Our #VirtualVisit for #WaybackWednesday is Bryndraenog, Radnorshire. As part of Introducing Houses of the Welsh Countryside we created this reconstruction animation to explore the history and development of this timber-framed house. @VArchGroup @cadwwales

Underneath the modern carpets and above the plaster ceilings of Bryndraenog lies the evidence that this farmhouse started life as a medieval hall of lordship status.

Tree rings reveal that the house was built from timber felled in 1436, and an inscription that records the gallery that runs around the hall at first-floor level was inserted exactly two centuries later, in 1636.

The hall was probably built by the rhingyll, or reeve responsible for administration in the lordship of Maelienydd.

An early poem by Ieuan ap Hywel Swrdwal of Newtown in praise of Llywelyn Fychan ab Ieuan of Bryndraenog is testament to the former strength of the Welsh language in this now Anglicised area, and he describes the house as “a proud maiden of lime and timber”.

The house at the time followed a U-shaped plan formed from a three-bay hall with outer wings at each end. These would have contained a parlour, privy and first-floor solar at the upper end, and kitchen and service-rooms at the lower end.

Adding to the architectural symbols of status is the exceptional storeyed porch, which contained a first-floor room of significance, possibly a chapel or oratory.

There has been rebuilding, alteration and extension of the wings since that first phase, and today the decorative roof with its cusped windbraces and trefoiled ogee tracery is hidden in the loft space.

But the windows and subdivided wings do not detract from the overall significance of Bryndraenog as one of the best-preserved medieval homes in Wales.

Discover our archive images here: https://coflein.gov.uk/en/site/81056/images/