Coed Cefn Farmhouse

Coed Cefn Farmhouse

A long, rambling two-storey building with an L-shaped plan, formed by an original house running north to south and successive extensions to the south, with the former barn as a west wing at the south end. The building is constructed of rendered rubble painted white, with blue slate roofs at differing levels and 19th-century red brick chimneys.

During 19th-century conversion, a front door and entrance hall were built on the east side of the south end, approached by a path from the south, and the original farmhouse was relegated to a service wing. The present entrance front, however, faces towards the former farmyard on the west side.

The higher northern part of the main range has four first-floor windows and a large square ridge chimney stack offset slightly south of centre, which identifies two unequal interior bays representing the earliest elements of the building. The ground-floor openings are irregular, comprising a segmental-headed doorway offset left of centre, another doorway, three small windows to the left, and two larger casement windows to the right (of three and two lights respectively). The first floor has four casements, two on each side of the ridge chimney. Another chimney stands at the north gable. A lower two-storey, two-window range to the right has a pentice roof over the ground floor, protecting a window and the present main entrance. Two small first-floor windows and a tall ridge chimney accompany this. To the right is a full-height lean-to with a carried-down roof, linked to a similar lean-to projected from the north side of the converted barn wing. The rear (east) elevation is continuous and irregularly fenestrated with various casements, two doorways, and a tall stairwindow to the 19th-century extension.

The principal features of architectural interest lie in the two northern bays. The first bay appears to represent the original single-storey hall-house, and the second a 17th-century parlour extension. They are separated by a deep chimney stack with a connecting lobby to the west and a staircase to the east. The northern room, which had been converted into a dairy and larder and is now the kitchen, has chamfered lateral beams. The only other surviving evidence of its probable original form is a lobby in the north-east corner, now enclosed by a recently-restored stud-and-panel partition, which contains an old oak Tudor-arched inner doorway apparently representing the former gable-end lobby entry beside a chimney stack subsequently removed.

In the parlour to the south, now the dining room, the chimney stack contains a restored fireplace with stone jambs and a heavy oak lintel. To the left (west) is a massive oak doorcase leading to the lobby; to the right, a straight flight of wooden stairs. The ceiling comprises very broad boards carried on four stop-chamfered lateral beams. The first beam is positioned against the chimney-breast wall, and the second has long vacant mortices of former stud-and-panel partitioning at each end and the mortice of a former post in the centre, suggesting that a cross-passage once stood in this position before the chimney stack was inserted, with a pair of service rooms on its south side. At first-floor level, timber-framing is now exposed in the west wall: four heavy studs mounted on a rail which appears to represent the wallplate of a former single-storey wall, with the head of a wall-post visible beneath its north end.

The only other features of architectural interest are those associated with the 19th-century vicarage phase. The south end contains an entrance hall with a Victorian "Jacobethan" stair and a good chimney piece in the same style. The hall also contains ex situ genuine Jacobean panelling dated "1661 TW", brought in from Penrhos church in 1847.