23321

 

II  

Designated  

25/05/2000  

25/05/2000  

Esgair Weddan  

 

Gwynedd  

Pennal  

Machynlleth  

Pennal  

269029  

300586  

 

The farmhouse lies approximately 500m N of Cwrt, and is reached by a farm road off the main A493 300m W of Pennal.  

Domestic  

 

Esgair Weddan is the successor to Plas yn Rofft, a major house that lay a little further to the N. The present building was built by Robert Price, who held the Talgarth estate and who died in 1702, and was buried in the earlier church of St Alkmund, Shrewsbury. It passed to his daughter Mary, d.1770s. The present front appears to date from a remodelling carried out to estate farms by the Edwards family of the Talgarth Estate in the late C18 or early C19. The house was extended to the E later in the C19.  

The house, with its in-line service range, is built of coarse-grained hard local stone laid on bed, with a slate roof. Two storeys. with a cellar and attic. The main block is of 3 window bays, approximately symmetrical, with a central 4-fielded panelled door, with a 3-paned overlight. To the right, a 16-paned sash window set back in the reveal, with a deep timber lintel over, but the window to the left of the door has been replaced in the original opening. Three similar 16-pane sash windows to the first floor, all with timber lintels. The three casement attic windows are immediately over the first floor lintels and directly under the eaves. Gable stack. Attic windows either side of the gable stack. The house has been extended to the right by a wide bay forming an in-line service range, with a separate door and windows on two floors, and a gable end stack. At the rear, the house platform is cut into the hillside, and the roof carried down over a continuous service outshut behind the original building.  

The house consists of 3 bays, with the fourth in the extension containing the kitchen. Central wide hallway with a fine late C17-early C18 oak dog-leg stair rising to the first floor. Simple oak handrail with board splat balusters. The living room, to the right of the hall, has a large stone fireplace, the fire lintel probably renewed. The dining room, at the W end beyond the hall, has a C19 fireplace. On the first floor the landing is defined by full height oak post and panel partitions. The stair continues to the attic without diminuition of detail. The attics are in largely their original condition, divided by four collar beam trusses supporting two tiers of splay-scarfed purlins. Torched lathing. The outshut to the rear is set at a lower level. Two rooms in line with the original access door to the dining room and the main access to the kitchen. A well remains in one corner.  

Included as a minor gentry farmhouse with good C17-C18 interior detail, reworked by the Talgarth Estate in the early C19, but retaining original detail both externally and internally.