Royal House

A rubble-masonry building with a slate roof, comprising three distinct sections: a shop to the east, a house at the centre, and a former store-house to the rear.

The Penrallt elevation is dominated by a mid-19th-century shop front, but the stonework to Garsiwn and along the long rear elevation shows clear evidence of late medieval origin. A straight joint marks the division between the original dwelling and the slightly later store-house adjoining it to the rear. The structural evidence for the front shop section was lost during reconstruction.

The earliest doorway is that giving access to the third unit running back from the street (internally, the room below the parlour), which features a fine voussoir head and well-dressed stone. To its left is a lobby-entry doorway of poorer-quality stone, which appears to be an insertion, though an early window alongside it retains the slot for an original diamond mullion. A 12-pane sash window stands further left, with additional doors towards the street front that are probably also insertions. Three upper windows include a 3-light ovolo-moulded mullion window to the right, with the others being 12-pane sashes.

The former shop has a hipped roof, wide 12-pane sash windows at two levels, and a street door with an overlight featuring marginal glazing, followed by a canted small-paned shop window across the south-east angle. The store-house elevation shows detail probably relating to later usage: two doorways flanking a single window, with a wide inserted opening to the right.

The internal layout divides clearly into these three sections. The house originally comprised a two-room plan with principal domestic accommodation—hall and parlour—on the first floor. The ground floor contained two chambers divided by a substantial axial stack, which served a secondary entrance creating a lobby-entry arrangement. The present shop floor forms a mezzanine between the principal floors of the house, achieved by lowering the original first floor; the original timbers survive within this mezzanine, and the original front wall line remains visible, marked by a heavy timber lintel indicating the position of the original doorway to the north.

The open hall on the first floor features a chamfered fireplace bressumer carried on massive corbels, and a post-and-panel screen running along the rear wall (plastered and painted on its reverse side, now abutted by the adjacent building's wall—possibly indicative of a lost south wing). An open truss with high collar rises over the hall, now under-built by a dividing wall, with wind-braces to the roof. The eastern truss has been modified with the formation of a hipped roof over the hall. An ogee doorhead connects the hall to the parlour, though later a passage was inserted here, linking the hall to the room over the store-house. The parlour has a broad chamfered longitudinal beam and chamfered joists. Post-and-panel partitions survive in the attic on either side of the chamber above the parlour. The main ground-floor room beneath the hall displays broad chamfered cross beams and stop-chamfered joists, with a chamfered lintel to the fireplace. The room beneath the parlour has a cobbled floor and an early ceiling, featuring a chamfered cross beam and broad joists.

The store-house range comprises three bays with longitudinal ceiling beams. Paired lateral fireplaces occupy the first bay adjoining the house, probably relating to later industrial use. A lateral beam in the first bay shows evidence of a lost partition separating it from the central bay. A gable chimney stands in the end bay. Two rooms occupy the upper floor (though not in the original arrangement), including one large chamber to the west containing three collar trusses, where the original tie-beams have been cut and additional collars inserted.