Llanwenarth House

Llanwenarth House is a largely 16th-century house, with later alterations and additions, situated in a group value context. The main block is tall and compact, three storeys high with a gabled, three-bay front. There are later two-storey additions to the left and rear. The original construction is of rubble, previously limewashed, with stone dressings to the windows. The roof is slate-covered, and has stone chimney stacks featuring 19th-century octagonal flues.

The east front is asymmetrical, featuring an offset, full-height porch with a gabled front that appears to have a decorative chimney. Gable ends are set back or narrower depending on their position. Originally, the house would have had bargeboards. While the large windows have a Jacobethan character, the entrance’s placement suggests earlier origins, possibly reflecting a former cross-passage plan with a hall to the right. The windows are primarily timber-framed, with three lights and small panes, and Tudor hoodmoulds are retained on the second floor, although some windows and hoodmoulds have been replaced or renewed. Relieving arches are visible above many windows. The main entrance is framed by a moulded, stopped four-centred arched doorway with half-glazed doors.

The right-hand side of the house features twin gables, the right-hand one being stepped back. A French window is located on the ground floor. A large relieving arch spans a blocked opening at first-floor level on the rear gable end of this wing, and there is a blocked attic opening. Beyond this wing are inset doveboxes on the outer side of the rear courtyard; on the inner side is a lean-to incorporating a four-centred arched doorway. The left-hand gable end of the main block has a corbelled-out lateral chimney breast. A smaller two-storey wing, with 19th-century two-light stone-mullioned windows and a modern porch, projects from the angle.

Within the rear courtyard, there is a small vaulted undercroft with a Tudor stone head and monolithic jamb on its right-hand side.

The ground floor exhibits Regency and Victorian character. The original roof structure is the principal early feature. The entrance leads into an outer hall with a Victorian Gothic inner doorway, enriched with reeded detail and quatrefoil bosses, and half-glazed doors. The main rooms, sharing similar square-headed doorcases and six-panel doors, open off a corridor aligned with the sub-medieval cross-passage. An Adamesque frieze has been introduced. A fine, broadly winding staircase, top-lit by an octagonal lantern, rises at the rear; it includes a panelled dado, S-shaped tread ends, and cast-iron newel posts and some reeded uprights. A passage leads off the base of the staircase. The 19th-century wing has a recently uncovered small 16th-century stone-framed window set into the wall, hollow-chamfered with a socket for an iron stanchion.

The roof structure is particularly noteworthy, incorporating reused 16th-century upper-cruck oak trusses, potentially from an earlier half-timbered building on the site. The main range consists of 5½ bays, while the western cross range includes 3 bays. Tie beams have been removed, but three tiers of purlins remain, and the principals and collars are chamfered with diagonal stops. There are several blocked windows and one surviving hollow-chamfered mullioned window.