Full Report for Listed Buildings


The list description is not intended to be a complete inventory of what is listed: it is principally intended to aid identification. By law, the definition of a listed building includes the entire building (i) and any structure or object that is fixed to the said building and ancillary to it and (ii) any other structure or object that forms part of the land and has done so since before 1 July 1948, and was within the curtilage of the building, and ancillary to it, on the date on which said building was first included in the list, or on 1 January 1969, whichever was later.

Summary Description


Reference Number
14889
Building Number
 
Grade
II*  
Status
Designated  
Date of Designation
01/12/1995  
Date of Amendment
01/12/1995  
Name of Property
Pen-Rhos Engine House  
Address
 

Location


Unitary Authority
Wrexham  
Community
Brymbo  
Town
 
Locality
Pen-Rhos  
Easting
328569  
Northing
353225  
Street Side
 
Location
On the N side of the road running on the W side of the former Steel Works site, W of Pen-Rhos Farm.  

Description


Broad Class
Industrial  
Period
 

History
Late C18, almost certainly built for John Wilkinson, one of the leading iron-masters and technological innovators of the industrial revolution. It was probably built to house a Hornblower double cylinder engine, pumping for a coal mine. Jonathon Hornblower was an independent engine designer and builder of the period, who was developing the Newcomen engine into a modern form in competition with Boulton and Watt. The engine house was converted into a dwelling c1820, but later abandoned.  

Exterior
Tall beam engine house. Battered walls of rough rubble with dressed stone quoins and dressings; roofless, but with moulded kneelers to gable copings, and brick stacks on the two gable ends, added when the building was converted into a dwelling. Beam arch high in bob-wall to S gable, partially blocked to convert to domestic window; semi-circular with dressed stone voussoirs. Small doorway to lower right in this gable. Remains of what may have been a square stack to the E.  

Interior
 

Reason for designation
Listed as an exceptionally rare survival of a C18 beam engine house, dating from a period when the design of the steam engine was rapidly evolving. Scheduled Ancient Monument De 203.  

Cadw : Full Report for Listed Buildings [ Records 1 of 1 ]



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