow voussoirs and a modern slate roof with plain modern bargeboards, together with a modern part-glazed porch door. The inner entrance retains a five-panel pine door, possibly original, with moulded, raised and fielded upper panels and blind panels below, topped by a Victorian overlight with marginal glazing.

The window openings remain in their original positions, though that in bay three on the first floor is bricked up. The windows are fitted with plain modern casements of stained wood, except for the window above the porch, which is steel-framed with frosted glass. Ground-floor windows have plain projecting slate-stone labels, though that to the window left of the porch has been hacked off. First-floor windows have rendered, projecting sills. Above the stringcourse, between the second and blocked third windows of the first floor, is an inset sandstone plaque inscribed with the initials M.K.E and the date 1703. The right-hand gable contains two small first-floor windows; the left is bricked up and the right has plain glazing.

Adjoining this gable is a low rubble addition with a pitched, slated roof. A modern boarded entrance to the farmyard side and a large two-pane modern window occupy the left side, the latter replacing a former entrance. The former farmyard elevation, now the entrance front, displays an original small, square ground-floor window with ovolo-moulded sandstone jambs and a simple moulded label, fitted with plain modern glazing. To the right are two larger windows with modern casements occupying primary openings and original labels; the right label has been hacked off. Three first-floor windows appear, with a further blocked window to the left. The far-right window retains an early 19th-century twelve-pane wooden casement, while the remainder have modern glazing.

Adjoining to the right and partly overlapping the primary range is an early 19th-century single-storey brewhouse block, projecting to the southeast and forming an L-plan with the house. A large modern porch extension of brick with a shallow-pitched, slated roof has been inserted in the angle between the house and this block. Within this extension is the original rear entrance, now open, with a two-light, ovolo-moulded sandstone mullioned window to its right.

The brewhouse block is constructed of limestone rubble with a modern slate roof and squat brick chimney. A large window with a segmentally-arched head and rough-dressed limestone voussoirs contains modern glazing. Adjacent to this is a small rectangular block, earlier than the brewhouse and originally detached from the main house, built of rubble with boulder foundations and a corrugated iron roof. It features a segmentally-arched entrance to the left and a further plain entrance to the right.

The original internal arrangement has been altered, though evidence suggests a central stair and service bay with a hall to its right and parlour to the left. A timber-framed partition wall is exposed in the ground-floor central room, now the kitchen, alongside some relocated stopped-chamfered ceiling beams of 17th-century character. Modern fireplaces and cornicing have been installed in the ground-floor chambers. A plain 19th-century staircase is present; the treads and risers are said by the owner to be early, though they were carpeted over at inspection. If genuinely early, this may represent the surviving flight of the primary dog-leg stair, with its balusters and handrail removed and the upper flight lost.