Pibwr Lwyd Farmhouse

Pibwr Lwyd Farmhouse

A large house of 2½ storeys in an L-shaped plan with a single-storey workshop wing to the southwest. The walls are built of roughcast rubble stone with sash windows and replaced slate roofs and roughcast stacks.

The entrance elevation faces southwest and contains two windows with openings to the centre and left-hand side only. To the right of centre stands an external lateral stack, partly obscured by a 19th-century single-storey wing. The central entrance has a replaced panelled door beneath an original round-headed radial overlight, with a 9-pane sash window above it. On the left side are recessed tripartite sash windows set beneath blind elliptical arches. The wing to the right of centre, known as the College workshop extension, is a 4-window structure with replaced segmental-headed 2-light windows, a boarded door at its right end, and a 2-window gable end.

The right (southeast) gable end of the main house features a large external stack offset to the right side. To its left is a blocked late medieval pointed doorway, above which is a fragment of a corbel table, possibly for a first-floor stack. The upper storey contains a 16-pane sash window, with a 9-pane sash window in the attic. The left (northwest) gable end also has an external stack, with a pointed small-pane sash window with Gothic glazing in the upper storey and a 9-pane sash window in the attic.

Continuous with the left gable end is the 2-storey rear wing, nearly square in plan with a hipped roof. The northwest side has tripartite sash windows set in elliptical-headed recesses. The rear (northeast) elevation has a pointed small-pane sash window in the upper right with Gothic glazing bars. Facing the rear of the main house, the southeast side of the wing has an inserted boarded door to the left and a 12-pane sash window to the right, while the upper storey has two 9-pane sash windows. The rear of the main range has a central tall pointed stair light with small-pane Gothic glazing. To its left is an inserted boarded door and a 12-pane sash window; the upper storey contains a 24-pane sash window.

Interior

The interior retains an early 19th-century plan, fittings and decoration from this period. The entrance hall has a moulded ceiling cornice with red wash to the walls beneath which are traces of grey-blue leaf patterns. The room on the left side (dining room) has elliptical niches flanking a replaced fireplace. The dog-leg stair features a spiral newel, stick balusters and turned newels at the landings. The first-floor landing retains bold floral stencilling and evidence at the base of the top stair wall of a scheme of black letter text arranged in a border. Evidence of an earlier stair survives in a modern cupboard.

The first floor retains early 19th-century 6-panel doors and doorways. Rooms feature moulded ceiling cornices and some dado rails. The room to the north has a wide elliptical niche with panelled pilasters and walls painted with a cornice band of leaves and dots and a filling of leaf patterns. The smaller room at the stair landing (later bathroom) is painted in a formal leaf pattern. The room to the southeast shows evidence of painting beneath later finishes with a running scroll as a cornice. The end room (above the medieval doorway) has formal leaf patterning visible below later finishes. The rear wing is accessed from the stair via a corridor, divided off at its end with a doorway to a single room. The main room in the rear wing has a leaf scroll skirting band with a filling of leaf scrolls.

The upper storey and attic retain painted plaster walls, mainly of stencilled foliage patterns, with 4-panel raised and fielded doors of probable 18th-century date. In the attic the ceiling has been removed, revealing roof trusses which are reused and of an early (possibly 17th-century) date.

The attic space is divided into rooms by plaster partitions with 4-panel raised and fielded 18th-century doors. Substantial painted decoration survives, particularly in the room to the southeast which is entirely painted with a leaf pattern with a border of black oak-leaf scrollwork around the doorway, along the skirting and at the former ceiling level. Some traces of painting survive in the next room with traces of a formal border of 4-petal flowers in black, possibly on a red background with yellow filling possibly with black patterning. The closet at the stair head is completely painted with a classical border in black around the door frames, outlining the truss-foot and following the ceiling and skirting. The filling is of red stars. The next room has traces of black patterns under a yellow wash with 1910 graffiti. The end room retains an early 19th-century fireplace surround, and the 6-panel door features green floral tendrils with black shading and a black border at skirting level. In this room there was (in 1994) a fragment of wallpaper of similar design on the window lintel. A deep cupboard with panelled doors shows the stages of painting, with one wall painted only in green with the thickening of the paint at the edges of the stencil clearly visible, while the back wall has the black shading of the second stencil added.