Pen isa'r llan

Pen isa'r llan

This is a single-storey house with attic, constructed in square-framed half-timbering three panels high and oriented north-east to south-west on an almost flat site. The building comprises an original medieval or early post-medieval core with a seventeenth-century extension and later additions.

The front elevation faces south-east and has three windows. The left and centre bays represent the original part of the house, while the right-hand bay with the broader window is an 18th-century extension. The steeply pitched roof is covered in thick regular slates with a tiled ridge and features gabled dormers to the front. A central red-brick chimney stack, partly rebuilt in Ruabon or similar bricks, rises through the roof. The current windows are modern small-pane casements; those at ground storey have bracket timber hoods. The door is a modern boarded example positioned opposite the chimney. The plinth is painted to suggest that the main studs of the framing continue down to ground level. The gable ends are rendered.

At the rear, there is a wing to the left that is timber-framed in the late manner with small-pane metal-framed windows, said originally to have been a buttery. Beneath the present floor screed there is reportedly cobble paving in a sunburst pattern. A larger but shorter modern-fronted rear kitchen wing is positioned to the right, with a lean-to conservatory. A middle section between the two rear wings is roofed in lean-to form.

The interior retains substantial medieval and post-medieval detail. Square-framed timber partitions with lath and plaster panels and stop-chamfered beams are found throughout the house. Doors are boarded and floor boards are wide. Entry is via a lobby containing fine post and panel work positioned against the side of the main chimney, which heats both the hall to the left and the parlour to the right.

The hall fireplace surround retains its bressummer and right post, both chamfered with roll-moulded ogee stops. The bressummer has been reduced at the left, probably when the staircase was altered. A notable feature of this room is an exceptional example of an unglazed two-light diamond-mullioned window in the original rear wall, with possible marks of a former shutter visible on the exterior side. Multiple timber brackets are exposed against the former rear wall within the kitchen wing, perhaps retained from window and door hoods or possibly originally intended to support the wing ceiling.

The parlour contains similar detail including a massive cross beam. Its well-preserved right wall was the gable end of the original house. The space formerly contained service rooms to the rear, and probably also included the original position of the foot of the stairs, perhaps originally rising from the north-east rather than from the south-west as it does today.

The attic storey is ceiled at collar level. The original roof structure is retained, including diagonal queen posts and straight windbraces. The wall-posts are thickened below their joints with the beams. The dormers serving the two main rooms have pegged ridges in a sub-medieval manner, suggesting they are original. Both rooms contain fine timber-framed and brick-nogged chimneys. The chimney over the hall lacks a fireplace and is almost pyramidal in shape, possibly never having had an opening if this served as the secondary bedroom. The chimney over the parlour tapers more gently and is heavily rendered, with a square-headed bressummer to the opening. This upper fireplace retains a 19th-century cast iron grate of Coalbrookdale pattern.

The enclosed main staircase has been substantially altered from its original form, but retains much medieval and post-medieval timber and detail, including a deeply chamfered newel with a pointed finial. Part of it is a hanging structure. At the half-landing a passage runs along the rear, giving access to the bedrooms over the parlour and 18th-century extension; this represents an 18th or 19th-century manner of arrangement, whereas originally access between rooms would have been direct, as evidenced by the surviving doorway between the two bedrooms of the original house. The passage steps up to the original floor height to enter the second bedroom and then steps down again beyond. A low doorway leads into the 18th-century extension.

The additional 18th-century bay at the far right has stop-chamfered beams with smaller chamfers than those in the main range. It formerly contained a fireplace in the rear wall with a timber bressummer, which no longer survives. However, a large bread oven projecting considerably to the exterior has been retained in the end wall. Behind this bay, the later timber-framed service range is now internally lined with concrete blockwork. Notches in the underside of the wing purlins suggest there was formerly an enclosed passage between the main range and this wing, leading to the north-east of the house where the domestic well was situated. Evidence of a doorway indicates this end was formerly lofted.