Tan-y-fron Housing Co-operative Ltd became a legal entity (a fully mutual, non profit-making organisation with the main aim of providing affordable residential accommodation) at the time that the Tan-y-fron property was purchased in Autumn 2010.
About Tan-y-fron, the house:
Tan-y-fron (literal translation from Welsh ‘the dwelling place of the heart’) is a large, detached Grade II listed nineteenth century house and was originally a ‘gentleman’s country residence’. It has a total of 18 rooms over three floors, including several pantries. It is set in about an acre of grounds, with a further five or six acres of mixed deciduous woodland providing fuel for our wood-burning heating system, and a 60ft waterfall that feeds a meandering stream down through the woods and past the kitchen at the rear of the house.
As well as good-sized vegetable growing areas and a traditional orchard, there is a barn range (coach house, stable, barn, byre, hayloft, etc.) that we will be renovating in the next year or so. We have had plans drawn up by our architect (currently awaiting local council planning consent) and intend to use these buildings to provide additional, affordable accommodation and workshops for current and future housing co-op members.
We purchased Tan-y-fron in a largely unmodernised and rather neglected condition but with many original and interesting historical features intact, such as the kitchen range and bread oven, still in full working order.
It is a work in progress!
