8680

 

II  

Designated  

22/10/1986  

31/12/2002  

Llwydiarth Saw Mill  

 

Powys  

Banwy  

 

Llwydiarth  

302098  

315472  

 

Situated in Dyfnant Forest and reached by a forest road along the valley of Afon Vyrnwy between Abertridwr and Llwydiarth. On low ground to S of Bont Canol over river, embanked mill race to rear.  

Industrial  

 

An estate sawmill on the Wynnstay Estate. It appears for the first time on the 1885 Ordnance Survey, and again about 3m lengthened on the map of 1900. There is a date of 1871 on the turbine but this has been deemed misleading. A north wing was added post-1900, but no longer survives. The building was disused as a sawmill in the early 1930s but seems to have remained for other uses during the Second World War. A Pelton wheel is said to have been used in the 1950 to drive a chaff cutter for making bracken compost. It has since deteriorated considerably. Efforts were made in the late 1980s to restore and preserve the sawmill. At this time it was noted that the frame with its sawblades was intact.  

A two-storey timber-framed mostly weather-boarded structure with slate roof, ranging east/west, but with a quasi-axe-dressed stone ground storey to the front (north) with boarded openings. About half of the front is weatherboarded, the other half clad in corrugated iron. The roof is badly decayed at the west end. Later north and south wings removed. There is a small two-light window toward the front in the east gable end. Larger opening in the west gable end, where the weatherboarding of the gable is only vestigially present. The south wall (not re-inspected in 2002) is said to consist of two storeys of stonework with timber lintels and strappings to blocked openings. A timber turbine-house at the south-east corner (now collapsed) was reported in 1986 to have its turbine by Gilbert and Gilkes (numbered 1871 and purchased 1907) still in place.  

Not inspected at time of resurvey, but said to retain an industrial-style king-post roof and fine timber floor (propped) with massive longitudinal timbers flanking the saw-pit. Fine timber-frame to rare vertical frame saw still in place. Drive shafts from turbine house and pulley mechanism for frame-saw on lower floor.  

An unusually complete example of a C19 timber-framed and weatherboarded estate sawmill believed to retain most of its machinery.