As the name suggests, this was originally a Ty Neuadd or hall house; a housing type common in medieval Wales. These were invariably built around a high ceilinged, single storey hall with open rafters and an open hearth for both cooking and heating. The hall usually had a pen uchaf or higher end, where the family would sit on a bench to eat their meals (hence the modern term for ‘the high table’ at a banquet).

Like all houses that date back five centuries Neuadd Cynhinfa has been modified, but most of the changes were undertaken in the sixteenth and seventeeth centuries, hence today it remains a wonderfully preserved example of a small gentry home. Most hall houses were modified by having internal floors and chimneys installed, and Neuadd Cynhinfa is no different, with the great ‘simne fawr’ being fitted around 1550.

Renovation works have been undertaken by Nerys and Emyr Wyn Jones over the past decade. "Our first thoughts were to pull it down and start from scratch," admits Emyr, "but once we started to take down the modern wall coverings and found the oak structure we knew that we had something very special here."

Oak framed houses like Neuadd Cynhinfa were prefabricated by the pensaer (literally the ‘chief carpenter’, but a word that has survived into modern Welsh as ‘architect’) and were then re-erected wherever the owner wanted them to be constructed. Being held together by oak pegs, timber framed house were easily moved from location to location.