Penarth Fawr - reconstruction drawing

Description

Reconstruction view showing the interior of Penarth Fawr, Llanarmon as published in Houses of the Welsh Countryside.
Penarth Fawr incorporates a late medieval hall, dated by dendrochronology to about 1476 and built by one Madog ap Howel ap Madog. Extensive additions and alterations were made in the late sixteenth-seventeenth century, including the long two storey eastern wing. Further alterations were made in the eighteenth and nineteenth century, when the northern part of the hall was removed. The hall has stone rubble walls on a boulder foundation. The greater part of the original roof survives. It appears to have had four bays with a passage and service bay at the southern end. The original west passage door and the adjacent window in the service bay survive, as does the remarkable spere truss marking the north side of the passage. The hall has been truncated on the north, although there are traces of a dias screen at this end. The large window and fireplace are seventeenth century, as is the south gable wall and the cellar below the service bay. The walls of the eastern range are of stone rubble under a slate gabled roof punctuated by chimney stacks. There was formerly a massive projecting chimney stack. The range may incorporate some earlier fabric, possibly that of the original kitchen.