Cae'rwigau Uchaf

Cae'rwigau Uchaf is a grade II listed building comprising a two-storey house built primarily of exposed local rubble stone with a steeply pitched slate roof, originally thatched. The building has a gabled form with a four-window range and a lobby entrance positioned at the western end. The fenestration includes one original stairlight opening to the ground floor and three modern casement windows on the ground floor, with four casement windows above. The first-floor windows break the eaves line with modern gables and barge-boards. Three stacks of coursed rubble masonry are present: one in the gable and two axial to the wall. A modern two-storey range has been added to the rear. Bays three and, to a lesser degree, bay four exhibit externally battered walls, which indicates an early date of construction.

The building began as a late-Medieval single-cell dwelling of one and a half storeys but has been substantially modified and extended over subsequent centuries. The interior comprises three cells, each originally heated by a fireplace on the western wall, accessed via a doorway to the western end of the central cell.

The easternmost cell retains the main surviving Medieval fireplace, which is characteristically shallow and originally featured a stone bressumer (now lost). A small beehive stone oven is built into the north jamb. To the north of the fireplace, a small niche in the north wall still contains a seventeenth-century framed cupboard in situ. A stone stair originally rose above the fireplace entry on the southern side, built within an outshut on the south wall with a lateral entry and a crossed-slab roof; part of this roof structure remains at first-floor level along with the upper treads and first-floor doorway. The eastern cell appears substantially late-Medieval in date, though extended eastwards in the sixteenth century, evidenced by the north wall terminating in a straight joint that is battered at the base. In the south wall, a lateral stone doorway with unchamfered jambs is now blocked, and a small window has been inserted; the west jamb of the hall window survives. At the upper end of the hall, an inner room was constructed, though the gable wall with bold internal batter appears to have been rebuilt. In the south side of the internal wall, evidence exists of a doorway of uncertain date that was later blocked, with a small splayed light inserted in its place. Two small niches flank the former doorway in the gable. The roof truss over this upper unit is centrally placed over the hall and inner room, and is of Medieval date. The truss features a lightly cambered collar morticed into the principal rafters. The principal rafters are angled at the foot and rise from a wall plate inside the wall for approximately one metre. The principal rafters are morticed at the apex and support two trenched purlins on each side with a ridge beam. The purlins have been removed, with some re-used in raising the roof.

To the east of the Medieval hall, a narrow kitchen was formed in the late seventeenth century by insertion of a large cross wall with fireplace beneath a stepped chimney. The fireplace retains a chamfered bressumer and oven inside the north jamb, fitted with a clay liner. A later large brick oven has been built into the north of the fireplace, cutting into the back of the existing oven. The first floor over the kitchen cell was originally accessed via the early stone stair, but a later straight-flight timber stair has been inserted in the kitchen. The roof over this cell is supported on two flat purlins either side with rough rafters designed for thatch.

The western cell is probably a parlour, constructed around 1800. The entire west gable wall and south wall, including the lobby entry to the kitchen unit, date from this period. The west gable wall contains a small fireplace with a low timber bressumer and a narrow winding stone stair rising from the north-west corner to the roof.