Ciliau is an important and well-preserved sixteenth-century H-plan stone-built hall-house. The open hall has a lateral fireplace and is set between cross-gabled stone-built storeyed wings, possibly dating from 1702, with timber-framing at first-floor level. There is a seventeenth century stairway in the hall.
In 2005, a well-preserved and extensive wallpainting of traditional 'leaf trail' type was discovered on the newly uncovered post-and-panel partition at the upper end of the hall. It is a remarkably complete and complex tripartite design with a frieze of strawberries above a central panel with freehand leaf and flower trails with occasional birds and other beasts. The dado has been lost or was represented by the bench. The dominant colours are black (the ground) with curling leaves of various shades of brown/orange with a red frieze. There are occasional white highlights. Examination suggests that the painting (restored by January 2007) predates the hall's inserted ceiling as there are traces of paint behind the ceiling's main beam and some of the joists. However the wallpainting belongs to a revamping of the hall: an earlier phase of wallpainting has been found on the wall near the stair. Further wallpaintings are concealed by plaster.
RCAHMW, 16 February 2009.

RCS2/7/262