This site has an early history, once regarded as the site of a medieval castle, and has a strong tradition that it was a high-status house of the Welsh Princes in the medieval period, first noted c1400 (ref. Cambria archaeology).
Castell Malgwyn lands were purchased by the Penygored Ironworks in 1771, and then by Sir Benjamin Hammet in 1791.
By 1795 Hammet had built a mansion house away from the homestead, close by the ironworks and river Teifi, naming it Castell Malgwyn NPRN21729, the site of the present hotel .
Hammet built the Model Farm and adjacent Kitchen Gardens NPRN21730, near to the old homestead site shortly after 1795, perhaps by the time a new road was opened in 1800. The building plans are much as shown on the 1820 sale particulars map. A farmhouse (not recorded), much modernised externally, survives to the south of the present Model Farm buildings.

The Model Farm buildings, although in poor condition, survive to a large extent and are presently used for fattening cattle. There are also a number of modern large concrete buildings adjacent for housing cattle.
The Model Farm is built around a north-south track with arched entrances at each end running between `L' shape barn/stable and cow-house/stable to north, and a pair of curved open shelter-sheds to south.
The north entrance archway has a very fine rusticated ashlar arch with keystone, imposts, pilasters and plain mouldings to cornice of frieze. The arched south entrance has the appearance of a castle gatehouse, with room over and end chimneys.
A later cattle yard with surrounding shelter-sheds was added adjoining the cow-house at the north-east, probably after 1842 (see OS first edition map of 1889). These buildings are not shown on the 1842 tithe map. A further probable cattle-shed range added at the same time, shown to the north-west on this map, has been demolished.
Other alterations include part demolition of the curved cattle-sheds, which formerly joined on to the stables, to provide an east-west track. A later circular building close to the barn was probably an engine-house, and is shown on the OS map of 1899, built after 1842, but now demolished.
Recorded, Geoff Ward & Daniel Jones, 21/08/2007