Ty-mawr Farmhouse

Ty-mawr Farmhouse

This farmhouse is constructed of plastered and painted thinly coursed rubblestone, mostly pennant type limestone with red sandstone infill, visible where plaster has worn away. The roof is laid with stone tiles, recently replaced. The building comprises two sections of different build: a main block of two storeys and attic, and a kitchen wing of one-and-a-half storeys, built close in date to one another, possibly simultaneously or separately.

The entrance front of the main block is almost blind, with very small windows and largely obscured by the projecting wing which contains a lateral stack and staircase. A small casement window with dripmould lights the stairs. To the right, a pent roof shelters the porch, which contains a late 16th or early 17th century nailed plank door with moulded cranked head. The timber frame has broach stops to the jambs and stands in baffle entry position against the stack. This may have been the original front door when the lower part of the house was built first, originally positioned at right angles to its current location for end entry against the stack. Above the pent roof is a small 4+4 casement. Ridge and end stacks, both rebuilt in 19th century red brick with weathered caps, serve the main block and wing respectively. The gable ends feature only small garret windows.

The garden elevation displays two windows on each floor: small paned casements below and six over six sashes above, all under timber lintels with strainer arches above. These replace the original mullioned windows, whose outlines can be traced faintly in the walling and identified by red sandstone infill. The original windows were considerably wider, probably with four lights and recessed chamfered frames.

The kitchen wing is one-and-a-half storeys, with two small paned casements and one gabled dormer with small paned casement facing the yard. The garden elevation has two 3-light small paned casements with wooden mullions. A small rebuilt red brick chimney stack stands on the gable end.

Interior of the parlour wing: The main door opens onto a passage giving access to the staircase, a living room, an unheated service room, and the entry to the service wing. The ground floor living room contains a fireplace with oak lintel and stone jambs. The room is plastered except for the back of the oak screen, which is covered in plasterboard, and has a limeash floor. The service room unusually features an L-shaped oak post-and-panel screen. Both rooms have chamfered ceiling beams with bar and scroll stops. The staircase is a dog-leg running beside the stack, though the lower flights have been replaced in recent years. The upper floor contains two rooms, a small bathroom, and a corridor, with Victorian fireplaces in the bedrooms. The doorway into the upper floor of the kitchen wing has a shaped head and likely comes from the position at the stair head, where mortices in the ceiling beam reveal where a screen once stood. The proportions and notably high ceilings of both floors suggest this block may originally have been designed as a 'Great Chamber' in the Elizabethan manner. The stair rises to a plastered but unceiled attic. The roof structure comprises principal rafter trusses with ties and collars, two tiers of through purlins, and principals halved and pegged at the apex carrying a diagonal ridge piece. The rafters are new and the roof is felted. An upper cruck blade, apparently reused from another building, is also present.

Interior of the service wing: A corridor leads to the modern kitchen. The main room is divided into sitting room and parlour by a modern partition, with chamfered ceiling beams displaying run-out stops. The old fireplace is hidden, though the position of the fireplace stair remains evident. The upper floor has a principal rafter roof, originally reached by its own stair but now entered from the upper corridor through a doorway in poor condition. This does not necessarily indicate the two parts of the building were constructed at different times.