CAERNARVONSHIRE (formally CARMARTHENSHIRE)

CONWY, Aberconwy House (SH 7819 7762)

Felling dates: Winter 1417/18, Winter 1418/19, Spring 1420

Joists (5/6) 1419 (14¼C), 1418 (8C, 18C), 1417 (15C, 10C); Main jetty joist/transverse beam 1418 (13C); Axial beam 1417 (15C); Transverse beams 1418 (14C2), 1403 (17); Jetty brackets 1597 (H/S), 1377 (H/S); Principal posts 14062 (h/s). Site Masters 1227-1419 ABRCONWY (t=7.4 TYMAWR1; 6.9 WALES97; 6.9 OLDBRFA1; 5.9 PLASMAWR)

Aberconwy House is a prominently sited storeyed house within the walled town of Conwy. The house is visually striking with a tension-braced timber-framed upper storey jettied over a stone-built lower storey and basement. Numerous closely-spaced curved jetty-brackets support each joist and rest on corbels. The jettied floor arrangement is particularly interesting in that the central axial beam acts simple as a support underneath the jetty joists which span the whole width of the building, and that this beam is supported at the stone gable end by a similar timber bracket on a stone corbel, whilst the other end is tenoned into a principal jetty timber which sweeps down to receive the axial beam. The plan of Aberconwy House is distinctively urban. A street-level basement, probably for trading or storage, was set below a first-floor hall and outer room with further chambers above the hall in the jettied upper storey. There is no trace of smoke-blackening in the roof and the principal rooms were apparently heated from the outset by lateral fireplaces. However, intriguingly, the timbers of the undercroft are soot-encrusted, possibly from an open fire or brazier.

Estimates of the age of Aberconwy House have varied considerably. It has long been considered a fourteenth-century site although RCAHMW advanced a cautious early sixteenth-century date in the Caernarvonshire Inventory. Several building phases have also been proposed, however sampling has clearly shown that the different storeys are coeveal with closely-related felling dates of 1417-20 obtained from the principal timbers. This house is not only the earliest securely dated townhouse in Wales but also the earliest identified secular domestic building in Wales.

Plan & description: RCAHMW, Caernarvonshire Inventory, vol. I, pp. 64-6. The dating was jointly commissioned by RCAHMW and Edward Holland for The National Trust.

(Miles and Worthington 2001, VA 32, list 121)

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LLANDEILO, Aberglasney House (SN 581 221)

(a) Rear service range Felling dates: After 1531, after 1545, after 1567 (probably c. 1600)

Principal rafters (5/6) 1520; 1534; 1556; 1566; 1567. Site Masters 1429-1556 abg1345 (t=5.9 MILKST1; 5.9 PLASMWR1; 5.7 WHITEHLL); 1477-1567 abg112 (t=5.0 OLDIMPTN2; 4.8 BREMRDGE; 4.8 ASTNEYRE3)

(b) Hall ceiling Felling date range: 1712-1742

Joist 1708 (7). Site Master 1639-1708 abg7 (t=7.6 MC19; 7.0 MASTERAL; 6.3 SALOP95)

(c) Main range roof reconstruction Felling dates: Spring 1770 and Spring 1771

Tiebeams 1769 (16¼C); 1770 (12¼C, 14¼C, 17¼C, 19¼C2). Site Master 1689-1770 ABRGLSNY (t=7.8 EXCATH2; 7.6 MDM17b; 5.2 PENIARTH)

Several building phases in Aberglasney House have been identified and dated through dendrochronology. This is a multi-period country-house with gatehouse of circa 1600 and important garden features including a yew avenue or tunnel and vaulted wall-walk. Dendro-dating was commissioned by RCAHMW to establish a chronology for the house and garden features. Ex situ timbers from the demolished roof to the rear range were sampled, and five were found to have originated from two individual trees. Although none retained a heartwood/sapwood transition, the clustering of termini post quem or felled after dates between 1567 and 1578 suggests a building period towards the end of the sixteenth century or the early part of the seventeenth century, and likely to coincide with the assumed acquisition of Aberglasney between 1594 and 1614 by Bishop Anthony Rudd of St Davids, who probably reconstructed the house.

Samples from the main roof trusses over the front range dated to 1771; the king-post trusses are eccentrically designed to allow for a high front cornice. Below this remains evidence for an earlier roof level, probably relating to the second floor level over the two-storey hall from which a double-tenoned joist end produced a date range of 1712-1742. Other ranges were assessed for dendrochronology, but none contained timbers suitable for dating.

A yew tunnel, reputed to be 1000 years old, was found to be more likely to have been planted around the middle of the eighteenth century at the earliest. The work on the yews and other living trees from the house gardens was undertaken by Dr Martin Bridge of the Institute of Archaeology, University College London. Further information can be found in: Miles, D H, and Bridge, M C, 1999, ‘The tree-ring dating of building timbers, the yew tunnel, and other trees at Aberglasney House and Gardens, Llandeilo, Carmarthenshire’ unpublished report for RCAHMW deposited in the National Monuments Record for Wales; in Briggs, C S, 1999 ‘Aberglasney: the theory, history and archaeology of a post-medieval landscape’ in Post-Medieval Archaeology 33, 242-84; and in Blockley, K, and Halfpenny, I, 2002 Aberglasney House and Gardens: Archaeology, history and architecture, BAR 334.

(Miles and Worthington 1999, VA 30, list 103)

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