The Park - A Rare Gem at Merrion - Part 8

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

The Roof....a little more revealed.

In part 7 I tried to describe the construction of the roof under the thatched part of The Park. In this instalment I said that I would try and explain the roof structure under the slated part of the house. However, new revelations under the thatched roof mean that the slated roof will have to wait! Since my last post I have been able to return to the cottage where the owner again kindly allowed me to look inside. Much work has been carried out to prevent the roof from blowing off in this winter's storms. Indeed, at times one corner of the roof was seen to lift by about one foot in the teeth of a gale!

Happily, the roof has been saved, but removal of the tongued and grooved panelling under the roof timbers has revealed how precarious the roof timbers are! It is excellent to see the efforts that have been made to preserve this fascinating structure.

Figure 1 shows that the roof timbers seem to have been repaired on several occasions. The rough, crudely shaped timber truss is probably part of an early roof. The truss behind this is of sawn timber and looks to be a late-19th /early 20thcentury repair by an estate carpenter, designed to relieve the strain on the earlier work. These trusses are bolted together.  It is surprising that the whole roof was not replaced instead of this piecemeal approach to repair. The timbers of the earlier truss are similar in nature to the slight and irregular pieces used as battens to support the thatch. These trusses are pegged.

Fig. 1 Roof timbers looking towards the parlour end of the house. These had been concealed behind tongued and grooved boarding.

Figure 2 again shows the hotchpotch nature of repair to the thatched roof. The rafters, in nearly every case have rotted where they meet the wall plate on the limestone walls. This is looking south-east.

Fig. 2. Another view of the mixed roof timbers under the thatched roof. Note the metal jacks used to prevent the roof collapsing during the last winter's storms.

In Figure 3 we can see how the trusses meet up with the upper wall of the lateral out shut.

Fig. 3. Looking south west at the roof timbers revealed by the removal of the "ceiling cladding".

Figure 4 seems to show a third effort at repairing the support for the roof. In the centre of the photograph is a nineteenth century truss, alongside a much earlier - (pre-estate?) roughly hewn timber truss. Beyond this a another truss of sawn timber, but of a much slighter design, possibly dating from between the times when  two other trusses were put in place. This truss is very similar to those at the north end of the house.

Fig 4. Looking north west from parlour door.

In Figure 5 the 19th/20th century roof timbers can be identified by the bolts holding them together. The roof timbers dating from an earlier period are slighter and have a chamfer. The earliest timbers are rough hewn with, in some cases, the bark still attached.

Fig. 5. A closer view of the truss discussed above, showing how it was fixed into the wall and the subsequent failure of this. This is the west wall of the house.

Fortunately, the date of some repairs made to the roof structure has been written, in pencil on a small piece of wood within the roof, formerly hidden behind boarding. The date is 1930. This may well correspond to the date that the tonged and grooved boarding was inserted or replaced beneath the thatch.


Figure 6 below shows some of the very modern looking pieces of batten that were affixed to the much older partition for the possible "crogloft" . These battens supported this tongued and grooved boarding. The boarding was then whitewashed.

Fig. 6. Battens (on partition) to support the (now removed) tonged and grooved boarding that ceiled the main living room of the house.

The figures below show some more detail of the fascinating structure of this rare survival of a vernacular roof!

Fig. 7

Fig. 8

Fig. 9

There will be many readers who know far more about old roofs than I do! Comments and thoughts would be much welcomed.

Next time, the roof structure under the slated part of the cottage.

The Park - A Rare Gem at Merrion - Part 6

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

The chimney stack in the north gable.

The next few photographs show interior views of the fireplace and, oven and stack in the north gable of The Park.

The opening to the oven/fireplace is a about 4-5ft tall., with a wooden beam above. There is another wooden beam running across the floor of the opening. In this photograph a small stone platform is visible to the right of this opening. At the rear of the small "room" can be seen the doorway to the bread oven and to the right (not clearly visible here) is a fire grate with a "fitted" stone above.

The change in the colour of the lime wash on the gable wall betrays the level of an inserted ceiling and probable crog loft, now lost.

The oven visible today seems to have been a later insertion into the rear of the massive chimney

The oven has a circular domed top and is constructed from what appear to be cream coloured firebricks. The floor of the oven, where the burning wood would have been spread to heat the oven, seems to be of thick flagstone construction. There is no door surviving for the oven. To the right of the oven is a smoke blackened alcove with a small grate, again made of cream firebrick,  which may have been used for cooking or heating water. Now it seems to have a fitted stone shelf inserted above it of uncertain purpose.

