Cwrt Bleddyn

Cwrt Bleddyn

This house comprises a 17th-century core with 19th and late 20th-century additions. The entire structure is rendered and painted, presumably over local rubblestone, though the circa 1880 wing may be brick and the circa 1988 wing is probably concrete block. All roofs are Welsh slate.

The 17th-century block forms a rectangular, single-depth building of two storeys with an attic, featuring a projecting stair wing and a kitchen wing on the left. The front elevation is symmetrical with three bays and a central entrance set within a two-storey gabled porch. The porch contains an arched doorway with a keystone and plank door, topped by a three-light mullioned lattice window with a dripmould. Small windows light both storeys in the porch returns. A sunk tablet above the door is dated 1807 and inscribed "DUW A DIGON" (God and Plenty), apparently the motto of the Nicholl family, possibly commemorating a marriage between the Nicholl and Bond families that year. The porch is flanked by four-light windows with transoms; above these are three-light windows with transoms, and two-light windows in the attic. All feature ovolo-moulded mullions and dripmoulds (the attic lights lacking drips) and date to the 19th century. Eaves gable dormers with wavy bargeboards and pendants are present, as is a gable porch with matching bargeboards and pendants. Return walls contain further windows on each floor: the left return has two two-light windows with transoms on the ground floor, one on the first floor, and a two-light window in the attic; the right return has single windows on each floor. The kitchen wing has a door and window on the ground floor, with single windows above on the first and attic floors, all with transoms. The steeply pitched roof carries four large two-flued stacks with diamond-set shafts positioned at the kitchen wing end, the left gable, the cross passage centre, and the rear right wall.

Attached at right angles to the kitchen wing is a circa 1880 wing of two storeys and three bays. It features large four-light windows with transoms below (serving the Oak Room) and three three-light casements without transoms or dripmoulds in a large eaves gable above. Two two-flued stacks with diamond-set shafts are positioned on the left gable and off-centre. Behind this are further wings including a hotel entrance dating from circa 1988. Attached to the right rear of the main range are extensive single-storey leisure facilities also dating from circa 1988.

The 17th-century block contains a basic two-room plan with a third room in the rear wing. The entrance opens into a cross passage leading to a rear stair turret; however, all of the cross passage except the doorway to the right-hand room has been removed. The staircase, which winds around a solid core, has been considerably altered. The main beams are hollow-chamfered with pyramid stops. Fireplaces are plain, with oak lintels in the lesser rooms and stone in the more important ones. The principal rafter roof to the main range contains three trusses in the Catherine Parr Room and one in Room 34. At least one tie exhibits interesting joggled joints. The roof structure shows clear signs of 19th-century alteration. The circa 1800 block contains the Oak Room, which features panelling and a buffet and overmantel in an elaborate continental renaissance style. The remainder of the interiors have been considerably altered and rearranged.