Ciloerwynt / Cilewent Farm

Ciloerwynt was a Welsh long house, originally located in the Claerwen Valley and relocated to St Fagans in 1959. A long house was a building where people and animals lived under the same roof. The original timber walls were replaced by stone when the house was enlarged in 1734. The cattle and horses were kept in stalls on the left and the family lived on the right. Both animals and people entered through the same door into a central passageway. A servant slept in the hay loft above the animals.

The large fireplace was important for cooking and heating. The last inhabitants, in the 1950s, often kept their coats on inside the house during winter. The single living room was also a kitchen and work room. Rush lights, made of reeds dipped in fat, provided light in the evenings. The family diet was based on oats and milk, and they turned milk into cheese and butter in the large dairy at the back.

Ciloerwynt was just upstream of the proposed Ciloerwynt Dam and would have been submerged under Ciloerwynt Reservoir, but Ciloerwynt Dam was never built. A new bungalow was built near the site of Ciloerwynt House.

Map Ref: SN882 630