The chimney stack is of massive limestone construction, blackened by smoke and soot. The western and back wall of the stack are vertical. The east and front walls taper until all meet to form a rectangular, near/y square flue. within the "fireplace" itself, on the western wall their is some irregular stonework, now covered in lime wash that might suggest the removal of an oven. the wall here seems, at first inspection, to be very thick. Perhaps with enough depth to accommodate an earlier oven? Similarly, the grate in the eastern wall seems to be a later insertion.

The build of the entire fireplace and stack has the appearance of being of better quality than much of the rest of the house.

In the next post I will look at the fireplace in relation to the northern part of the building.

See also:

The exterior of The Park

The Park - A Rare Gem at Merrion - Part 5

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

A look around inside - The north end

The one way into the cottage is a door in the east facing wall of the house. If you are tall you will need to duck!

Looking down at your feet as you step over the threshold onto the quarry tiled floor, there are the grooves in the door frame to accommodate a drop down board - not to keep flood waters out (as in coastal towns like Aldeburgh in Suffolk), but, according to the owner for whom it was installed,  to stop a crawling baby leaving the cottage un-noticed!

 Below is the view of the north end of the cottage. The lathe and plaster partitions have been removed - notice the scar in the floor and the changes in wall colour wash.

The north end of The Park, looking towards the large "fireplace" and oven.

The same view as above, showing the position of partitions and doorways that have now been lost.

The view below is similar to those above, but taken on another visit, when it was raining hard!! The water was dripping through a hole in the roof near the gable and running down the floor, finding those aras that were slightly sunken dues to decades (centuries??) under foot. Again notice the scars in the floor where partitions formally stood. The small room on the left looks like it might have had a mortar floor. Also notice the irregularity of the west wall (left of picture) when compared to the line of tiles on the floor.

The north end of The Park. See notes above.

Longitudinal section of The Park

A good way of trying to understand how a building "works" is to try and reconstruct it with SketchUp.

The pictures in this post are of a 3D virtual model of The Park put together from photographs and a ground plan of the cottage. Whilst not accurate to scale, they do give a fair impression of how the house might have looked. 

The next post will look at the "fireplace and oven" in the north gable.

The Park - A Rare Gem at Merrion - Part 4

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

A Closer Look at the Exterior of the House and its Setting

See also:

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
  

The first photograph below is a view from the north-east of the cottage that shows the conical. semi-circular oven projection to good effect. Originally this would have been covered in random slates, but these have fallen off and lie around the base of the oven. The owner has protected the interior of the oven by capping it with a cement mix - a good short term measure to keep the rain from seeping through the porous limestone and damaging the fire bricks within, but reinstatement of the slates with a lime based mortar, allowing the stonework to breathe, would be a better longer term solution. The slate covering of the lower part of the chimney stack gives protection to what was probably an earlier oven off to the side of the main stack. This will become clearer when we look inside the house. After each group of "real" photograph is a view from a similar vantage point that shows an approximate 3D model of The Park showing what it could look like or what it might have looked like.

The next two photograph, taken from the north-west shows how an elder(?) tree has taken hold in the stonework. Killing this off chemically and allowing the root structure to die before attempting to remove it will stop the roots of the plant doing more damage to the old structure by prizing the stones apart.

The fourth  and fifth photographs are taken from the south-west.

The step in the roof line marks the end of the thatched roof and the start of a (probably) early to mid-nineteenth century rebuilding of the lower end of the house. The roof over this part is of uniform sized slates, with a small coal fireplace and its flue (with stack) built into the southern gable of the house.

The chimney stack atop the southern gable seems to be built of limestone. The ground level on the western side of the house is much higher than that on the east, and large stones in the hedgerow and underfoot may indicate that there may be the footings of a "lost" wing of the house beneath the turf and debris build up. Only careful excavation can demonstrate whether that is true or not, but there are clues that this might be a possibility on the inside of the cottage.

The photograph to the left, above, shows a closer view of the southern gable of The Park. There is a crack that runs up the wall on the outside, along the line of the flue, and some stones appear to have been dislodged. There are seemingly still remnants of the original lime "render". The photograph on the right above shows the more modern slate roofing of the southern part of the house. There is also an indication of the higher ground to the west, behind a partly revetted wall.

In the shot immediately above, the various lime wash coatings can be seen, with a light ochre colour seeming to predominate. Beyond this, the lateral chimney stack is smothered in ivy and a sycamore tree has taken root at its base. The upper parts of this stack are brick built and the red brick is visible through the growth. This stack must have been heightened, or more likely repaired, after the mid-nineteenth century.

Next time we will begin to look at the interior of the house.

