The following Report was obtained from CADW by Angela Benger Oct 2009:

Authority Neath Port Talbot Record No 14147

Community Baglan Locality Bwlch Road Grid Ref 276024 192543

Grade II DateListed 08/12/1986 Date Amended 31/01/2000

Name Blaen Baglan Street No, Name Bwlch Road

Location
Approximately 0.8km NE of Baglan church and reached by track to the rear of farmyard buildings at right-angled
bend on Bwlch Road.

History
Blaen Baglan is first mentioned in 1566 when it was occupied by William ap Jenkin, but the present house is based
upon its rebuilding c1600 by his grandson William Williams. This new house had a sub-medieval plan form
comprising a hall with parlour and a porch, and a staircase projection built around the laterally placed hall stack.
A rear wing housing a kitchen was built soon after, as was an additional unit at the lower end of the hall. The
house remained in the Williams family for most of the C17, followed by a period of uncertain ownership before it
was acquired by the Jersey Estate by 1841. During the period of Jersey ownership the fenestration was altered by
introducing more fashionable sash windows. The house became a tenant farm, although a local Baptist minister
lived there for a period. The house is now unoccupied and derelict.

Exterior
A 2-storey house with a long main range and wing behind, forming an L-shaped plan, with porch at the L end, a
lower projection against the L gable end and a single-storey projection set in the angle between the rear of the
main range and the rear wing. The walls are roughcast. The roof is slate, although mostly missing from the rear
slope of the main range and missing from the rear wing, the roof of which has partially collapsed. The main range
has C19 stone end stacks and a ridge stack R of centre, while the rear wing retains a single ridge stack. The front
is 4-window with segmental heads and now boarded up although traces of former sashes and brick dressings can still
be seen. The windows, inserted in the C19, are grouped in pairs, corresponding to the internal division of hall and
parlour. The porch is 2 storeys plus attic. It has a Tudor arched doorway under a hood and is surmounted by a
blank frame probably intended for a coat of arms. The upper storey has an inserted segmental-headed window
with a brick surround. The attic has a blocked flat-headed Tudor window in a moulded surround with hood mould
and was formerly of 2 lights. The R side wall of the porch also has a sash window at ground-floor level.

In the R gable end of the main range is a blocked 2-light mullioned first-floor window with 4-centred heads and a
hood mould, but set at a lower level than the other openings and probably belonging to William ap Jenkin's mid
C16 house. The gable line of this original house can be seen below the present gable which was heightened c1600.
On the R side of this later gable is a small blocked C19 attic window. Behind the main range is a single-storey
lean-to, added in the C19 to create a passage between the kitchen and parlour. In the upper storey is a doorway on
the L side reached by external steps. The rear wing is obscured by vegetation.

To the L of the porch the lower gabled projection is of a single bay with blocked, probably originally sash,
windows and a stone end gable stack. Behind this projection, the kitchen has a C19 dairy lean-to, above which is a
small blocked stair light to the main range.

Interior
Inaccessible at the time of inspection, but described by RCAHM Wales as follows: The original plan form remains
discernible and comprises a hall with parlour in the main range, and kitchen with lean-to C19 dairy in the rear
wing. Many original doorways are blocked and were replaced by new doorways inserted in the C19, at the same
time as partitions were introduced to sub-divide existing rooms and the hall screen was removed. The hall has
cross beams with broad chamfered stops and a fireplace in the rear lateral wall with details altered in the C19. The
parlour fireplace is blocked but retains original jambs. The kitchen has broad chamfered beams similar to the hall.
The upper storey has the same original partitions as the lower storey but was sub-divided into smaller rooms in
the C19. The room above the parlour was adapted as a granary with external steps at the rear of the house. The
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rooms above the hall and kitchen have broad chamfered beams with filleted stops. Attic rooms are open to the
roof, the attic in the rear wing having an external doorway in the gable end. The roof trusses of the main range
and rear wing have curved-foot principals and lap-jointed collars. The purlins are repositioned, indicating the
replacement of the roof and explaining the C19 stacks and the absence of attic windows.


Listed
Listed, notwithstanding its present condition, for its architectural interest as a substantial sub-medieval Glamorgan
house.

Reference
Newman, John, The Buildings of Wales, Glamorgan, 1995, p 143;
RCAHM Wales, An Inventory of Ancient Monuments in Glamorgan, Vol 4 part 1: The Greater Houses, 1981, pp
209-14.