Ynys Hafod

Ynys Hafod, Min Yr Afon & Henllys

An integrated L-shaped range comprising three separate dwellings. Built of stone rubble with mostly roughly dressed stone dressings, painted to the side. The building features a steep pitched slate roof with swept overhanging boarded eaves, sprocketed to the rear, tall rendered corniced ridge stacks with decorative pots, and four gabled full dormers. The main range comprises seven windows of 12-pane sashes (two lower windows at left have no glazing bars), with painted lintels and sills. The dormers have 9-pane sashes.

Ynys Hafod occupies the four left bays and the central doorway, which sits on the right of the present house. This doorway features a Tudor arch flanked by gargoyle-type grotesques. Some windows with coloured glass are blind, fronting chimney stacks behind. The rear elevation presents a completely different style, rendered and painted, with a central Venetian window with separating pilasters and small balcony, flanked by 12-pane sashes. The ground floor has a central semi-circular porch with slender Corinthian columns and entablature with wreathed frieze, with a recessed glazed door and overlight. What may have been a more open verandah was enclosed around 1900 with long sashes having multi-pane upper and plain lower lights. To the left is a narrow hipped roof slightly projecting staircase wing with similar sash windows and a segmental arched ground floor doorway. A deep projecting cross wing to the left has sprocketed eaves and a cornice across the gable end. The first floor side elevation has a two-window range of similar sashes. The gable end displays what appears to be an original 17th-century cross-framed mullion and transom window with leaded quarry glazing. Small wrought-iron balconies adorn two upper floor windows.

Min Yr Afon comprises the three right bays. A large gap between the two inner bays reflects the interior arrangement, where the staircase unusually rises against that wall as a result of interior reordering. At the far right is a doorway, now unused. The two right openings sit under partially blocked arches relating to earlier openings. The present entrance is to the side: a small gabled hood over a round-arched doorway with recessed boarded door and fanlight. The top floor has two 12-pane sashes in reveals. The ground floor has three cambered-arched brick-headed windows, one of which is a small-pane casement. One bay of the main building's rear elevation projects with a 16-pane first floor sash window, 12-pane window below, with very narrow glazing bars.

Henllys comprises the end bay of the cross wing with a first floor casement window, a front single-storey wing with part-hipped roof and rounded end adjacent to Min Yr Afon's front door, and a lower wing to the side with a doorway with multi-pane overlight.

The interior of Ynys Hafod contains mainly single-width rooms, with the late 19th-century staircase rising from the rear hall. The rooms feature shutters, cornices, and 6-panelled doors with fluted surrounds. The former kitchen or pantry has ceiling hooks. Upstairs, a passage has been created during remodelling to provide separate access to bedrooms. Gothick-glazed display cupboards appear on each floor, with intersecting glazing bars upstairs and polygonal form downstairs. Painted panelling in the cross wing may be 17th-century in origin.

The interior of Min Yr Afon has a hall on the axis of the cross wing, which joins the main building at a chamfered stone Tudor arch—clearly an original exterior entrance, as holes for bars remain behind. The inserted Georgian staircase rises behind, separating the drawing and dining rooms, which have 6-panelled doors and shutters. First floor bedrooms feature plain marble fireplaces and panelling. The attic in the roof apex reveals thick purlins and trusses. A landing has a small casement now opening onto the Ynys Hafod interior. There is a cellar.