11874

 

II*  

Designated  

03/03/1966  

03/02/2012  

Court Farmhouse  

 

Carmarthenshire  

Pembrey and Burry Port Town  

 

Pembrey  

242775  

201599  

W  

Set back from the road approximately 400m N of the parish church.  

Domestic  

 

The present house was possibly built, on a site occupied since the C14-C15, by Walter Vaughan, who was High Sheriff in 1557, as a ground-floor 3-unit hall range with first-floor great chamber. It was extended in the early C17 with the construction of a service wing to the rear linked by a contemporary cross wing housing a kitchen and creating an inner courtyard plan. The sunk-chamfered windows and diagonally set chimneys probably date to this period and represent high-status architectural detailing of the late Elizabethan period. They may have been an attempt to create a unified appearance by altering the existing windows to match the windows in the new service range. At the same time the corbelled projection to the front, which possibly housed a staircase was also probably added as well as the gatehouse (or outbuilding) to the south as both are stylistically very close. The house passed to the Asburnham family in 1677 and alterations were carried out c.1700 to create a parlour at the upper (w) end of the hall, provided with tall mullioned and transom windows. In the early C19th the lower end of the hall range was partitioned with a masonry wall, possibly as part of the subdivision of the house into separate dwellings for the farm tenants and officials of the estate. The estate remained in the Ashburnham family until it was sold in 1922 and the house has been uninhabited since c1960.  

House, Comprising 2-storey main range with later service range to rear. Of rubble stone, roofless but retaining square rubble stacks with moulded caps. The main range faces S and is of 6 bays with a projecting 2 storey bay to the R of centre, the upper storey of which projects on a corbel table. To the L are 3 bays, two with later tall windows of c1700. To the R is a 2-window range with stone mullioned windows. The R gable end has an external stack with paired diagonal chimneys. Connected to the rear at right angles to the right is a short wing with stone steps to a 1st floor doorway, and a 3-light window with sunk chamfered mullions. Beyond and parallel with the main range is the rear service wing added as part of the early C17 modernisation with a timber 3-light mullioned window in the lower storey and corbelled 1st floor stack. The rear service wing forms an open courtyard accessed from the W. Overgrown on inspection in 2011.  

Entirely roofless and floorless but retains lateral chimney in the north wall of the former ground-floor hall and fireplace in the hall above. The buffet (or built-in display cupboard) created in the c.1700 alterations survives in the cross wall of the inner room of the hall.  

Entirely roofless and floorless but retains lateral chimney in the north wall of the former ground-floor hall and fireplace in the hall above. The buffet (or built-in display cupboard) created in the c.1700 alterations survives in the cross wall of the inner room of the hall.