Cwmgwili

Cwmgwili is a 2-storey country house with attic and basement, graded II*. It comprises a 5-bay main range with a single-storey porch set into its right gable end, a cross wing at the left gable end that incorporates the original house with rooms set at a different level, and a 2-storey service wing behind at the downhill end.

The walls are rendered and painted. The roof is slate with crested ridge tiles and 19th-century brick stacks, set on moulded and bracketed eaves. The main range has thin sill bands and 2-pane sash windows in original openings, with 3 gabled dormers containing 6-pane sash windows. The basement has 2 small windows. The porch at the right end is constructed of rendered brick with a half-hipped lean-to roof. It contains a panelled door (replacing a half-lit door shown in a photograph from 1871) beneath a hood mould. The cross wing has a single bay brought forward, housing a 19th-century service stair, with renewed small-pane horned sash windows. Further left, where the roof line is lower, are 2 bays with 6-pane horned sash windows, larger in the lower storey, and basement windows.

The right side elevation of the porch has 3 hooded windows with late 19th-century margin-lit sashes. The rear elevation, facing a steep bank, is near symmetrical, with a projecting square stair tower in the centre. This tower has diagonal buttresses and stone banding. In the lower storey is a half-lit panelled door with a Venetian window to the lower landing and a Diocletian window to the upper landing. To the left of the stairs is a 5-bay arcade of round arches with a thick impost band, incorporating 2 round-headed sash windows lighting a corridor running from the porch to the principal rooms. To the right of the stairs is a similar blind arcade of 5 bays. On both sides the walls have been heightened in brick above the arcades, retaining an original stone band on the left side, with inserted windows and brick castellations.

The rear of the cross wing faces a service yard on the north side of the house and is dominated by a large projecting stepped stack with a 12-pane sash window to the upper left. Further left is the 2-window gable end of the main range, where windows are not placed consistently in line. At basement level is a fielded panel door beneath a gabled canopy, flanked by 2-pane sashes. Above are 2-pane sash windows in the lower storey and 12-pane sashes in the upper storey.

The lower service wing also faces the yard. It has 4 boarded doors in the lower storey, of which the left-hand door has a gabled canopy and the centre-right door has an added attached window. In the upper storey are two 16-pane sash windows. In the right gable end is an archway beneath a raised walkway leading to a ty bach attached to the upper storey. The rear wall of the service wing has 3 windows in the lower storey, 2 of which have flat brick arches, a 16-pane horned sash window to the upper left, and a 4-pane sash window to the upper right.

The principal rooms are reached by a corridor along the rear elevation. Most rooms have fluted pilasters and plastered spine and cross beams with plastered panels. Walls have painted wooden panels and windows have wooden shutters. In the main range, the 2-bay end room has niches flanking the fireplace. The 3-bay room next to it has Ionic pilasters flanking the fireplace. The full-height open-well stair is in late 17th-century style but is probably early 19th-century with much renewal. It has square moulded newels and twisted balusters.