Llwyn-celyn Farmhouse

Llwyn-celyn Farmhouse

This Grade I listed building is constructed of red sandstone rubble with stone tile roofs, though the attached outhouse has corrugated metal sheeting. The walls retain some remains of render and painting. The complex comprises a hall block with a solar block set at right angles to its left, two rear wings forming a small courtyard, and a detached outhouse joined to the solar block by a small infill structure that may have been a kitchen or dower house. The hall block extends to a granary, pig-pen and privy.

The hall block is built on a large battered plinth at the right-hand gable. The entrance features a central doorway to the screens-passage which runs behind the stack, with windows on either side. To the left the building is one-and-a-half storeys where a floor has been inserted into the hall; to the right it is a full two storeys, representing what was always a storeyed end. The windows are small-paned metal casements, some of which are Llanthony Estate windows and some modern. The left-hand upper window is set in a half dormer with a sloping roof. A rough porch with hood covers the door in its chamfered frame. A central ridge stack is present, with an added red brick one on the front slope to the right. The gable end has a small casement under an oak lintel at each floor. To the left of the upper window is a projecting stone water spout. The rear elevation of the hall shows a 6 + 6 metal casement under an oak lintel on the ground floor with a similar window in a gabled dormer above. To the left is the plank rear door to the screens-passage and a small projecting wing with a granary accessed by steps. The end gable of this wing is attached to a pig pen and privy.

The solar wing stands at right angles to the hall with a window on each floor—metal-framed casements facing into the front court. The gable end to the left has a blocked ground-floor window. The rear elevation has paired casements with a central mullion and two stacks added on either side. The opposite gable has a window under an oak lintel in the attic. The infill structure has a plain door in an otherwise blind wall; its rear elevation is also blind, with a clear straight joint separating it from the outhouse. The outhouse has a gable end to the courtyard with a 7-light unglazed window with oak diamond mullions on the ground floor and another above (now part-glazed with a 2 + 2 casement, only two mullions remaining). A plain doorway stands to the right. This building may have been a detached kitchen or dower house, though no surviving chimney supports either use.

Interior

The front door enters the cross-passage, which represents the medieval hall's screens-passage. The hall to the left (accessed through a plank door) was originally open to the roof but received a floor and chimney stack in the 17th century. It now contains a 1930s fireplace and chamfered ceiling beams with bar-and-runout stops. The bench for the high table remains attached to the dais partition.

The parlour wing survives with a parlour on the ground floor to the front, featuring an ogee-headed doorway and an inserted 17th-century ceiling (the insertion clearly recognisable by brackets in the wall supporting the lateral beams). Both beams and joists are chamfered with bar-and-runout stops. The cellar below also has a main ceiling beam with runout stops. The rear service room has a particularly low inserted ceiling. The original double doors to the service rooms at the lower end survive partially in the cross-passage, with one door having a remarkable double ogee head and relief decoration in the spandrels. The present lower end room is the kitchen, a 17th-century conversion from the two original service rooms (which were always ceiled) with closely set chamfered beams.

The staircase has early 18th-century turned balusters and rises behind the inserted stack. The upper floor of the hall reveals it to have been roofed with smoke-blackened arched braced collar beam trusses with windbraces. The arch braces have hollow chamfers and bar stops. One is an aisle truss, the only one so far known in Monmouthshire. The roof is of three bays, with a fourth bay over the screens-passage. The stack is inserted in the third bay, leaving the fourth as a dead area where the smoke-blackened roof remains clearly visible. The aisle truss is immediately behind the inserted stack. The roof over the parlour wing is reported by the RCAHMW to be similar but was not seen at resurvey in May 1997. The roof over the lower end has principal rafters with trenched purlins. This room contains a timber-framed partition with a blocked central doorway over the screens-passage partition.

The interior of the dower house/outside kitchen was not available for inspection, though it could be seen to have a principal rafter roof with collars.