Dolau Uchaf dates from the early 19th century and marked on the 1840 Llanybyther Tithe map as a freehold farm owned occupied by William Evans. The house was later extended and is first shown in its present form on the 1907 OS map. The house has been unoccupied since c1970.

The old farmhouse is a rubble-stone 2-storey building with a slate roof. The front and rear walls are limewashed, which to the front is mixed with raddle to create a pink wash.

The 3-window original part of the house has a continuous rear outshut under a catslide roof. A single-window extension of c1900 is on the right-hand side. There are brick chimneys.

Openings are under cambered heads in the lower storey, which are stone in the original part of the house, brick in the newer part, and beneath the eaves in the upper storey. The original doorway has been blocked. Windows are all margin-lit 2-pane sashes, which date from the extension of the house c1900.

The original house consisted of a kitchen and smaller parlour, separated by a boarded partition with boarded door. The kitchen has a tile floor and blocked fireplace under a wooden overmantle. There is also a dog-leg stair in the kitchen which has turned balusters and newels. The parlour has a fireplace with wooden surround. In the second kitchen in the later part of the house is a flagstone floor, a fireplace with brick surround, and a ladder stair leading to a hatch in the first floor. First-floor joists are exposed in all of the ground-floor rooms. The outshut housed the scullery, which has retained its original slate benches, and where the underside of the roof is boarded. In the upper storey the rooms are divided by boarded partitions, and the ceilings are also boarded. The room over the second kitchen retains a fireplace with wooden surround.

The house is listed as a well-preserved 19th century regional farmhouse and as part of a rare well-preserved early-19th group of farm buildings that retain strong original character, including:

A former barn and stable, converted to a cow house in the mid-20th century, which retains the original full-height wagon bay doorway (now blocked), a cow house with a 5-bay collar-beam roof which retains the original stalls of brick with wooden mangers, and an outshut which housed a calf cot.

Source: Cadw listing description, 2020.

Site Record

Dolau Uchaf, Rhydcymerau