81070

 

II  

Designated  

30/11/1966  

23/05/2003  

Bark mill at Argoed  

 

Gwynedd  

Llanfair  

 

Llanfair  

258040  

328420  

 

In a rural location, set above and well back from the NE side of the A496 to SSE of Llanfair. The mill is to the NE of the farmhouse and the most northeasterly of the farm buildings at Argoed.  

Agriculture and Subsistence  

 

Late C18 or early C19 tannery which provided employment for several men in the village of Llanfair. The bark mill was driven by a water wheel manufactured in Aberystwyth. John Griffith seems to have taken over the tannery at Argoed after John Richard Pugh''''''''s death in 1837, and was a yearly tenant of the ''Tanhouse Bark Mill Tapits and Tanning premises at Argoed''. He appears to have sold his interest in the tannery to William Pugh in 1852 (for £320) in order to repay part of a debt of £500. The tannery had ceased to operated by 1867 and later the mill machinery was used to churn the butter in the farmhouse. The slate-lined tan pits were still in place until after the Second World War but have since been filled in.  

Small rural bark mill and tannery building comprising single storey range aligned roughly N-S with small range set at a lower level to front (SE) corner to form an L-shaped plan. Built of roughly coursed rubble masonry with large stones as quoins and lintels; roof of small slates with stone copings to the gables of the main range. The principal elevations face the farmyard and farmhouse to the E and there is central doorway in the N-S range and a further doorway offset to the N end of the E gable of the lower range. There is a single window opening in the rear (W) wall of the N-S range (unglazed).  

The interior of the bark mill could not be inspected at the time of the survey, but the article in the Journal of the Merioneth Historical and Record Society, 1990-93, records that the mill wheel is still in situ (as reported by the current owner).  

Included as an excellent example of a small rural bark mill which retains a strong vernacular character. Forms an integral component of the complete farmstead group at Argoed.