1. Ca 1800, stone-built 2 1/2 storey + basement, house with central stair-entry double-pile end-chimney plan. Earlier part with stone barrel-vaults to basement. Internal wall paintings and external stucco architraves to openings & transom casement windows.
GAW, visited 17/05/2000.

2. 45, Swansea Road is a c.1800, stone-built, slate-roofed, 2 1/2 storey, plus basement, end-chimney house with central stair-entry, double-pile end-chimney plan. It is prominently sited alongside the old Merthyr Road, now Swansea Road, close to the bridge and opposite the present Glancynon Inn. The part with stone barrel-vaults to the north & floored over the basement to the west forms an L- shape plan with cat-slide roof to the south-west projection and may be a slightly earlier build. The present spine wall appears to contain blocked window openings at ground and first-floor, indicating the south block was added. However all of the roof-trusses are similar and both lofts are reached by similar spiral stone stairs. A number of rooms in both parts retain areas of attractive wall-paintings. External stucco architrave details to openings and transom casement windows of the front facade, indicate a building of superior status in what was a poor area of Hirwaun.
The building appears on the 1841 tithe map, which also shows a considerable amount of smaller buildings to the rear (as does the OS 1st edition 1877 25" map), removed during later slum clearances. The also indicates a large number of small terraced buildings in nearby streets later cleared as slums. The house is unusual in containing four spacious rooms to the ground and basement floors, each with a bread oven and fireplace. It must therefore have been in multiple occupation, either as an inn, or as superior tenements. The fine decoration of the wall-paintings and the front facade indicates that it was certainly a building of some status and quality in an area latterly cleared of poor slum dwellings.
(Source: GA Ward, 17 May 2000, NMR Site Files)
Ian Archer, RCAHMW, 10th February 2005