Gwenlais-uchaf

Gwenlais-uchaf is a farmhouse, dating from the 18th century, built of rubble stone, originally whitewashed, and now with an asbestos sheet roof, which was originally thatched. It has stone end stacks, with the left-hand stack being larger and rebuilt in the late 20th century. The front of the house has three small windows beneath the eaves, which are offset to the right. The windows were formerly small-pane single casements, but have been altered, with a square window to the left incorporating small panes, a C20 single-pane window to the right, and a narrower central light, possibly inserted later, aligned slightly to the left of the doorway. The ground floor now has much-enlarged C20 windows with late 20th century plastic glazing on each side of a very large, whitewashed, gabled porch with a cambered oak lintel over the entry and a slate roof, containing a C20 glazed plastic door. The right-hand corner has been partly rebuilt in the late 20th century, featuring a windowless end wall. The rear of the house has a four-pane stair light to the first floor centre, and a C19 single-storey dairy was added to the right. A later C20 flat-roofed addition sits in the angle between the dairy and the cowshed, with a whitewashed rendered gable above the cowshed roof.

An attached cowshed runs downhill from the left-hand end wall, built of whitewashed rubble with a slate roof. It features one door to the yard with an iron lintel and brick sides, and vent loops with triangular dripstones in the end wall. A ground-floor window was inserted in the former door position, with a timber lintel, and another door with brick sides and a timber lintel was added to the right. A roofless lean-to extends from the rear, with a canted wall forming an angle with the front wall of the house, containing a blocked door.

The farmhouse has a two-room plan with a passage between. The lower end hall fireplace is largely infilled, with one beam above it, three narrow chamfered beams, and a wider beam before the hall partition which was rebuilt slightly further up in the 20th century. The original partition consisted of planks, some of which were reused for the under-stair door. Square joists span from the beam over the hall to the beam on the parlour partition. The parlour has two similar narrow chamfered beams and a third over the fireplace, which was rebuilt in the 20th century. A recess is located to the left of the parlour fireplace. The hall contains relatively broad stairs with a right-angle turn to a landing which has two short lengths of low wooden balusters, flat balusters with a scribed moulding. The collar trusses are ceiled at collar level and are said to have been cut off above.