Plas Newydd, Cefnmeiriadog, is a fine Elizabethan storeyed gentry house; built in 1583 for Ffoulk ap Robert (1540-1607) and his wife Grace Holland and twice dated. Apart from the replacement of the former wooden newel stair with a shaped-balustered staircase in the third-quarter of the 17th century, the reduction of one chimney and the relocation of an important post-and-panel screen to the Welsh Folk Museum at St Fagans, the house remains (in plan-form and external appearence) largely unaltered. It represents a particularly stylish and sophisticated version of the vernacular storied end-chimney, cross-passage house-type, most popularly adopted during this period by the North Walian gentry caste.

In addition to the end chimneys, the house has an additional lateral chimney serving the hall and upper parlour or solar above, a feature typical of the earlier of this class of houses. The most curious (and seemingly unparallelled) aspect of the design is that the kitchen bay is raised up by about a metre, with a cellar below and with the corresponding first-floor chamber similarly stepped-up. It seems that this elevation of floor-levels at the service end was probably necessitated by the inclusion of a rock-cut cellar which would otherwise have had minimal head-room rendering it impracticable. The kitchen has its own external entrance, accessed via a raised, stepped platform to the L of the main cross-passage entrance. However, despite its vernacular character, the inclusion of large stone mullioned and transomed windows to the main rooms and two generous gabled dormers to the attic floor (one dated) suggest an emulation of more polite domestic architecture beyond the ambition of most houses of this date and context. An early 19th century single-storey service range runs parallel with the main house and is connected to it by a low modern link block.

Reference: Cadw listed buildings database.