The Lost Cottages - Buches Adda, Pant yr Ellyll, and Mediaeval Huts, Caerhun Parish

Buches Adda and Pant yr Ellyll both started out as obscure properties known only through references in various archive records; the census, tithe records, and parish records. Despite being so close to my home I had no idea that they were there.

Buches Adda was the more obscure house, and still is. I am making assumptions for the locations of these two houses from what I've gleaned from records and local knowledge, but I have no concrete proof that I'm right for either property. I do think that the two properties found are Buches Adda and Pant y Ellyll, but I can't be sure which is which. Buches Adda is marked on the tithe map right over the location of the first ruin in this post. Nevertheless, I began thinking that this house was Pant yr Ellyll, since Pant yr Ellyll is mentioned with much more frequency in the records, and the ruins are relatively substantial.

This first house is near the stream in the south, but the discovery of a second ruin near the road threw everything into question. Both houses are on roughly the same contour line, at the same height as their neighbour Pant yr Iwrch. Buches Adda appears in none of the censuses, and I've only found it once so far in the parish records, which implies it became uninhabited earlier than Pant yr Ellyll. The ruin near the stream is more intact and visible, so I assumed it had been inhabited longer. But the condition of the houses is confused when one realises that the second house, near the road, was all but obliterated by the modern erection of pylons up the hill; a pylon stands almost exactly on the site of the house. Therefore it's possible that this second house was far less ruined before the pylon was built.

Pant yr Ellyll sprang into being for me as a mystery home which cropped up twice in the censuses for Ffordd Pant yr Iwrch, and numerous times in the local parish records. I had never heard of this house on the lane before, yet it came in line in the 1841 census: Cae Tacnal, Pant yr Ellyll, Pant yr Iwrch. Nowadays Cae Tacnal (I think a modern rebuild unless something original lurks beneath) and Pant yr Iwrch are both intact and lived in, having stood empty for a while, but Pant yr Ellyll was a place I had never even heard of before, despite growing up with free run of the fields around. Compounding the confusion, the 1851 census doesn't list the houses in order, so although Pant yr Ellyll appears, it was hard to be sure of its location. It's curious that Buches Adda survives in the tithe map of 1846 and Pant yr Ellyll doesn't, even though Pant yr Ellyll was inhabited at that time. Meanwhile, Pant yr Ellyll turns up in an estate sale from 1904, despite having been uninhabited for around 50 years, and the fields here are still known by this name.

This post will continue with the assumption that the first house visited is Buches Adda, and the second is Pant yr Ellyll. This may be wrong, however.

The houses are on private land, and were visited with the permission of the farmer.

Near the end of the post are a few more dwellings, but these are much older, and nameless, being from the mediaeval period.

Buches Adda

A modern route to Buches Adda, from Cae Tacnal. The property has been abandoned long enough that no access routes are marked on the 1888-1913 map.

The property itself sits at the end of a few small enclosures, at Ordnance Survey grid reference SH 7508 7020. The enclosure walls, pictured, are much eroded and partly lost under bracken. The house itself is just to the right of the sunlit tree in the centre of the photograph.

In the 1846 tithe record the tithe of two shillings for land named Buches Adda is payable by Mary Williams. The land is arable, comprising one acre, four perches, and owned by Hugh Davies Griffiths Esq. If the census is correct, however, the house isn't inhabited at this point. Mary Williams has the same surname as those inhabiting Pant yr Ellyll in 1841, but that could be a coincidence.

A view of the front of the house, almost invisible due to the extent of its ruination. The south end is by the slim tree to the left, while the north end is marked by the larger tree to the right. On the 1888-1913 the unroofed property is shown as three cells in line, two of a similar size, and the northern cell rather smaller. On the ground only two cells could be made out with ease.

Looking south, back along the farmer's track towards the stream which runs down the hill. The 1888-1913 map shows the property set at the top of an L shaped enclosure.

The 1888-1913 map shows Buches Adda, unroofed, to the bottom left in this image, up-slope from Cae Tacnal and in its L-shaped enclosure. Even roofed it looks as if it would have been substantially smaller than its near neighbour. (Incidentally, the Cae Tacnal fulling mill is also shown here, unroofed, near the stream to the south east of Cae Tacnal.) Pant yr Ellyll is at the top left of the map in a small enclosure where the fields meet the road.

The north end of what appears to be the main room - or at least the best surviving cell. If there were a fireplace in this dwelling it seems more likely that it would have been at this end, if only because there's a lot of tumbled stone here, and less sign of a fireplace at the other end. It is possible, though, that there was no fireplace, and only a hearth which let its smoke through a thatched roof. There were no signs of slates on the ground near the building, although this isn't necessarily proof that there wasn't a slate roof. Houses would have begun to be slated when the slate quarrying industry got off the ground in the early nineteenth century, but some houses continued to be thatched.

