On Castle Street, at Ruthin, in Denbighshire, Nantclwyd y Dre is the oldest timber-framed town house in Wales. Inhabited without interruption for centuries, it offers a rare testimony of Welsh urban dwelling through the whole Tudor period.
The oldest Welsh town house
Its frame goes back to around 1435, which makes it the oldest dated town house in Wales. Originally a weaver's hall, its size and its position — about a hundred metres from the entrance of Ruthin Castle — signal a rich and important owner. It was inhabited without interruption from 1435 to 1984, thus coming through the whole Welsh Renaissance under the same timber roof. This continuity makes it a living document of the evolution of urban dwelling: each generation adapted it, enlarged it, modernised it according to the needs and tastes of the time.
Superimposed layers of history
Nantclwyd y Dre knew several phases of enlargement and remodelling, from the Middle Ages to the Jacobean age — the Stuart-style pillared porch dating from the tail of our window (1485-1625). The house thus superimposes the layers of its history, legible in its frame and its gardens (laid out in three strata: medieval, seventeenth-century, nineteenth-century). It illustrates the life of the small Welsh town through the centuries, from the medieval weaver's hall to the Tudor and Stuart bourgeois house. To see: the exposed timber frame (the renders removed in the twentieth century), the Jacobean pillared porch, the gardens in three historical strata.
Did you know?
Nantclwyd y Dre still today shelters a colony of lesser horseshoe bats — tiny protected bats — nestled in its roof space. The house-museum thus cohabits with its winged guests, whose presence is taken into account in the building's conservation. A rare example of a doubly protected historic monument: for its Tudor architecture and for the fauna it shelters, the oldest town house in Wales watches over far more than its frame.
Notes
Nantclwyd y Dre lies on Castle Street, Ruthin, Denbighshire; a house-museum open to the public. Seasonal hours to check.
Quiz
- What is exceptional about Nantclwyd y Dre?
- It is the oldest timber-framed town house in Wales
- It is an artillery fort
- It is a cathedral
- For how long was it inhabited without interruption?
- From 1435 to 1984
- Only ten years
- Never
- Which protected fauna nests there?
- Bats (lesser horseshoe bats)
- Eagles
- Wolves