Wern-ddu Farmhouse

Wern-ddu Farmhouse

This is a substantial house of two storeys and garret, rendered and painted over rubble stone, with a roof of concrete interlocking tiles on the front and Welsh slates on the rear (originally covered entirely in stone slate when first listed). The building comprises a main range with two-storey lean-to extensions behind, separated by a three-storey stair tower projecting from the main range.

The entrance elevation has five bays. The left-hand four bays probably date from the early 17th century, while the fifth bay on the right was added in the early 19th century. The early 17th-century arrangement suggests the house was originally a three-room plan with a cross passage leading through to the stair tower. The first room on the left was the parlour, the second the hall (distinguished by a larger window), and beyond the cross passage lay a service room. The hall and the great room above it have a lateral stack on the rear wall, while the end rooms have external stacks which may have been added in the late 17th century. All front windows are 6 over 6 sashes except for the hall window, which is 8 over 8. The entrance is a panelled door with a rectangular overlight divided in three by slim mullions. The roof is steeply pitched with red brick ridge stacks at either end of the original house; the right-hand stack is now encased within the building by the hipped end bay added in the early 19th century.

The left gable end features an external stack with offset and a single-storey extension containing a door and tall red brick stack. A 3-light window with elliptical head lights the ground floor, and a smaller window with three shaped heads sits in the garret. The right gable end is half-hipped and has tripartite sash windows on each floor: 8 over 8 sashes with 2 over 2 sidelights on the lower floors, and 4 over 8 with 2 over 2 sidelights on the top floor.

The rear elevation is complex. The rear outshuts were probably added or heightened in the late 17th century, though the stair tower is likely early 17th century. From the left, the rear of the early 19th-century added bay is blank except for a small window. The next bay projects in line with the stair tower and has two small 2-light casements on the ground floor with a larger one above, all under a lean-to roof. A small 2-light dormer with sloping roof and slated cheeks rises above this in the main roof slope. A large cemented stack stands outside the rear wall of the main range, topped with red brick and a moulded cap. The next bay is taller and gabled, containing the staircase, with a late 17th-century 2-light window with mullion and two transoms, each pane further divided into four. Above this in the gable is a 2-light small-paned casement. The gable ridge rises to a small higher gable where the staircase enters the attic. The fourth bay is wider and serves as the kitchen with a large end stack, a part-glazed door, and 2-light casements on each floor. The upper floor obscures a window in the rear wall of the main range which survives inside the bedroom.

Interior

At a resurvey in June 1997, not all rooms were accessible. The 17th-century hall, now the sitting room, lies to the left of the entrance hall and features transverse ceiling beams with ovolo mouldings and bar-and-lambs'-tongue stops. The inner room to the left contains a fine compartmented ceiling measuring 5 by 3 with roll-moulded ribs. The panels are unplastered and appear never to have been; they are instead filled with the smoothed undersides of oak floorboards from above. The kitchen has a fairly recent ceiling and was previously open to the roof. The room above the compartmented ceiling, probably once part of the great room, retains a 4-light oak ovolo-mullioned window in the rear wall, which was originally in the outside wall of the main range and is now covered by the rear addition.

The open-well staircase is of high quality and dates from around 1675. It has a moulded open string with plastered soffit, heavy square newel posts with moulded caps and pendants, a heavy moulded rail, and fretted splat balusters. The staircase rises only to the first floor; the attic stair has been subsequently altered. A good oak door stands at the top of the stairs. A recess below the late 17th-century stair window preserves an earlier 17th-century window, demonstrating that the stair tower is original to the house and that the staircase has been replaced. The attic floor was not inspected but is said to have a principal rafter roof as would be expected.