The south-western corner of the house seems to be the best preserved, with neat stonework to a height of about four feet. There seems to be a tree growing through it, though, which will eventually destabilise this last intact corner. There's no sign of a fireplace in this southern wall.

 

Looking towards the north east corner, which has been grown through by a large tree. The front wall is to the right.

The back wall, although partly built into the hill, is very ruined at the north end, only surviving a few courses high.

Outside the north east end of the house, the wall actually looks a lot more intact here, despite the large tree on the inside. To the right of this end wall are the hard-to-see remains of another cell. It's uncertain if this is the narrow northernmost cell, or the centre cell shown on the map, which is a little smaller than the southernmost cell.

This cell is eroded almost down to the ground, but the lines of the walls can just be made out at the back and just in the picture at the far right. Near the back of the cell, in front and to the left of the three narrow tree trunks, there appears to be a small internal wall running north-south.

Beyond the north end of the house are more scattered stones. I think it's likely that the most intact cell is also the southernmost one, the more ruinous one being the centre cell, with the narrow end cell either lost or represented by this scatter of stone.

Looking back towards the house, the northern end wall of the more ruined cell can be seen just behind and to the left of the large tree in the foreground.

The neat north-eastern corner of the main cell. It looks as if there's something of a platform, a little strip of space, in front of the house, as these places often have.

Looking at the whole ruined northern cell from behind. The little interior wall can be seen just to the right and a tiny bit in front of the three tree trunks. There doesn't appear to be a doorway through into here from the main cell, so perhaps this was a single room house - perhaps with interior board partitions - with a couple of outbuildings on the end.

A slightly closer focus on that ruined internal wall.

Looking at the full main cell from behind, it can be seen that the back and front walls are very eroded in the middle, and rise up towards the ends of the building.

Looking along the length of the L shaped enclosure, towards the south and the stream.

A view of the south-west corner of the main cell from outside the house. Perhaps there's some sign of a wall coming towards the camera, southwards, from this corner, but there's no real sign of a cell here.

Back in the main cell, this gap in the front wall seems to indicate the front doorway.

Standing in front of the main cell, looking in through the main doorway.

A field's distance from Buches Adda, towards Pant yr Iwrch and the road, is an old collapsing corrugated iron building but there's no sign that there was ever anything older here.

The ground around both Buches Adda and Pant yr Ellyll is split up into quite small enclosures, with very ruined walls. These walls are closer to Pant yr Ellyll.

Pant yr Ellyll

 

The property itself sits just under a drop in the land (possibly the 'pant', or hollow, of the name), directly behind, and under, this modern pylon. The OS grid reference is SH 7506 7040.

 

Pant yr Ellyll is an intriguing name for this almost obliterated little place. It was mentioned that the name meant 'hollow of the dandelions,' but generally sources concur that 'ellyll' means some kind of spirit - a goblin or elf or ghost, or even 'a kind of demon that haunts ruins.' Other 'ellyll' word combinations give meanings including swift (the bird), foxgloves, an agent, and will-o'-the-wisp lights.

All that's left of the house is this single wall, which seems to be the back wall.

There are various references to the house in the Caerhun parish records. The earliest found is the baptism of Mary, daughter of John Prichard of Pant'r Ellill and Lowry Prob^t (probably Probert) Pugh, on April 15th 1694. The burial is recorded of Robert John Prichard of Pant'r Ellill on December 13th, 1700, possibly the father of the child mentioned above. A partially illegible Latin entry for 1713 I think mentions the baptism of a child of Robert ap Hugh of Pant yr Ellill. A marriage is recorded between Robert David of Pant'r Ellyll and Mary Jones of Rowe, on September 17th, 1744. The burial of David William of Pant yr Ellyll occurs on August 25th, 1752. Another baptism occurs on June 8th, 1763, of John, the son of Morris Roberts of Pant yr Ellyll Taylor by Jane his wife. Presumably Morris Roberts was a tailor rather than a farmer or agricultural worker. It seems that tenants of the property changed fairly often, although it's harder to discern continuity when surnames are taken from the father's Christian name.

By the nineteenth century the house is mentioned only twice in the earliest censuses, and the time of births and marriages seems to have run its course. In 1841, 65 year old Anne Williams is living there with 35 year old Hugh Williams, perhaps her son, and no occupation is listed for either. In 1851 the house is lived in by Jane Edwards, 18, the daughter of an agricultural labourer, and her two younger brothers, William, 10, and Zachariah, 8. There's no mention of their parents, although they could simply have been away on the night of the census. This, though, is the last time the house appears in the census. It's possible the place has been in decline since that date.

From under the pylon which stands on the site of the house, a track can be seen leading south towards Buches Adda.

