16363

 

II*  

Designated  

21/08/1995  

21/08/1995  

Lower cil Farmhouse  

 

Powys  

Berriew  

 

Cil  

318255  

301604  

 

Set back on the E side of the Castle Caereinion Road, beyond Cil Chapel, 1km approx. NW of Berriew village.  

Domestic  

 

The earliest part of the house may be early C16 and was probably a small 3-unit hall-house. This was extended c1600-1620 by the insertion of an axial chimney - possibly into an original parlour bay - and the addition of a storeyed entrance porch and new 2-storeyed parlour bay to the right. Rear wing probably late C18 or early C19.  

The earliest part of the building is the left hand section: roughcast rendered over timber frame (originally square panelled); One and a half storeyed, with dormer windows in the roof. The later storeyed porch backing onto the stack and 2-storeyed right hand bay are lime-washed over close studded timber framing to front elevation, with some decorative timber work in the apex of the porch. Framed in square panels to the rear, which has a higher roof line than the earlier hall. Graded slate roofs throughout; central brick axial stack, comprising 3 star-shaped brick shafts. Porch has chamfered and roughly formed arched entrance, with chamfered inner doorway retaining original studded door with wrought iron hinges and lock plate. Turned rails to open sides of porch. Its upper storey is slightly jettied out, with small 2-light casement window. Renewed 4-light wood mullioned and transomed windows with small leaded panes flank the porch, with 2-light casement windows in paired dormer windows to the left, and a 3-light wood mullioned window in the slightly jettied upper storey to the right. Outshut to rear of stack. Rear wing is mainly brick, with some timbering of thin scantling.  

Parts of the square panelled framing of the early house are visible internally: it appears to have had a 3-unit plan comprising a central hall with 2 service rooms to the left (on site of present store rooms: blocked screens-passage doorways still discernable) and may have had a parlour to the right, lost when the present axial chimney and C17 extension was added. Deep chamfers with stepped stops to paired axial beams of central hall which also has stop-chamfered joists); queen post truss exposed in outer gable. Arched braces to tie beams of 2 internal trusses (the tie beams cut through by later doorways). Wind braces to single purlins. C17 bay has narrower chamfers with bar stops to paired axial beams. Staircase to rear of fireplace, probably a C18 or C19 insertion.  

A timber framed house of exceptional quality which displays a development pattern of considerable interest, as a C16 hall house was transformed into a typical Severn Valley house type of the early C17.