Bryn-yr-hydd Farmhouse

Single storey and attic farmhouse of rubble construction with battered walls, slate roof and stone chimney stacks. Entrance front facing SE overlooking the farmyard has roughcast render and flat cement architraves to various modern casement windows and to the deeply recessed off-centre door. The front roof pitch of the uphill part has been raised in the C20 alterations and given gabled dormers. To the left, the original steeper roof pitch is retained and has a boarded door entrance with gabled hood, and a larger dormer over. This section of the house has no windows to the front or rear elevations and may originally have been for animals or farm storage. The downhill gable is roughcast with particularly strongly battered base and window treatment as before. The rear elevation is particularly distinctive in having a tall lateral chimney built on to the end of a gabled 'dormer'; this seems to result from a later conversion of the downhill end to provide more living accommodation. The steep roof pitch is continuous on the rear side. Central gabled projection has been added to the original winding stair and retains massive dripstones over the attic window and to the blocked ground floor window and doorway, the former having a massive diagonally-set vertical bar. The doorway would have provided direct access to the stairs as well as giving the only internal means of communication between the two parts of the house. At a later date it appears to have been blocked and a small window inserted in its place. Three-light window lights the hall to the rear. Uphill from this is an added rear wing of similar construction containing service rooms.

The interior retains its original cruck construction throughout. The downhill part has one pair of crucks, the main part of the house a further two pairs of full crucks, and there is evidence for a fourth cruck built into the stack between the two parts of the house. The apex of the cruck couples is nowhere visible. The early origin is also supported by the internal battering of the walls, and wall thickness indicates that the rear wing at the NE end is a later addition. The hall, which retains two simple stop-chamfered beams and parallel beams against the outer walls, is probably in its present condition contemporary with the later C17 remodelling, perhaps replacing an open hall. A blocked corner doorway formerly opened on to the winding stair contained in the gabled projection added to the rear; this is now disused following the alteration of the plan in the insertion of a modern stair to the front. In the attic are largely 'A'-frame trusses. There are changes where the original stair stood and in the downhill part of the fireplace to the lateral chimney has been cut out, the later cutting of the purlin supports the interpretation that the lateral chimney is an addition. Stone oven in main fireplace.