Nantclwyd y Dre

Nantclwyd y Dre (previously known as Tŷ Nantclwyd) is a Grade 1 listed house in Ruthin, Denbighshire. It is Wales's oldest dated timbered town house, and is owned by the County and open to the public as a historic house museum.

History

Carbon dating of the timbers of the house have shown that the core structure was started in 1435/1436. This dates the property to the time after the destruction wrought by the army of Welsh prince Owain Glyndŵr, and the English-sponsored rebuilding of the affected Welsh towns.

In the 15th century Ruthin was a regional centre for weaving, and the land on which the house now stands then belonged to Welsh weaver Goronwy ap Madog and his English wife Suzanna. Lying just 100 metres (330 ft) north of the entrance to Ruthin Castle and with a street frontage, the scale and location of the site shows both the importance and wealth of the owner. The earliest part of the structure shows it to be part of a 15th-century cruck framed hall house which occupied the southern part of the present street-frontage, built using timber felled in the winter of 1434-5. The position of the structure as well as the width of the inner garden to the rear, suggest that the site was originally two burgage plots which dated from when the town was laid out in the 13th century, but were then combined to allow construction of the hall house.