Allt Goch Isaf

Allt Goch Isaf is a single-bay hall house with an attached cowhouse, dating back to the later medieval period, likely the 15th century. It is primarily timber framed with weatherboarding, along with some brick and stone elements. The dwelling has a slate roof, while the three southern bays are covered with corrugated iron.

The house now forms an 'L' shape. The main section is a five-bay cruck construction built at a right angle to the hillside, with a room attached to the east, featuring a very large stone stack and collapsed external walls. Behind this stack, within the main northwest-southeast range, is a parlour and inner room that have been divided by a brick stack inserted in the 19th century. This range extends to the southeast as a three-bay cowhouse, which was likely originally part of the house itself. The house was last occupied around 1952.

The timber framing is complemented by brick and lath and daub infilling on the parlour’s northeastern wall, and brickwork on the southwestern side. A collapsed room originally stood on brick footings and appears to have been extended eastward by farm buildings. One surviving window is present in the inner room. A rear wall, partly built into the hillside, originally supported a cruck truss, of which one blade and part of the tie beam remain. The three-bay section to the south, last used as a cowhouse, has an open end gable.

The parlour retains its original large slate-flagged floor and deeply chamfered main beams, dividing the ceiling into six sections with counterlaid chamfered joists. A fine chamfered post and panel screen with an end doorway separates the parlour from the accommodation to the south (later the cowhouse). A stair occupied the rear (northwest) section. A brick stack, probably inserted in the early to mid-19th century, features a small iron range on the parlour side. The inner room, partially built into the hillside, has a post and panel partition facing the large stone stack.

The cowhouse exhibits three complete pairs of crucks with a light timber frame to the southwest gable end. The first cruck truss, over the screen to the parlour, has blades erected on and tenoned to a transverse sill, with a morticed tie beam carrying three tall struts to the collar, also morticed and infilled with lath and plaster. The roof reaches a yoke apex and has a scotch on the southeast side. The wall plate for the originally timber-framed walls is housed on a ledge cut into the blades. Two tiers of purlins are present, with the lower carried on a renewed spur rafter and the upper trenched. The struts have assembly marks, a ticked VIII. The second couple has both morticed tie and collar now missing, and the blades are again erected on a transverse sill with scotches on the southeast face, employing a Type L1 yoke apex. A third cruck couple forms a full frame, originally closed but now with a raised doorway under the collar. The head of both blades is missing, possibly indicating an end truss with a half-hipped roof. The southeastern bay has an understorey at ground level.