25754

 

II  

Designated  

19/09/2001  

27/09/2001  

Lydart Farmhouse  

 

Monmouthshire  

Mitchel Troy  

Monmouth  

Mitchel Troy  

350341  

209796  

NW  

On high ground about 1.1km SE of Mitchel Troy church, at the end of a short farm track off the NW side of the B4293. An older road, now reduced to a track, passes immediately W of the house (now the rear).  

Domestic  

 

Built in at least 3 main phases, the earliest of which was on a single-cell plan but 3-storeyed (including an undercroft), built - judging from the character of decorative plasterwork in the top storey - no later than the 2nd half of C16; the next, probably later C17, being a 2-storeyed extension to this with a wing to one side; and the last, probably dating from the late C18 or early C19, a 2-unit and 2-storeyed range built across the long side (or E front) of the C17 range.  

Alterations to windows, roofing matrial, (etc.) give this house a generally C19 appearance, belying the historical character of its complex L-shaped plan and its internal features. Built of roughcast rubble; roofs of blue slate with stone slate eaves courses, partly replaced by concrete pantiles; red brick chimneys. The last of the main building phases provides the present entrance front, a 2-storey, 3-window range facing E, almost symmetrical, with cut-down gable chimneys. In the centre are 2 doorways about 1m apart, with painted board doors and protected by a single mono-pitched slated pentice canopy. The windows are small and segmental-headed: a 4-pane fixed window to the right at ground floor, a 2-light casement to the left, and 3 similar casements at 1st floor (the third of these said to have replaced a former granary doorway accessed by external steps). At the N gable is a corbelled chimney. Flush with this gable wall, and apparently forming a rear wing, is the N side of the C16 and C17 builds, the roof of the latter being hipped at this junction. The part formed by the earlier phases is best described from the W elevation, where what was formerly the entrance front faces the old road passing through the farmyard. It has an L-shaped plan formed by 2 elements (enclosing 2 sides of a small garden), built on ground sloping down from E to W; a C16 one-unit range on an E-W axis built on the lowest part of the site, providing for an undercroft to its 2 main floors; and a late C17 2-unit, 2-storey wing at its E end projecting to the S. (The present front range backs against this.) The W gable wall of the C16 range, which here appears as a projecting wing, with gable coping and kneelers and a gable chimney, has a plain doorway to the undercroft flanked by massive footing boulders at the corners, but lacks any other openings. Its S side has one large square C19 3-light window offset right at ground floor, with horizontal glazing bars, and a C19 2-light casement offset slightly left at 1st floor, with an old stone hoodmould - the only external feature to indicate the true age of the house. The projecting 2nd bay of the C17 wing has a doorway abutting the junction, with a board door and monopitched wooden canopy; a large rectangular window to the right with modern 2-light glazing; a pair of wooden cross-windows at 1st floor; and a gable chimney. In the N elevation the external walls of these 2 elements are apparently continuous, and very irregularly fenestrated.The W half (the C16 element) has massive boulder footings, 2 narrow oblong openings to the undercroft (the left horizontal, the right vertical), a small square window above the former, and one C19 2-light casement on each main floor to the right. The E half (the N end of the C17 wing) has an oblong 3-light window and a square 2-light window at ground-floor level, and 2 small C19 2-light casements on slightly different levels above.  

The C16 element: has side walls about 86cm thick, some of the windows through these very deeply splayed. At it its NE corner spiral stone stairs, external to the stone carcase of the building, lead down to the undercroft, which has 5 stop-chamfered beams. On the floor above (the raised ground floor) an inserted partition forms a service room at the E end, which has 2 broad ceiling beams with bead moulding; the main room beyond has 2 boxed beams, and its W gable wall incorporates in the SW corner a semi-circular spiral staircase about 1m deep, with replacement wooden stairs. The 1st-floor room above, which is 6.4m long and 3.9m wide, has on each end wall a large lozenge-shaped moulded plaster pattern (now partly concealed by a recently-inserted ceiling), in the form of geometrical strapwork with fleur-de-lys terminals (very similar in style to a ceiling in the Queen's Head at Monmouth). In the room (now a bathroom) on a lower level immediately E of this room is a deep rectangular recess against the N wall, above which is a cut-away in the ceiling beam, which appears to have been a former doorway down to this level of the C17 wing. The C17 element: the S gable wall is about 120cm thick; the N end of the ground floor is a dairy; there are 4 stop-chamfered ceiling beams at 1st floor; a wooden staircase leads to an attic which has pegged collar trusses.  

Included as an interesting multi-phase vernacular farmhouse (full understanding of which would require an intensive survey); retaining traditional character and containing late C16 decorative plasterwork.