Pentre-Bach and attached outbuildings

This is a substantial farmhouse with an attached barn and stable range forming a complex linear group. The farmhouse originated in the late medieval or 16th century, with the barn added in a later phase of development, probably 17th century. The buildings demonstrate a remarkable sequence of domestic and agricultural construction spanning several centuries.

The Farmhouse

The farmhouse is pebbledashed with 20th-century concrete tiles that replaced original slates. Only one chimney remains: a rendered short square stack at the right end, close to where the house joins the barn. The building is of two storeys with a long range under a continuous roof and varied windows.

Roughly in the centre of the front elevation, a slight projection in the first-floor wall face may mark a lost storeyed porch. Here there is an outward-facing Tudor-arched blocked stone fireplace with an inserted window, positioned over and slightly to the right of a broad ashlar segmental-pointed doorway. The doorway is chamfered with stopped ends and fitted with a half-glazed door.

To the left of this projection stands a late medieval or 16th-century buttress with a plinth and two set-offs, now clad in 20th-century roughcast. To the right of the buttress is a fine four-light stone mullion window positioned under the eaves. It features hollow moulding with Tudor-arched lights and sunk spandrels. Below this is a large rectangular window of four lights with top lights, dating from the 20th century but perhaps replacing an earlier mullion and transom window.

Further left is another similar mullion window of two lights under the eaves with a broken hoodmould, positioned over another large rectangular window with 32-pane glazing. Further left again is a doorway with a board door fitted with strap hinges, and beyond that a casement-pair window set in a Tudor-arched stone surround. The left corner is rebated in, and the left gable end is rendered with a 20th-century first-floor window and very small ground-floor windows.

To the right of the centre projection are four similar mullioned two-light windows: one at first-floor centre right, two at ground floor left, and one at ground floor right. A large 20th-century metal window sits over the two left ground-floor windows. Iron saddle bars and stanchions remain in the two-light and four-light windows at first floor left and in one light of the two-light window at first floor right.

The rear elevation is rendered and partly whitewashed with two large chimney gables. The left gable has a raised chimney breast but the chimney has been removed. To the right is a first-floor blocked single light with a hoodmould, and a small 20th-century window further right at mid-height. The ground floor has a central Tudor-arched doorway with a recessed 20th-century door, and a 20th-century window to the right against the chimney breast. A large rendered gabled porch stands to the right of the chimney breast with a flat-headed large doorway. Within this is a segmental-arched head to a broad door with strap hinges.

The centre section has a raised chimney breast with a very tall rendered stack and an added lean-to with one window over. The second chimney gable has its chimney breast stepped back to the right, with dripcourses and a rendered stack. The windowless section at the extreme right has a first-floor hoodmould over a blocked window to the right of the chimney breast.

The Barn

The barn is slightly taller than the house with higher eaves and ridge. It is built of red brick in English bond on a rubble stone plinth, formerly whitewashed, with concrete tiles to the roofs and raised gables. The rear return to the house has a large blocked rectangular opening with a timber lintel at mid-height. The gable end has three loops one above the other, and marks of a lost ground-floor window. There is continuous brickwork to the side of the left gable of the main front, with one loop.

The main front is very long with a projecting gable to the left and a porch gable to the right of centre, but this was never an E-plan building, as the range to the right has its right end built over an earlier stone outbuilding in line. The left gable is all rubble stone (probably rebuilt) to the front and side return. It is windowless to the front; the return has a low door with an oak lintel.

The large range between the left gable and the porch projection has two large corbelled brick chimney breasts, each supported on three stone corbels. This suggests that the main rooms were positioned over an unheated ground floor. One chimney breast is in the angle to the left gable, the other towards the right. There are marks of three blocked upper windows—two between the chimneys and one to the right—all with vent loops in the blocking brickwork. The first floor probably has similar blocked windows, with vent loops visible in the left and right ones, but the centre one has been removed for a large cambered-headed barn door with a brick arch. The main roof has been removed behind the porch projection and across the whole of the right range.

The porch has a high rubble stone ground floor with a segmental-arched entrance. The first floor and second floor have inserted plain rectangular windows in blocked larger openings. The doorway has a massive broad segmental-arched stone surround with red brick voussoirs. The left and right returns are windowless.

The roofless range to the right has had the walling of the top floor removed. It has two large corbelled chimney breasts similar to those on the left range. The bay to the left of the first chimney breast has an inserted first-floor cambered-headed opening in a blocked earlier opening. Two more blocked first-floor windows sit between the chimney breasts, the right one with another similar inserted opening. The ground floor has a small window under a longer timber lintel to the left, a door to the right of the first chimney breast, a window to the left of the second chimney breast, and a door under the second chimney breast, all with timber lintels.

The Stable

To the right, the walling overlaps a lower earlier rubble stone stable range with a tin roof. This range has one 17th-century ovolo-moulded two-light mullion window, a door, and a vent loop to the front. The end gable is stepped back irregularly, indicating rebuilding, and has a loft door. The rear wall is windowless.

The rear of the barn is rubble stone and two-storey, with a gabled wing to the left. It is mostly roofless with 20th-century sliding doors in the end gable and one oak truss. The rear of the porch gable has remains of a projecting rubble stone gable. The rear of the roofed section to the right has a blocked hoodmoulded window above, a blocked wide window below, and a door with a cambered brick head in the angle to the rear of the house.

Interior of the House

The interior of the house was not available for inspection, but reports and photographs held at the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales show a four-room and cross-passage plan.

The kitchen to the right of the entry has an altered fireplace and broad chamfered beams with diagonal stops. The hall to the left of the passage has a plastered wall to the passage (with indications that it concealed a post-and-panel partition), an altered rear wall fireplace, and a ceiling with a ribbed pattern between plain-stopped beams. At the left end there is an inserted modern stair, but the floor rises here, possibly for an earlier stair.

Beyond are two service rooms: a dairy (now modernised) and a storeroom with chamfered beams and reed-moulding to the plaster between. The first floor has a similar plan. The upper end small room is reached by a modern stair, possibly on the site of an original corner stair, as the doorway from the landing is chamfered with a plain stop. There is one chamfered and stopped beam.

The adjoining chamber has a chamfered beam with diagonal stops and plaster with an octagon subdivided into a star with lozenges. A blocked Tudor-arched door on the front wall led into the former porch room. There is a narrow room over the cross passage which has a window set in the porch room fireplace. A post-and-panel partition runs through to the next room; the doorway has a shaped head.

The floor level over the hall is about three feet higher and the room has chamfered beams with plain stops. Beyond is a modern landing and two bedrooms, each with a chamfered beam and diagonal stops. Remains of a winding stair survive in the corner with a blocked single-light window.

The roof consists of 13 bays with three rows of through purlins. The trusses have notched lap-joints. Three trusses had arched braces and hollow chamfers.

Interior of the Barn

The barn has a confusing interior with much alteration. The left two trusses are carried on a beam across the opening into the left projection. The roof is longer to the rear than the front, with two purlins to the rear and one to the front, and some floor beams—two older, others replaced. The front wall has a blocked Tudor-arched fireplace to the right and another with a large stone slab lintel in the raised chimney breast to the left. There is an open fireplace with a slab lintel at the second floor left.

A spine wall parallel to and closer to the rear wall rises full-height to the right of the main entry. It is rubble to first-floor level and brick above, but the parallel back wall is rubble stone. The roofless right range has remnants of rooms. In the right door is a room with five chamfered beams with stepped curved stops. A Tudor-arched fireplace exists at first-floor level above. A rear gable has an attic fireplace with a purple stone slab lintel and a Tudor-arched stone door to the ground floor.