6548

 

II  

Designated  

11/02/1988  

08/02/1996  

Thorne  

 

Pembrokeshire  

Stackpole and Castlemartin  

 

St. Twynnells  

194507  

196658  

 

Reached from the B4319 via a small lane skirting the E side of Merrion Camp. About 50 m E of the lane near Thorne Chapel.  

Domestic  

 

Thorne appears to have been the farmhouse of a small independent agricultural holding of about 32.4 hectares, later absorbed into the Stackpole Estate. There are two incised dates. The letters IM and the date 1679 appear (in dissimilar styles of character) on a side beam of the original E end hearth; this timber may not be in situ. The same initials and the date 1726 appear centrally on the side of a first-floor beam in a part of the house added to the earlier structure at E. There may be a connection with an owner or owners of the surname Moody. The owner c.1782 appears to have been named Moody.  

The older part is a two-storey three-unit house in coursed rubble masonry consisting of kitchen at E, hall and parlour. Within this part the hall and part of the parlour, but not the cross-wall E of the hall, are thought to be the oldest (NMR). Two large buttresses at S. Opposed lateral entrances into the kitchen, the one at N being through an equilateral pointed and chamfered arch. Very large E end chimney with ovens. Chimney with sloping flanks and pyramidal cap above cornice band. All windows are C20 stained wood. The hall and parlour were used as farm storage until recent extensive renovations (c.1990). The hall was then described as open to the roof and is now still open to the roof apart from new stairs and a gallery. There has been an upper floor in this room, but not originally. What is taken to be an outshut at the N (or a survival of an earlier wall) combines the original stairs to the upper floor of the parlour unit, a lateral chimney in the hall, and also the porch giving access to the kitchen (though the porch is later). The hall chimney in this outshut has a tall tapering square stack with weatherings to cornice and offset on its W side. The cross-wall E of the hall contains a stone Tudor arch and a niche with an ogee head. This wall does not appear to be as early as the other walls of the hall. The hall roof has been rebuilt (c.1990) in imitation of the roof removed in the recent renovations. This includes a truss at the W end of the hall incorporating timbers which carry two purlins and which curve inwards at the foot in the manner of crucks. (A rare feature, but known in Pembrokeshire, SW Devon and Cornwall.) They bear on corbels which may not be original about 0.5 m below the level of the present S wallplate. The principals of the hall roof have lap-jointed collar beams. Photographs of the original timbers suggest these details are correctly imitated.  

 

Listed as a mediaeval hall house of regional type but with unusual constructional detail. (The NMR conclusion is that Thorne is a farmhouse with an extremely complicated development, incorporating a number of local traditional details, and probably late mediaeval.)