1. Remains of 13th-14th Century house. 30 ft. long, 15 ft. wide. Adjacent oval enclosure 24 yds. by 18 yds.
2. A rectangular structure, c.9.0m E-W by 4.5m, with an oval enclosure, c.22m E-W by 16.5m, adjoining on the E, set above steep E-facing slopes.
(source Os495card; SH22NW20)
Associated with:
Field system (Nprn308043).
J.Wiles 06.03.03
3. A small rectangular house platform walled to the east and north, with an accompanying enclosure to the east. The Western Wall of the house appears to have been subsequently built upon to from part of the field boundary to the west. Possible entrances were noted on the northern wall and into the enclosure to the east.
The enclosure is sub-rectangular with a particularly high bank where it curves to the north, probably as a result of following natural contours. A large orthostat marks an entrance to the south beyond which the eastern all of the enclosure continues as a fairly substantial stony lynchet for up to 100m, terminating at a massive boulder. A trackway runs alongside this wall to the east.
Platform house sites such as this generally date to the early medieval period and represent farms and houses which were not perpetuated by subsequent habitation of the site. The factors behind their abandonment can be many and varied but the concentration of sites within the boundaries of the Plas yn Rhiw estate suggests that changes in land management following the forming of the estate, perhaps shortly after the English conquest by AD 1284, were responsible here (Griffith 1985)
John Latham RCAHMW 24 July 2018
Source: National Trust Report: Sean Taylor. 2000. Plas yn Rhiw - The National Trust Archaeological Survey.