A long-house by addition, probably of 17th century origin.

Additional:
Tyncoed, Hafod Bridge, Cynwyl Gaeo, Carmarthenshire. NPRN 17883.

Tyncoed is a classic Carmarthenshire longhouse of the type first described by Cyril Fox and, more recently, by Peter Smith: an intercommunicating house and cowhouse range with a pronounced downslope siting. The siting may suggest a medieval origin but the developed three-unit plan of the house and the architectural detail (scarfed crucks; reed mouldings) generally indicates a seventeenth-/eighteenth-century building date. A straight joint between the ranges indicates a history of alternate rebuilding above and below the central chimney stack.
Few houses of this type survive now. Tyncoed is listed grade II and was included in the Pevsner for Carmarthenshire and Ceredigion (2006, p. 175) but has not been recorded. Since listing, the house has become derelict but plans for restoration are in progress. Increasing dereliction has clarified the building phases:

Phase I. c.1700 or earlier. A longhouse (house and cowhouse in range) with a marked downslope siting, with the upper end built on the living rock. Near the upper end of the house a spring emerges into a stone-lined well that gently overflows alongside the range. The cowhouse has been rebuilt but the original doorway into the house from the cowhouse survives, though blocked recently. The house originally had three units: hall/kitchen ? central service-rooms ? inner room. The hall is distinguished by edge- or reed-moulded joists and by a framed partition of post-and-panel type with a mid-rail and reed-moulded posts (moulded on both sides). The baying is defined by moderately chamfered (two-inch) beams with angled stops. The hall has two bays with service-room(s) beyond. The original plan is not entirely clear but a central passage between central service-rooms seems to have led from the hall to the inner room; there are two mortices for a doorway or posts under the parlour beam. The hall has a large fireplace flanked by doorways into the cowhouse (left) and to a stone stair (right). Windows on the west side have been blocked. The three trusses are scarfed crucks with the best faces set towards the fireplace. The crucks each have a lapped yoke and lapped collar. The crucks are soffit pegged at ceiling level and the posts descent to ground level.

Phase II. Mid C19th. In the mid C19th (pre-brick) the cowhouse was rebuilt on a narrower width than the house. According to the list description, the trusses incorporated scarfed crucks, possibly from the earlier cowhouse. A calf pen has been added on the east side. The house was modernized with the construction of a stair passage in the service bay between hall and parlour. The upper gable end may have been reconstructed at this period - the fireplace lintels and windows have stone voussoirs in contrast to the timber lintels elsewhere. The house acquired a conventional central entry plan with parlour at the entry but the doorway to cowhouse was retained. The house in this phase was thatched. Sections of the neat wattle woven between ash staves still survive. Latterly the thatch was covered with corrugated iron. Evidence for an earlier parlour chimney may survive in the roof.

Painting: small fragments of brownish paper painted with blue/black brush strokes of uncertain design survive on the hall partition. These might date from c. 1800.

Historical note: Tyncoed was a farm of [] acres, part of the [] estate in 184[] tithe schedule. It is probably the Tyncoed noted in the 1896 Welsh Land Commission, Minutes of Evidence, Volume II, p. 1031.

Visited 3rd July 2019 with Martin Davies and Nathan Goss. Sampled for tree-ring dating/isotopic dating with Ross Cook, Oxford Dendro. Lab., Sept. 2019.
Richard Suggett/RCAHMW/04 Nov. 2019