The Park - A Rare Gem at Merrion - Part 3

A Rare Survival of a Seventeenth Century Cottage in St. Twynnells, Pembrokeshire

Starting to Look at the House and its Setting

The Park - A Rare Gem at Merrion - Part 1

The Park - A Rare Gem at Merrion - Part 2

The owners of The Park were kind enough to let me have a look at the house and its attached land. The place is a total delight and a very rare survival. The owners have made valiant efforts to keep the weather out by covering the building with tarpaulins and capping some of the stonework, even if the result is not entirely pleasing to the eye.

The layout of the site is below. I will talk more about the setting in another post.

The first three photographs are of  the east facing side of the house, looking across what was the garden. The third photograph is one taken in the 1980s for comparison. The roofless building to the right is the old "barn"(?).

In the pictures above there is a drop in the ground level between the garden and the immediate front of the house, there being a dry stone wall revetment holding the ground of the garden back. This can be seen, covered in brambles just off to the left, in the photograph below. Trees have taken root in parts of the fabric and have caused some cracking. In this view around the foot of the lateral chimney stack. The drop in level from the garden can be seen to good effect in the old photograph at the end of Part 2 of this series of blogposts.

Below here is an attempt at reconstructing The Park in Sketchup - again a view from the east. It is not a measured reconstruction, but produced as best I can from photographs. I think the gable chimney looks a bit too big! Notice the projecting conical oven in the north gable. Also notice the thatch, which still survives under the tin roof!!

Next time we will look at the west wall of the house before later, stepping inside.