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
19503
Building Number
Grade
II
Status
Designated
Date of Designation
20/03/1998
Date of Amendment
20/03/1998
Name of Property
Bridge South East of Old Cable House
Address
Location
Unitary Authority
Powys
Community
Forden with Leighton and Trelystan
Town
Forden
Locality
Leighton
Easting
324792
Northing
305063
Street Side
Location
Located approximately 0.5km E of Leighton Farm on the S side of a private forest road E of Leighton Farm at the foot of a woodland plantation. The bridge is SE of the Old Cable House. It spans a stone-lined leat and has a pond on the W side.
Description
Broad Class
Agriculture and Subsistence
Period
History
Erected late 1850s to carry a pipe across a leat to the Lower Cable House, where it fed water to a turbine providing power for an inclined plane. The water was also taken beyond the Cable House to Leighton Farm. The pipe was buried below the deck, the bridge also being used by pedestrians, it leading across a leat to a network of woodland paths. The bridge was an integral part of the Leighton Estate, acquired by the Liverpool banker John Naylor in 1846-47. Here he embarked on an ambitious programme of building, principally Leighton Hall, church and Farm, which was largely completed by the mid 1850s. He continued to extend and improve the Estate until his death in 1889. His grandson, Captain J.M. Naylor, sold the Estate in 1931. Naylor introduced new rational farming methods at Leighton, applying techniques derived from science and industry, including the pioneering use of turbines and hydraulic rams, with which the bridge is closely associated. It also combined a practical with a leisure function as part of the network of woodland paths at Leighton, representing the dual purpose of Naylor’s planned landscape.
Exterior
Single-span bridge with a sloping deck. Of coursed sandstone with a round arch. The parapet is of snecked, rock-faced Cefn stone and is stepped. It has a plinth band above a plain corbel table, saddleback copings, and ends in square piers with pyramidal caps.
Interior
Reason for designation
The Leighton Estate is an exceptional example of high-Victorian estate development. It is remarkable for the scale and ambition of its conception and planning, the consistency of its design, the extent of its survival, and is the most complete example of its type in Wales. The bridge is an important element of this whole ensemble at Leighton. It is also a component of the remarkable and ambitious application of advanced technology at Leighton, while its distinctive and ornamental character expresses the dual purpose of Leighton as a highly-planned landscape serving the needs of work and leisure.
Cadw : Full Report for Listed Buildings [ Records 1 of 1 ]
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