85466

 

II  

Designated  

20/10/2005  

20/10/2005  

Higher Lanes Bank Farmhouse  

 

Wrexham  

Bronington  

 

Higher Wych  

348470  

343080  

 

On the SE side of a minor road approximately 1.2km WSW of Higher Wych.  

 

 

Iscoyd Park was purchased in 1843 by Philip Lake Godsal, a Cheltenham coach builder, and comprised an estate of 202 acres (82 hectares)including mansion house with park, and cottages and smallholdings. Over subsequent decades farms were acquired from neighbouring landowners, mainly during the ownership of Philip William Godsal, who inherited in 1858 and died in 1896. In 1895 it was reported to the Royal Commission on Land in Wales and Monmouthshire that the Iscoyd Park estate, now expanded to 887 acres (359 hectares), had 9 farms, including Higher Lanes Bank. Of these 'six new farmhouses, bricked and slated, and homesteads to them, have been built new entirely' and 'sixteen cottages and buildings for pigs and cows have been erected'. Higher Lanes Bank farmhouse is dated 1876 and is shown on the 1911 Ordnance Survey. It replaced an earlier farmhouse that was converted to farm use.  

A large T-shaped farmhouse with 1½-storey main range and higher 2½-storey wing, of hand-moulded brick with tile roof and brick stacks. Openings have brick segmental heads, and mainly wooden casement windows or small-pane iron-frame windows incorporating opening lights. The entrance faces S, away from the yard. At the L end of the main range is an open lean-to porch on a dwarf wall and timber post, with half-glazed panel door. To its R are 3-light and 2-light casement windows. A 2-light window is above the entrance and in the centre is a 2-light casement window to a timber-framed gabled dormer. The gable end of the wing projects slightly forward on the L side of the main range. It has 3-light casement windows, a similar 2-light attic window, above which is a stone tablet inscribed 'PWG 1876'. In the L side wall of the wing are small-pane iron-frame windows in both storeys to the centre and L side, a 2-light casement window lower R and a central 2-light window in a timber-framed dormer. The R gable end of the main house also has small iron-frame windows, 2 in the attic and a window lower L. Behind the main house is a lean-to under a corrugated-iron roof, which has a boarded door and overlight at each end and a 3-light central window. Three small windows are above the lean-to, under the eaves of the main house. The rear gable end of the wing has small-pane iron-frame windows lower L and upper R, and in the attic 2 later steel-framed casement windows in original openings.  

Not inspected.  

Listed for its special architectural interest as a well-preserved C19 farmhouse characteristic of the Iscoyd Park estate style, and for its contribution to the distinctive historic character of the district provided by surviving estate buildings, which together provide a good example of estate-sponsored improvement.