22627

 

II  

Designated  

04/11/1999  

04/11/1999  

Dolobran  

 

Gwynedd  

Mawddwy  

Machynlleth  

Dinas Mawddwy  

284392  

316237  

 

Dolobran lies on the NE side of the widening valley of the Afon Cerist, where the valley turns to run in a more southerly direction.  

Domestic  

 

Dolobran is a small but important farm of the C16-C17, associated with both farming and the woollen industry. The farmhouse appears to have begun as a small dwelling at right angles to the slope of the ground, now the N wing, replaced by a more commodious 2-room house running NW-SE, the two being joined by an added room, probably a dairy at its NE end, and with a later outshot added to the rear. The present house has a barn at right angles at the front (SW), and various smaller additions for farm animals and equipment.  

The building is constructed with polygonal masonry with the joints galetted, and gable end of the barn of small layered shale. Slate roofs. The present farmhouse is of traditional living hall and inner room plan running NW-SE, and with a gable end stack, a narrow carthouse added to the SE end, a 3-bay barn at right angles at the front, itself extended in line to the NE, and having various lean-to additions on the SW side. The house has the entrance against the gable end stack, enclosed in a C20 lean-to porch, and small metal-framed windows to the living room and former inner room, with two similar dormers lighting the attics. The barn at right angles, has renewed high barn door breaking the eaves, and two metal windows, the lower lighting the cowhouse at a lower level. Small dormer over the barn doors. On the NW side, two further lean-to cowhouses are added to the barn range, with stable doors and metal windows, a stable and storerooms, all with connected lean-to slated roofs of dramatic size, and one dormer with a cat-slide roof. The earliest dwelling, now a farm building, at the NE end of the extended barn range has a gable end stack. Further lean-to domestic extensions to the rear of the house, with end entry and small roof lights.  

A large inglenook fireplace at the SE end of the early living room, and a chamfered spine beam. The roof is of 3 bays, the two trusses are said to be of open upper cruck form, the blades elbowed. The earliest dwelling at the rear, has a wide splayed gable end fireplace with side oven. The barn attached to the S side is of 4 bays, queen-post trusses, one dated 1691, with evidence of wattle and daub partitioning, and 3 tiers of purlins.  

Included as a good vernacular farmstead group, showing an unusually tight grouping of house and farmbuildings, and demonstrating a process of piecemeal extension as the original small house on the site survives as the nucleus of a substantial farmstead.