Hafod Arms Hotel

Hafod Arms Hotel

A three-storey hotel with attic and five bays, constructed in rubble stone with a distinctive Alpine-manner slate roof. The building is notable for its exceptionally broad overhanging eaves carried on giant brackets formed of horizontal beams supported on wall-posts on corbels and raking curved braces. Moulded pendants hang from the eaves soffit, with twinned brackets at the ends positioned between the upper windows. The end chimneys are rendered and hornless in character.

Windows throughout feature voussoirs and painted slate sills. The second floor has small 9-pane sashes, while the main floors carry 12-pane sashes. The ground floor to the right is distinguished by two canted bay windows with 8-8-8-pane sashes. The centre of the facade features a large square-headed doorway with Tudor-arched double board doors and glazed spandrels, sheltered by a porch with tapered square pillars, pilaster responds, moulded cornice and set-back shallow gable. Iron railings flank the doorway on a low stone plinth.

Five prominent dormers with deep bargeboarded gables and small-pane casement windows project from the main roof. The roof to the rear maintains the deep bracketed eaves and dormers.

The left end wall incorporates a very large arched stair window set left of centre, featuring a tooled grey stone surround with keystone and imposts. Below this are timber panels supporting a tripartite 6-18-6-pane sash with a radiating-bar fanlight. A small canted 4-8-4-pane bay sits below, with a 12-pane sash on the first and second floors in a later 19th-century blue brick surround, and a plate-glass sash below with stone voussoirs. A lean-to has been added at the rear with blue brick surrounds to the end-wall windows.

The right end wall bears the mark of a removed adjoining range, shown in views from the 1860s, and features an attic arched door in a blue brick surround. A 'GR' letterbox marks the corner.

Attached to the rear south-east is the billiard room of 1862. Two storeys and nearly square in plan, it has a pyramid slate roof topped with a pyramid-roofed louvred ventilator. A roundel to the rear and partial similar opening to the east suggest earlier origins. The east side upper floor carries a large tripartite 4-8-4-pane window to the right, with a raised chimney breast to the left where the stack has been removed. The ground floor features a lean-to to the left.

A single-storey Tea Rooms, slate-roofed with a substantial stone corniced cut-stone chimney to its right end, is attached with eaves carried forward over a veranda of three wide bays resting on square cast-iron pillars with cornices and high pedestals. Matching pilaster responds divide the bays of a continuously glazed timber facade. Long windows with top lights and fascia occupy the bays, with shallow bows to the outer bays containing half-glazed double entrance doors with a ten-light centre. The Three Bridges Bar, a rubble-stone single-storey range of two bays with shallower roof pitch, adjoins to the right. A broad mid-20th-century timber-glazed 5-bay shopfront occupies the left, featuring lozenge-traceried overlights above four long windows and a centre door, though an early 20th-century photograph shows this location originally held a window and door in a raised stone surround. A four-light window to the right comprises a pair of cross-windows. At the extreme right stands a two-storey gable, the end of a long stabling range running back. The west side of this range has small windows under the eaves and one large ground floor window in a blue brick surround.

The entrance hall retains coloured glass in the reception office and frosted glass reading 'Smoke Room' over doors to the present dining room, along with brass finger plates. The staircase features a lower section of 1862 that links to an earlier stair at landing level. The bottom flight has a Gothic panelled newel and barley twist balusters, with stick balusters continuing the earlier work. The bar to the right contains a shouldered chimneypiece with a foliated plaster frieze. The former billiard room is lined with dado panelling by the Ornamental Pyrographic Woodwork Company, which includes two unusual panels depicting nautical scenes; a ribbed ceiling has been inserted. The 1876 sale catalogue refers to a lantern light above this room.