A Welsh Longhouse: Nannerth-ganol
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Features of Nannerth-ganol The cutaway drawing above shows the main features of the house. Nannerth-ganol was a substantial stone-built range with thick walls and an intercommunicating house and cowhouse that could be secured from the inside. The house is cruck-framed and these great arcing timbers, still smoke-blackened in places, belong to the first building phase. Later a fireplace was inserted against the cruck. The unusually tall and slender chimney expressed the pride of the owner of Nannerth-ganol in his new, heated house. Dendrochronology has established that the timber used for the cruck-trusses was felled in the mid-16th century: building work was well under way in spring 1556, and the fireplace was probably built towards the end of the 16th century. Historical context: Long-houses & cattle rustling This homestead was not a poor man's house. The builder of Nannerth-ganol could probably have afforded to build a house of a different type if he had wanted to. The longhouse needs to be understood in terms of its historical context, but who built it and when was it built? Documents show that Nannerth-ganol was held on a long lease by Bedo (or Maredudd) ap Steven, whose sons were indicted in 1557 at the Radnorshire great sessions on three separate counts of cattle stealing: Thomas as principal and Edward as accessory. They failed to answer the charges and were outlawed. Both must have ‘fled to the woods’ and were only able to return when a general pardon was declared at the beginning of Elizabeth's reign. Nannerth-ganol was still a newly-built house when Thomas and Edward returned to plead their pardons and to be bailed for their future good behaviour. It is extraordinary that these accusations of cattle theft should have coincided so closely with the construction of Nannerth-ganol. Cattle theft was a risky but obvious short cut to capital accumulation and it may be, of course, that it helped to finance the large, professionally-built house-and-byre homestead. The capacious and secure cowhouse of a longhouse might be used not only to safeguard cattle but also to conceal them. The exact circumstances at Nannerth-ganol are not recoverable but it is clear that the longhouse has to be understood in part in relation to a pastoral economy in which cattle rustling was common. Longhouses were the products of particular historical circumstances. They offered additional security for over-wintered stock in areas prone to livestock theft. Indictments for cattle theft actually increase during the second half of the sixteenth century, reaching a peak at the beginning of the seventeenth. The house-and-byre homestead may be understood as a prudent response to these conditions. Story contributed by: RCAHMW.