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THE LESSER COUNTRY HOUSES OF CARDIGANSHIRE (continued) 3. PENYBONT, TREGARON A WRITER in The Cambrian Register for 1796 says that there are no mansions of note in this parish'. He was referring to the parish of Tregaron. One of the smaller country houses did exist, however, and still remains in its original condition to this day. This is Penybont, now a substantial farmhouse, situated about a mile to the north-west of Tregaron Station and visible to passengers on the slow-moving trains which ply between Carmarthen and Aberystwyth. Penybont, a farm of 240 acres in the possession of Mr. Lewis, is built on a slight rise almost on the southernmost edge of the famous bog of Tregaron. The land is well cultivated and the western portions are watered by the river Teifi. The house, still in good condition, was built in the first half of the seventeenth century, probably on the site of an earlier building. Before 1650 it was called Camer Uchaf. Penybont, the front of which has been 4 rough cast' in recent times, is three-storied and contains sixteen rooms. The ground floor consists of two large square rooms flanking a narrow entrance hall and a very large kitchen, one wall of which is entirely taken up by a huge built-in dresser. This dresser, which I think dates from the early nineteenth century, is reputed to be the largest of its type in Cardiganshire. The first floor contains a number of large-sized bedrooms, with good attics of the same size above. The staircase, though broader than most of those found in Welsh farm houses, lacks character and is unworthy of the rest of the house. There is a big cellar which has never been seen by the present owners. The farm buildings are all substantial and well built and about seventy years ago there was said to be also on the farm a woollen mill driven by water power. The Reverend D. C. Rees in his Tregaron, Historical and Antiquarian, published in 1936, mentions a tradition that a distinguished person named Einion, who took part in the Crusades, lived at Penybont. Leaving aside these shadowy legends, we know, however, that one Edward Herbert was living here between 1654 and 1682. These Herberts were a younger branch of the Herberts of Hafod. Edward died in February 1682 and another member of the same family, John Herbert, also died at Penybont in 1695. Somewhere about this time Penybont passed into the ownership of the family of Llanfair Clydogau.