Coedcanlas Farmhouse and Attached Farmyard Range to S

Coedcanlas Farmhouse and Attached Farmyard Range

A stone-built gentry house with a slate-hung 3-storey south elevation and a cement-rendered north front. The ground storey on the north side is semi-basement level, backing onto the by-road. The building has a slate roof with stone end chimney stacks.

The south elevation, which was the principal facade, formerly overlooked formal gardens leading down to the Cleddau. The north roadside front demonstrates the extensive remodelling the house has undergone. On the left are a pair of blocked 2-light mullioned windows, positioned between the present 1st and 2nd floor levels. These windows retain quarter-round mouldings, although one jamb is unmoulded, suggesting it may originally have been a 3-light window. These windows indicate the floor levels of the sub-medieval house. A modern window has been inserted immediately below the left-hand blocked window. Half below road level is a round-arched doorway, flanked by 4-pane horned sash windows. To the right of this is an off-centre trellised porch at 1st floor level with outside stone steps; historically this entrance may have given access to the principal apartments, though its level does not directly correspond with the blocked early windows. The right gable end is blank except for a central blocked mullioned window of similar type to those on the front but broader in span. At the south-west corner, the masonry is corbelled out in a narrow strip from just above 1st floor sill level, suggesting a chimney breast that predates the stack at the gable apex, though no visible internal evidence supports this.

The left gable end has a deeply projecting chimney breast and an attached single-storey whitewashed rubble service extension, linked by a stone wall with gateway to the long agricultural range to the south. The 3-window south face is slate-hung above ground floor, now with inappropriate modern windows, and includes a deep lean-to porch. A south-east half-hipped outbuilding with brick chimney stack has been added to the south-east. Attached at right angles is a long rubble and corrugated-iron roofed agricultural range bordering the road. This was originally single-storey and was subsequently lofted, evidenced by a masonry break to the front and the outline of the lower gable. The main elevation of this range faces inward to the west and features voussoir arched openings. Both the north gable end and the roadside elevation are whitewashed; the byre is stepped down at the south end.

The internal plan-form has been complicated by successive alterations. The pointed-arched former main entrance on the south side survives, now seen from within a later porch. Some chamfered beams remain in the former kitchen, together with a pointed-arched fireplace. Elsewhere, Georgian alterations introduced a central staircase. Dating from this period are interesting reeded surrounds to some window openings, paralleled locally in the later 18th century; the panelled shutters have similar detailing. In the attic, evidence is coming to light of a timber beam in the north wall just above the externally visible blocked mullioned windows, which may be the wall-plate of the earlier house. Also on the north side there is internal evidence for a blocked window at 1st floor level to the west of the entrance. Coedcanlas is recorded as having early stone vaulting in the Pembrokeshire manner, though no evidence of this is currently visible. The northern part of the farmyard range, known as the Malt House, retains 17th-century stop-chamfered beams (possibly reused) and a segmental-headed doorway at the downhill end.