The Park - A Rare Gem in Merrion - Part 2

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

A Brief History of The Park

Also see:

• The Park - A Rare Gem at Merrion - Part 1

The earliest map of The Park comes from a Stackpole Estate map book of  1786. The holding has remained the same since this date, with access to the south. In 1786 the long, straight road that now runs from Samson Cross to Brownslade did not exist and the farms and cottages of this part the Castlemartin peninsula were connected by an intricate network of lanes and paths, many of which no longer exist. One such land followed the parish boundary between St Twynnells and Warren parishes, forming the western edge of The Park.

 We get information about the land abutting The Park from this early map too. To the west the land was part of the tenement known as Merrion, a farm that was to disappear by the mid nineteenth century. To the north and south were the lands of Mr Freeman, probably of Crickmail. At this date, Crickmail was not part of the Stackpole Estate. To the north was the holding called Venn.

The schedule that accompanies the 1782 map shows that the holding was just over 8 acres and had a rental value of £5 per year.

A deed of 1789 in the Cawdor  collection (Cawdor Handlist II Box 2/211), until recently in the care of Carmarthenshire County Archives, reveals that:

Messuage and Lands late part of Venn, now called Park, now in the tenure of Abraham Evans for £5/5/0

This document is important in telling us that The Park was part of a large holding known as Venn. The Google Earth image below shows the extent of Venn and The Park at this time.

From the deed above it would seem that the tenement of Venn was divided up in about 1780, with about one quarter of Venn being given to another tenant. This portion became known as Park or The Park.

Prior to this division of Venn, we know that in 1725 (Pemb Archives: D/Angle/2) the property was part of:

Castlemartin Lordship, St Twynnells parish. One messuage and tenement by the name of Ven in the possession of John Evans and Widow Poyer under the annual rent of £7/2/6. Owned by John Campbell.

So it would seem that the Evans family lived at The Park, taking it as a holding in its own c1780. By 1803 we read in a rough list of arrears in Cawdor Campbell Box 271, a rental for 1803 that:

George Evans arrears of £18/16/0, since 1897(?). Very Poor, no hope. [Ticked as no longer being a tenant.]

 In the same rental John Dawkins is the tenant of Park, paying the same rental as his predecessor - £5/-/-. He was also the tenant of Venn.

By 1810 the rent had increased to £5/5/- and John Duberlin was tenant and the family remained  so until at least 1838, the time of the Tithe Survey of St. Twynnells parish, when the tenancy was held by Mary Duberlin, probably John's wife.

The first census when individuals households were recorded, in 1841, throws more light upon the number of people who lived at The Park at one time. In the summer of 1841 the head of the household at the Park was William Thomas, 40, an agricultural labourer who had hailed from Lampeter Velfrey. To keep him company there was his wife, Mary,  and four children, with a fifth child who was probably visiting on the day the enumerator called.

William remained a tenant until after 1881. By that year he was working as a garden labourer at the age of 81. He lived with his daughter and her young family. She had married, in 1877,  Peirce Phillips, was also a garden labourer and it was Peirce who took over the tenancy when his father-in-law died in 1885. Peirce was not a local man - he was born in Warren!  William was buried, in sight of his home, at St. Twynnells church in 1885.

Peirce and his family were still living at the Park in 1911, he being a horticultural labourer and his son an auxiliary postman. It may be members of the Phillips family who appear in the glorious photograph below.

I stop there as the trail runs cold through lack of research. It would seem, however, that the owners in 2015 have links to The Park back at least to the 1950s.


In the next post I will look more closely at The Park today.

The Park - A Rare Gem at Merrion - Part 1

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

The Distinctive Vernacular Style of Rural South Pembrokeshire

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, I worked, on and off, on the Royal Armoured Corps Range at Castlemartin, Pembrokeshire. It was great! I was a casual Range Warden, which involved putting up targets, manning the sentry posts and lookouts, being a presence on the firing points and a having access to some of the best coastline and countryside in the whole Kingdom! I loved it!

One of the many enjoyable jobs, was accompanying one of the permanent staff wardens - Artie Gough - callsign "Watchdog"- on his regular tasks of checking the gates and boundaries on the range. He was a font of knowledge about the place. Pre-Second World War, he had been one of the gamekeepers on the Stackpole Estate and he told me much about the houses, families, habitats and wildlife of the place.

Amongst one of the places he mentioned, was a cottage called "Park", which whilst not within the range boundary, was a derelict "old house" like many that had been consumed by the War Office in 1939. A good description of these lost buildings is the brief and hurried survey that Sir Cyril Fox undertook just after the War Office moved onto the land at Castlemartin, or as the training area was known then - AFVR Linney Head.