 

Something about this remaining bit of the house - the way the wall to the right juts out but then seems to stop neatly, as if it were always that way, and the size of it - makes me feel this might have been the fireplace. If so, the fireplace was in the western wall and this is its northern corner.

 

 

 The left, south, end of the possible fireplace. If this were a fireplace, there's no sign of a bread oven, but there was a tradition of baking bread in ovens outside the house in earlier times.

 

 

A tree is completely grown into the wall to the left of the possible fireplace. It's hard to tell if this low wall to the left is part of the house, or just a wall holding back the earth of the rising hillside.

 

 

Very little of the structure stands up from the slope behind the house. 

 

 

The tarmacked Ffordd Pant yr Iwrch is only a few yards from the house. A wall leads towards the road.

 

 

Between the house and the road, this looks as if it might have been some kind of trough or spring, but it's very hard to tell. Perhaps the large stones are just random.

 

 The north side of the house is almost completely lost in bracken and brambles.

 

 

 Looking west, with a bit of surviving stone wall that may have led towards the road, and the possible trough to the right.

The same bit of wall with the bracken covered house area to the left.

The house sits in a small enclosure, with the track leading away towards Buches Adda. The fields between the two properties are somewhat larger.

Looking back to the site of the house, under the pylon, from the track. It's a shame that the place wasn't recorded before the pylon was erected. It seems likely most of the remains were scraped away by heavy machinery.

Mediaeval Hut Remains at Pant yr Iwrch

 

These remains are very hard to see, but they seem important to feature in the same article because they are part of the continuity of habitation on this part of the hillside. The earliest date I have found for Pant yr Ellyll was 1694, and this is near the start of the earliest records I can access. It's reasonable to assume that Pant yr Ellyll and similar houses may be considerably older.

 

The mediaeval period during which the Pant yr Iwrch huts were inhabited lasted from the fifth century until as late as 1500. This is a wide date range, and I don't know which part of the period these houses date from. However, it's quite possible that the people living in these mediaeval huts are the same people who then started building the more familiar cottages on the hillsides, which are, after all, only rather more sophisticated huts. The earliest cottages would have had thatched roofs and fireplaces that let their smoke out through the thatch rather than fireplaces with chimneys, which starts to sound a little more like what we might imagine a mediaeval long hut to be. This image of the Cosmeston Medieval Village reconstruction in Glamorgan shows a pleasant, homely scene, rather than muddy hovels.

 

Considering that the parish church at Caerhun dates from the thirteenth century, and Wales had a rich, well developed culture which goes back far further than this, we're not talking about savages living in piles of stones, but about people with a rich oral literature and culture living in the same land that we do now. It was all part of a slow evolution that took us to the point we're at today, with central heating, wifi, and double glazing. Our huts are just that much warmer and cleaner, but we're still the same human beings.

These remains, just across the road from Pant yr Ellyll, up in the field behind Pant yr Iwrch, are marked on the Archwilio site as mediaeval settlement remains. Very little can be seen of the remains, though, one of which sits at SH 7502 7054, around the gorse bush in this picture, in front of the wall.

The remains of what I think must be the main long hut. It's very hard to make out what might be what on the ground, but the remains of a wall can be seen crossing from left to right in the photo before turning a right angle and heading away towards the field wall.

The remains largely just look like piles of stones, but lines can be seen on the ground. The area is very overgrown, though. The Gwynedd Archaeological Trust describes the site as follows: "The main building is 30' from E to W and 15' wide, divided into two rooms by a cross wall 12' from the W end. The walls are 3' thick and up to 2' high, faced with large boulder on both sides. It is surrounded by small yards or enclosures, among which, 14 yards N of the house, is a small rectangular structure, similarly built, 16' by 12'. The remains appear to be mostly long huts of the medieval period."

 

 The back wall of the building seems to run a foot or so in front of the field wall to the west.

 

The house of Pant yr Iwrch is just visible from the remains, behind the trees on the other side of the field.

Possibly this line of stones to the east side of the hut is another part of the mediaeval site.

This may be part of another hut to the north of the first one, possibly the second mentioned on the archwilio site, but, again, it's very much lost under bracken and bramble growth. Like many of these very old sites, exploring it relies on a lot of faith and interpretation to imagine the place as an inhabited community. 

The Archwilio site mentions three sites near this location. This first one, featured, the second very slightly to the north (possibly the one in the picture above), and a mediaeval deserted rural settlement a little further to the west, but I didn't want to stray too far from the footpath to go looking for the western one, assuming it would be quite hard to make out like this one is. Nevertheless, this little cluster of settlement shows a continuity of occupation of this area of a thousand to fifteen hundred years at least. There is a wide scatter of mediaeval settlements across this area of the valley side, and the archwilio site even mentions a Roman hut circle a little further up the slope.