14559

 

II  

Designated  

20/07/1994  

30/07/1997  

Tyle-coch  

 

Bridgend  

Garw Valley  

 

Bettws  

289052  

187552  

 

Approximately 1.5 km NW of Bettws and 2 km SE of Llangynwyd, down a short farm track off an old country lane linking a number of early farmsteads.  

Domestic  

 

Late C16 house with detailing suggesting gentry status but also some earlier C17 modifications. Tyle Coch was the home of Hywel ap Gwilym who married into a Welsh gentry family. Some alteration to windows C20.  

Two-storey and attic, stone-built and slate-roofed house of L-shaped plan formed of a main range and a parlour wing. The rubble elevations have flaking limewash. Long 3-window front to south which formerly had a storeyed porch and although many of the old openings are retained there are modern windows and broken Tudor hoodmoulds; blocked windows to left of the entrance and to right end; replaced brick ridge stack; off-centre 4-centred arch dressed-stone doorway with hour-glass stops. Three-window right hand wing includes the gable end of the front range which has 3-light casement windows to ground and first floors and a 2-light mullioned window to the attic with hoodmould; square-headed doorway that is now the main entrance. To right is a small first floor window with hollow-chamfered surround, a 2-light casement with voussoirs on ground floor and a modern window in a blocked door to right. Later barn to right is joined to the house at the north-east corner. At the rear, at the junction of the parlour wing and the main range, the masonry is curiously cut back below the central chimney; one rear window on each floor to parlour wing. The back of the main range has lean-to with corrugated iron roof; doorway at right end. West gable end, now reinforced with breeze blocks, has loft door.  

The plan form is of lobby entry although the present entrance is now to E onto a passage created at the junction between main range and parlour wing. Ground floor beamed ceilings with chamfered joists are mostly concealed and the dressed stone fireplaces blocked or altered; deep window splays. At end of passage is a broad winding pillar stairs, lit at base by a splayed window. On the first floor the room over the former kitchen to W is stepped up while a corridor gives access to rooms over hall and parlour. Main room is that over parlour and has the most elborate detail with 4 chamfered and stopped beams; pegged and collared roof trusses of 3 bays to each part. Doorways have dressed stone pointed arched doorways with fine hour-glass stops; these are a regional feature and not uncommon, but it is unusual to have 3 in one building. Kitchen at N end has a separate external access and retains its fine sub-medieval ceiling with both diagonal and round stopped beams, with former partition for pantry.  

Listed for its special interest as a sub-medieval building that retains the unusually fine interior detailing of a Glamorganshire gentry house.