The image below shows one of these cottages - this at Castle Lady in Castlemartin, otherwise known as Drayton.

So, during one lunch hour on the range, I went out through the gates of the camp, crossed the road near Treforce and the sewerage plant that serves the camp at Merrion, and walked up the track to "The Park". Later, that evening, I returned with a camera and took the photograph below. I was very worried that I might be caught!!

The house is aligned roughly North to South. In the photograph, taken from the east, the older part of the house is on the right, with a 19th century addition or rebuilt section to the left, roofed in slate. The northern gable has a large(ish) chimney stack, in this photograph, covered in ivy. To the left of the door is a "lateral" chimney stack, with its upper levels (re?)built in in brick. The corrugated tin roof is an indicator that the cottage was originally thatched, the thatch being replaced, or so I thought, when it became decayed.

At the time, I had just bought " Houses of the Welsh Countryside" by Peter Smith - one of those books that is a landmark in the study vernacular houses ("houses of the people") in Wales and the UK. The Park was an example, in small scale, of one of the typical yeoman farm houses that were, in their time, common-place in the Castlemartin area.

About a quarter of a mile to the south of The Park are two examples of these yeoman farmhouses. The best example is the holiday cottage called Thorne, which sits on the eastern edge of  a small cluster of buildings at a settlement that was known as Hayston. Thorne, until about 1826, was the home of the Moody family, who were copyhold tenants of the Manor of Castlemartin, in the parish of St Twynnells. They had lands scattered all over the parish - as was the norm for many land holders in the area up until the 18th century - their largest parcels being near Vallast Hill and near Trenorgan. The land at Vallast Hill was on Old Red Sandstone, less well drained than the more fertile land at Trenorgan on Carboniferous Limestone. This arrangement was a possible example of how the holdings within the manor were equably distributed across both the good and not so good soils. The Moodys also had rights to the resources of Castlemartin Corse, which was later drained by John Mirehouse of Brownslade. I digress!

The view from St Twynnells church tower in about 1987 of Thorne and Hayston. Thorne is left centre, with part tin roof and Hayston is the large white farmhouse right centre. The Park is just off the picture, bottom left.

Thorne looking from the south-east

Hayston looking from the north-west

The centre ridge chimney stack at Hayston has been much messed around with, but its similarity to the one at Thorne shows that both houses are originally of a similar date. Probably early 17th century, perhaps even late 16th century.

Hayston was improved by the Stackpole Estate as the homestead for a fairly large estate farm, Thorne on the other hand, when relinquished by the Moody family is about 1826, became an estate cottage and was subsequently remodelled into two dwellings. From the north, Thorne reveals more of its pedigree, as shown in the photograph below.

Here we see the fine lateral chimney on the north side of Thorne. The wall on the viewer's side of the stack is that of a lateral out-shut. The tin roof indicates that the older part of the house was probably thatched. The chimney to the far left is part of the nineteenth century conversion of the house into two cottages.

The original door way into the early house, set along side the lateral (on the side of the building) chimney. The later doorway into the second dwelling is to the left. Some rebuilding of walls has taken place too.

The Park has many of the features of Thorne, but on a much smaller scale. Large gable chimney with projecting oven, A lateral fireplace and chimney and a seemingly lateral out-shut.

Other houses locally that seem to embody some of these features, if not all, are mentioned below.

Bosherston, Church Cottage. This was demolished in 1984, but had very many features similar to The Park. It had been overlooked by the planners and conservation bodies and was not listed.

The enigmatic rectangular part projecting from the side wall is either a lateral out-shut, or more likely, the base of a now removed lateral fireplace and chimney. The large stack, covered in dead ivy at the far end of the building, has a semi-circular oven projection, like The Park, (not visible in this photograph). A fuller comparison will be made with The Park in a later post.

Parsons, a very ruinous house in Castlemartin parish, also has a semi-cicirular oven projection. Little remains of the house, but it almost certainly dates form the seventeenth century if records for Castlemartin are to be believed.

The photograph below shows a rough sketch plan of the remains of Parsons about 35 years ago, as surveyed by this blogger.

Parsons, Castlemartin

...and another example of a projecting oven is at Dover, in Bosherston. This is easily visible from the road.

There is also another cottage with a similar oven at Thornston, just down the road towards St Govans Head. This building has similarities to Cold Comfort in Warren.

The projecting oven is believed to be an addition to an earlier chimney stack, and this seems to be the case at The Park, as we will see later.

In the next post on this topic I will look at what I have been able to glean about the history of The Park.

Meanwhile, below is a map to show the locations of the buildings mentioned in this post. All lie on private land.