Rhydygwern Farm

Rhydygwern Farm is a large, two-storey house comprising an earlier 16th-century section on the left (uninhabited at the time of inspection) joined to a larger 17th-century house on the right (now the main living area), forming a long, continuous range facing the yard on the north side.

The main house has pebble-dashed, slightly angled walls, a stone tile roof, and 19th-century white-brick stacks with detached, diagonally positioned flues on the right and left sides. It has three windows across the front and features 2-light small-pane casement windows (replaced in the early 1990s within 19th-century openings). The first-floor windows are set within gablets, and an additional 3-light window has been inserted lower down on the left. A 19th-century gabled porch shelters the front door, which is on the left side of centre, and features an elliptical arched entrance with moulded detailing. The front door itself is boarded. A lower, single-window wing is set back to the right, with a lower projection positioned behind it.

The older section on the left side has mainly cement-rendered, slightly angled walls and a pantile roof. A corbelled stack on the left gable end has been cut down at the ridge. Facing the yard are boarded doors on the right and left, along with a fixed small-pane window in the centre-right and another fixed small-pane window in the upper right, which likely originated as a doorway. The left gable end of the older house features small attic lights flanking the stack and an inserted doorway lower down on the right. A short, pent-roofed link connects to the rear of the house and to a barn. The rear of the older house displays two narrow strips in the upper storey, formed by narrowing earlier windows, and two windows with brick surrounds in the lower storey. To the left of these windows is a lean-to “ty bach” (small building) and an outshut housing the stair.

The rear of the main house has a shallow, two-window outshut on the right, with 3-light and 2-light windows overlooking the floodplain of the River Rhymney. Above this is a 2-light window under a gablet. The three-window front on the left has similar 2-light windows under gablets in the upper storey. The rear doorway is offset to the right and is sheltered by a porch similar to the front porch.

The older house retains interior details characteristic of a 16th-century hall house, originally with an entrance near the main fireplace. The present first floor is lower than the original, but a single original cross beam survives, featuring a broach stop and a blank shield in relief. A turning stone stairway has a cross-slab roof, and at the top is a Tudor-headed doorway. A square-headed doorway opens to a former attic stone stair, which was cut down when the roof was lowered. At the west end are the stone jambs of a former first-floor fireplace.

The main house has 19th-century panelled shutters on the window openings, but no visible 17th-century features remain.