Description

OSWESTRY RURAL

1602/0/10028 TREFONEN
18-MAY-10 PENTRE CEFN BACH

II
An C18 farmhouse incorporating an earlier cruck building, with later modifications.

MATERIALS: The building is largely constructed of rubble stone, with remains of an earlier timber structure within, and a timber roof structure. The roof is covered in slate.

PLAN: The three-bay farmhouse was originally rectangular in plan, and now has a further range to the north-west. There are later conservatory extensions to the north and south. In its current configuration the building is single story with attic floor.

EXTERIOR: C20 conservatory extensions partially conceal the north and south rubble stone elevations. The south elevation contains a central doorway flanked by windows on each side. The north elevation has a central doorway with a wider agricultural doorway to the east, modified to form a window opening. There is a further window to the west of the doorway and another at eaves level. A modern porch set against the c.1840 wing contains an entrance into the upper end. The east elevation contains two window openings. The pitched roof has a rubble stone chimneystack at the west end and a dormer window on the north roof slope. There is a rooflight inserted in the southern slope of the lower end.

INTERIOR: On the ground floor, there is a large inglenook fireplace at the upper, west end of the building. Adjacent to the fireplace in the north wall is a blocked doorway into the c.1840 extension. In this room are truncated cruck blades with a surviving tie beam, and further surviving early timbers. The c.1840 wing has C19 roof timbers with iron fixings. The first floor is divided by exposed roof trusses. Doorways have been inserted through the tie beams. The roof structure sits on a rubble stone ledge. The west end of the first floor contains the stepped upper structure of the chimney, and this room has oak plank floors.

HISTORY: The building forms part of a group of three historic farmsteads in a small settlement, and is a multi-phased structure showing evidence of a building of C17 origin. It is an example of a dual function rural building, housing people at the upper end and livestock at the lower, before being converted to solely a dwelling. The building is a largely C18 rubble stone structure, with remains of an earlier timber structure of probable C17 date. The building is shown on an early-C19 field map, with a map of 1843 showing extensions to the north-west and south-east (the latter no longer extant). The building has been extended further to the north and south in the C20.

SOURCES
Shropshire Geological Society: http://www.soton.ac.uk/~imw/jpg/Shropshire-map-950.jpg
[Retrieved 25/03/2010]

Records from Shropshire Archives:
Enclosure Award, 1835 - Ref. QE/1/2/50
Partition Map, 1864 - Ref. 800/54-4/4
[Retrieved 15/04/2010]

Records from Denbighshire Archive
Tithe Map, 1843
[Retrieved 22/04/2010]

Madge Moran, Vernacular Building of Shropshire (2003), 23-25, 479-480
Peter Smith, Houses of the Welsh Countryside (1974), 316

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION:
Pentre Cefn Bach, Oswestry Rural, Shropshire, is designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

* Architectural: this modest house is a good example of a former dual-function rural building in the Welsh Marches and shows clear evidence of its history in its fabric and construction, and reflects the vernacular traditions of the area.
* Historical: the house is an early and adapted agricultural building in the Welsh Marches which conveys, in its exterior plainness and the sparseness of interior spaces and fittings, an honest and legible expression of rural domestic accommodation of a very simple type: the home of a smallholder of the C18.
* Intactness: the evolution of the building has led to some alteration to its plan form, and yet it remains substantially intact as an C18 historic structure with earlier elements.

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26672944

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Somerset: South and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Yorkshire West Riding: Leeds, Bradford and the North (Pevsner Architectural Guides / Buildings of England)
• 
  The Victorian House Manual (2nd Edition): How They Were Built, Improvements & Refurbishment, Solutions to All Common Defects - Includes Relevant ... ... Properties (Haynes Manual) (Haynes Manuals)
• 
  [(Cumberland and Westmorland)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1967)
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  Devon (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
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  Nottinghamshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)