Ciliau

Ciliau is a grade I listed hall house in which a central open hall is set between flanking outer bays presenting gabled fronts to both elevations, creating the appearance of cross wings. The building is constructed of lime-washed stone with slate roofs, though the eastern cross-gable retains its original stone flagged roof. The cross-gabled bays contain integral chimney stacks with paired shafts to the east and a single shaft to the west. The hall itself has a massive projecting stack on its north elevation.

The north elevation features a cross-passage entry alongside the eastern cross-gable, with disturbed masonry indicating later re-working. The carpentry, however, retains a chamfered frame and shaped door-head, with a double-skinned boarded door fitted with strap-hinges and a draw-bar. A blocked window with dressed stone surround lies alongside the doorway, with a similar window concealed by a nineteenth-century lean-to addition beyond the fireplace. A very small gabled dormer window sits in the roof of the hall above. A small cross-window in the left-hand gable lights the kitchen, and a single window at first-floor level sits alongside the stack on the eastern elevation. A nineteenth-century lean-to projects across the hall and cross-gable beyond the hall stack. The west cross-gable has a cross-window to the ground floor, offset to the left, with a similar window at upper floor level, reduced in size from a wider original. Both gables show projecting joist ends, indicating a former timber-framed jetty.

On the south elevation, a blocked cross-passage doorway has a stone arched head. Alongside it, the existing kitchen doorway has a four-centred arched head and dressed stone surround, possibly re-using stone from the north cross-passage entry. The kitchen, in the eastern end bay, has a two-light mullioned window to the ground floor with remains of a chamfered stone head, and a three-light window above. The stonework steps back at first-floor level, probably relating to reconstruction of the former timber-framed upper storey in stone; remains of timber-framing are clearly visible in the inner return wall of this gable, as in that to the west. The evidence suggests a hierarchical arrangement, with higher-status close-studding over the parlour bay and square-panelled framing at the service end. The hall has a large nineteenth-century three-light mullioned and transomed window with two dormers in the roof lighting its upper storey. The west gable has a small window to the ground floor and a wider window with timber mullions at first-floor level, offset to the right and once wider.

Entering the house via the north doorway, the cross-passage has an ornate ceiling with roll-moulded beams and a post-and-panel partition to the hall with a chamfered architrave on a high base to the doorway. The hall has a substantial beamed ceiling, with the longitudinal beam carried at each end on chamfered posts with moulded brackets. A cross-beam to the south wall is curiously stepped, apparently to avoid a wall above the window. A moulded cornice survives on the south wall above the window and on the staircase. A seventeenth-century dog-leg staircase against the south wall and passage partition has shaped newels with ogee caps, turned balusters, and a closed string. A lateral fireplace sits against the north wall.

The most striking interior feature is the wall-painting, particularly on the dais-end partition, which is remarkably complete and probably based on sixteenth-century blackwork textiles. The tripartite design has a frieze of strawberries above a central panel with leaf and flower trails, birds, and beasts. Further wall-paintings, possibly from an earlier decorative phase, have been found on the south wall, with traces visible on the cross-passage partition.

The inner bay beyond the dais-end partition was later subdivided into two rooms. In the parlour, the longitudinal beam is supported on a moulded post similar to those in the hall; the beam is plastered, and there is a deep moulded plaster cornice, probably representing early eighteenth-century remodelling. Remains of a staircase are visible alongside the fireplace. A small room to the south has a broad chamfered ceiling beam with run-out stops.

Beyond the cross-passage, the kitchen has a wide fireplace against the side wall. Its three-bay ceiling has broad flat joists and mortices in the south beam indicating the position of a former partition that created a small service room to the south. A post-and-panel partition with shaped heads to two doors gives evidence for the original layout of this end as two service rooms originally entered from the cross-passage.

On the first floor, the central room reveals the arch-braced collar trusses that formed the roof of the open hall, with traces of painted fictive close-studding in each long wall. The room above the kitchen in the eastern cross-gable was remodelled in 1709, with the date appearing in a carved timber panel with stylised tulips above the doorway to a closet. A good contemporary bolection-moulded fireplace is present. A fragment of moulded decoration on the truss survives from the earlier late medieval arrangement.