The original house at Hafotty was built of wood.[1] This house is recorded as "Bodiordderch" ("the house of Iordderch"), and has also been called 'Bodarddar'.[2][3] Anthony Emery dates this wooden house to the second quarter of the 14th century.[4] Its original owner was Thomas Norres from Lancashire.[2] In 1535 the house was in the possession of Henry Norris, Constable of Beaumaris Castle.[a][6] By the 16th century, Hafotty had passed to the Bulkeleys, another prominent North Wales family,[b] and had acquired its present name, meaning summer house, or summer dairy.[1]Cadw records extensions to the house in the 16th century, and its re-casing in stone in the 17th.[6] By the 20th century, Hafotty was in a state of some dereliction,[10] but was restored in the 1970s and again in the early 21st century.[5] The house remains in the possession of the Bulkeleys, although under the care of Cadw, and is occasionally open to the public.[2][11]
Architecture and description
The Gwynedd Pevsner considers Hafotty "one of Anglesey's classic small medieval houses".[5]Peter Smith, in his Houses of the Welsh Countryside, categorises it as a three-unit hall house and notes that, despite its "relatively modest" size, it was still a "house of status".[12] Built to an H-plan, and constructed of rubblemasonry, it is of two-storeys.[6] Dendrochronology from tree rings dates the beams in the extension to between 1509 and 1553.[2] The interior contains some notable medieval fittings, including fireplaces and window surrounds.[5] The fireplace has a Tudor arch and the inscription in Latin: Si deus nobiscum, quis contra nos ('If God is with us, who can be against us') which is a Bulkeley family motto. The arch also has carvings of the heads of a Saracen and a bull, another Bulkeley family motif.[2] Hafotty is a Grade I listed building[6] and a scheduled monument.[13]
Footnotes
↑ Although Cadw record the house as still being in the possession of Henry Norris in 1535, Pevsner suggests that it had passed to the Bulkeleys by 1511.[5]
↑ The Bulkeleys are commemorated on the island by the Bulkeley Monument, on the Beaumaris to Llanddona road,[7] and by the Bulkeley Hotel[8] and Bulkeley Terrace, both in the town of Beaumaris.[9]
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