The Old Swan is a former historic public house at the centre of

Rhayader Rhayader (; cy, Rhaeadr Gwy; ) is a market town and community in Powys, Wales, within the historic county of Radnorshire. The town is from the source of the River Wye on Plynlimon, the highest point of the Cambrian Mountains, and is located ...

Powys Powys (; ) is a county and preserved county in Wales. It is named after the Kingdom of Powys which was a Welsh successor state, petty kingdom and principality that emerged during the Middle Ages following the end of Roman rule in Britain. Geog ...

, Wales. The buildings are timber framed and while there is a datestone of 1683, it is very probable that it is late 16th century, if not earlier. The buildings still have their original roof of stone flags and distinctive leaning stone chimney stacks. The buildings were listed Grade II in 1995.

History and architecture

The Old Swan, stands on the corner of West and South Streets Rhayader. The original building was mentioned in 1676 as being one of the two inns in Rhayader at that date. Some changes were made in 1683, including the rebuilding of the three chimney stacks, and this date is carved into the old timbers inside the building. During the 1860s the Old Swan stopped trading as an inn, and it was used in later years as a hardware shop, a saddlers, a butcher's shop, and other businesses. Part of it was used as a Tourist Information Office for a time, and the section of the building on the corner is used as a teashop. The earliest depiction of the Old Swan is an engraving of 1815 by the artist

Paul Sandby Munn Paul Sandby Munn, (1773 – 1845) was an English water-colour painter. Life Paul Sanby Munn, born at Thornton Row, Greenwich, on 8 February 1773, was son of James Munn, carriage decorator and landscape-painter, and Charlotte Mills, his ...

. The engraving shows a porch that has been jettied forward at first floor level with a sign showing a swan. The building on the left, which appears to be a stable and clearly shows the

Flagstone Flagstone (flag) is a generic flat stone, sometimes cut in regular rectangular or square shape and usually used for paving slabs or walkways, patios, flooring, fences and roofing. It may be used for memorials, headstones, facades and other c ...

covered roof. The engraving shows the three stone chimney stacks on the west side of the porch roof, but as to-day they are on the east side, this must be a mistake by the artist. The open porch has now been replaced by a shop window. On the east side there is

gable A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aest ...

and to-day there is a wooden

bracket A bracket is either of two tall fore- or back-facing punctuation marks commonly used to isolate a segment of text or data from its surroundings. Typically deployed in symmetric pairs, an individual bracket may be identified as a 'left' or 'r ...

showing the head of a woman with a ‘‘horned’’, late

Medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

headress set into the gable.Scourfield R and Haslam R,( 2013) 407-8

Literature

* Brooksby, H. (1972) ‘’Houses of Radnorshire, Part 5," in Transactions of the Radnorshire Society pp 41–43. * Scourfield R and Haslam R,( 2013) ''Buildings of Wales: Powys; Montgomeryshire, Radnorshire and Breconshire'', 2nd edition, Yale University Press * Peter Smith, ''Houses of the Welsh Countryside'', Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales, 2nd edition, 1988. * Suggett R and Stevenson G., ''Introducing Houses of the Welsh Countryside'', Y Lolfa, 2010.

Old Swan Gallery

External links

*Powys Digital History Project : Rhayade

{{Commons category, Old Swan, Rhayader Houses in Powys Radnorshire Grade II listed buildings in Powys Timber-framed houses in Wales Timber-framed buildings in Wales Vernacular architecture Rhayader