Llangenny House

The area around Crickhowell is one of the richest in Wales for seventeenth century architecture. Tŷ Llangenny is no exception having been built early in the 1600s. A recent renovation has revealed the original features.

This charming house oozes vernacular detail – it has a beautiful stone tile roof, local stone, and new oak windows. All it needs now is a coat of limewash!

It probably started life as a farmhouse, but by the early seventeenth century it was remodelled as a minor manor by the Rumsey family. It is essentially a hall with two rooms off, with a wonderful stair tower to the rear, and an extension to the back in the eighteenth century.

If you look carefully in the porch you can see how the old cruck blades have been re-used as lintels – so they probably came from the house that stood here before 1600.

There are notches for a bread cage in the ceiling in front of the main fire. Up there the food would be safe from rats.

Farms and cottages from this period, and in this area, would have had staircases that curled above the inglenook. As this house was high status it had its own stair tower. Notice how the steps start in stone and end in oak as we go up through the building. There is even a privy in the stair tower.