House & Outbuildings Range at Cil-y-Byddar Cil-y-Byddar

The house and outbuildings at Cil-y-Byddar show origins in the 16th century, with alterations and improvements made in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. The property is currently undergoing comprehensive renovation, including new oak windows and doors, some new wall framing, beams, and joists, a new staircase and porch, a slate roof with roof lights. The main house is a two-storey, single-range structure built of rubble stone of various phases, the earlier sections having more evenly coursed stonework. It features a large square rubble ridge stack and a brick stack at the south end, incorporated into the gable wall of a barn. An enclosed rubble porch with a pitched slate roof and small, irregularly arranged window openings is present.

A barn range extends from the main house, incorporating a stable and an adjoining house at the south end. This section dates to the 19th century and is primarily clad in weatherboard, over a low rubble plinth, with some patching using tin sheeting. The roof is of tin, and the gables are constructed of rubble (south) and brick (north), the latter incorporating a stack serving the house. The barn is three bays wide, with a central threshing bay floored in stone flags and containing a double door entry to one side and a smaller door to the west. The interior has stud-walling with diagonal bracing interrupting the studs, jowled wall posts, and tie-beam trusses with angle braces.

Attached to the south end of the barn is a former stable with a hay loft, accessible via a boarded door and shuttered loft opening.

The interior reveals historic detailing indicative of the building’s piecemeal development, progressing from a timber-framed, cruck-trussed open hall to a fully two-storeyed house with a lobby-entry plan, an inserted stack and ceiling beams, and raised stone walls. A partial survival of one smoke-blackened cruck truss remains, featuring a collar and tie-beam with lapped, bare-faced dovetail joints. A large rubble stack was inserted before the construction of the stone walls. A wide fireplace opening with a chamfered and stopped lintel and a later bread oven are also present. The former hall retains an axial beam with a chamfer and step stop, supported at the south end on a post with a crude capital and roll moulding. Chamfered wall bressumers carry the ends of the joists. Square-panel timber-framed partitions divide rooms to the north and south of the stack, incorporating substantial chamfered door frames.

The rubble side walls replaced the original timber framing in phases throughout the 18th century, during which time the wall height was also raised. A fragment of a small mullion window can be seen in the west wall.

A former cowhouse, dating to around 1800, adjoins the house at the north end. It is constructed of rubble stone and has been largely gutted internally, with some patching visible in breeze block and tin sheeting.