Welsh Journals

PEN-Y-BANC, ABERARTH The pair of rubble-walled vernacular cottages with scarfed-cruck roof timbers and straw thatch known as Pen-y-banc, in the coastal village of Aberarth, was described and discussed by Mark McDermott in an earlier issue of this journal1. The property was demolished except for the south-east gable, in autumn 1983, and this afforded an opportunity to check upon some of the uncertainties mentioned in Mr. McDermott's paper; and also, quite unexpectedly, to establish with some precision the date of its original construction.2 As shown in Mr. McDermott's plan,3 each of the semi-detached cottages consisted of two rooms, separated by a blind passage leading from the front door. Each room had a single small window in the same wall as the doors, facing south-west onto the street. The larger (north- western) room of each pair was heated from a stone fireplace. Exam- ination of the stone chimneys during demolition showed that the stone- work had not been tied into the main walls; and this, together with indications of apertures for the insertion of timbers into the walls at about head-height, suggests that the cottages originally had fireplaces of timber construction, probably with daubed wattle hoods. The ex- ternal stacks of red brick had probably been added when the thatch was covered with corrugated iron about 60 or 70 years ago. These brick chimneys were clearly not present in 1903 or 191 2, the dates of two photographs in my possession, and the thatch was still exposed The speculation that a third stack, on the south-east gable, was functionless was confirmed; there were no signs of a fireplace or a chimney aperture. There was no stack on this gable in 1903 or 1912. The smoke-blackening of the roof timbers and the underside of the thatch in the south-eastern cottage, which it was thought might possibly indicate the original use of an open hearth, was caused in fact by an accidental fire some thirty years ago, when the cottage was occupied by a formidable local character known as Shami Rags, a pedlar and rag-man. The blaze was extinguished, just in time, by the Aberaeron fire brigade. Incidentally, Shami Rags kept his pony and flat cart in the small building (now roofless) attached to the south- eastern gable of the cottages. 4 This building does not appear on the published plan, but it is evidently of later construction than the cottages. Another feature not shown on Mr. McDermott's plan is that the two corners of the rear wall of the cottage building were rounded; as was the northern front comer of the similar cottage Ty'n-cwm, Llan- non, described in the same paper. Rounded corners may be seen on several of the older buildings in Aberarth, notably the corn mill (1819)