The family home with a hairdresser’s salon in the garden that's on the market for the first time in a century

If a house has been a much-loved home for many decades, handed down through a number of generations, then it becomes a well known place within the family for making and remembering memories, but some properties can become a bit of a landmark locally too, a place that is part of many of the other local residents’ memories too.

So it is with a detached three-bedroom house that is nestled into the core of the village of Rhos, located a few miles north of Swansea and on the outskirts of the town of Pontardawe. It’s a house that has been a welcoming and comfortable home for the same family for over a century

Owner William has many memories of the property called Brynhir, which has been the home where three generations of his family have been raised. He says: “Home was everything to my mother, who was born in the same bedroom that she slept in all of her life and would have happily lived her entire existence in Rhos and its surrounding towns and villages with her family, neighbours and friends, rather than venture further afield.”

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But the house has also played an important role in the village’s history with William saying that it is thought to have maybe not even been a private dwelling near the beginning of its life. He says: “I have no provenance for this, but my grandfather always told us that the house was initially a one-room public house on the main road between Neath and Pontardawe and that when the property was developed this room became the parlour of Brynhir. When the property rendering was removed for renewal in the 1920s, the shape of the old pub was exposed.”

But this property has even more local history to reveal and the main turning point was the impact of a road update outside that led to a change of direction for the property.

William explains: “At this time both the house and the detached outbuilding were behind the property boundary wall. However, the front garden was then compulsory purchased to widen the road putting the outbuilding entrance on the main pavement and in prime position to become a business. This then became David John's butchers shop in the 1930s, who came from Cefn Celfi Farm, Rhos.”

During World War II William says the detached shop in the front garden, which is currently operating as a hair salon, was used by the homeguard as a meeting place and also as the air raid warden’s office.

William says there were many stories that had been told down the generations within the walls of this warm and welcoming home that included wartime tales. He says: “As a child my mother was subject to food and clothing shortages, rationing, night-time blackout restrictions and the fear of air raids. There were numerous disruptions to family life including seeing the devastation of enemy bombing on Swansea and its surrounding area.”

William says that when the air-raid warning sounded most of the family would take cover under the solid oak table in the back room of the house rather than go out to the ‘cold, uncomfortable, smelly Anderson shelter’ which had been constructed in the back garden.

After the war the shop became a grocery shop and haberdashery run by Elwyn Griffiths. In the years from the 1970s to 1990s the front garden outbuilding became the village 'Bryn Mair Bakeries' shop selling bread and cakes made in its Clydach Bakery, Currently it's being used as ‘Snips’ hair salon.

The estate agent selling Brynhir says the current tenant of the hair salon is prepared to vacate if or when the new purchasers require. The building benefits from a shop frontage with a large uPVC window and pedestrian door opening onto the street, water supply and electricity.

Also within the grounds of the house, at the end of the sizeable rear garden, there’s a large brick building connected to the property’s past commercial uses which is handy for storage but could also be developed, subject to gaining planning permission, into an annexe to facilitate multi-generational living or even rented out, a workshop or business space.

There’s a detached garage and off-street parking too as well as the potential to further develop the sizable plot, according to the estate agent and subject to planning consent of course. Inside, the house has potential too, with the ground floor offering three reception rooms and a kitchen with door out to the rear garden. Upstairs there are three bedrooms and a family bathroom.

William and his family’s memories of this unique property now move on, and it’s time for the next family to love living at Brynhir, which also gives them the opportunity to update the décor to match their own personal taste and maybe even extend the accommodation to create even more space, again subject to getting planning approval.

The substantial garden and useful brick outbuilding at the end of the site is also part of William’s mother’s past stories on how the family used to live at the property and linked to the change of use for the detached outbuilding in the front garden.

William says: “Throughout her childhood my mother's family kept animals and grew their own fruit and vegetables. They kept pigs and chickens that provided meat and eggs for the table, seasonal vegetables and fruit were grown, dried, pickled or preserved. Ham hung in the back room of the house on ceiling hooks, one of which still remains, to cure and eggs were collected by the bucket load.

“When one of their animals was slaughtered and with no fridge or freezer to store their meat my grandmother would make faggots and gravy then send my mother, as a child, to distribute them around the neighbours.”

William says this sharing of food was done in the knowledge that this would be reciprocated when the neighbours had spare produce too, such was the close knit nature of the community of Rhos, of which this wonderful home has played such an important part in the past, the present and into the future.

The house has potential to update it to become the next family's much-loved home for generations to come. Brynhir is on the market for the first time in decades for £300,000 with no ongoing chain with Herbert R Thomas, call the Neath branch on 01639 639541 to find out more.

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