85451

 

II  

Designated  

20/10/2005  

20/10/2005  

Church Holding  

 

Wrexham  

Bronington  

 

Whitewell  

349357  

341344  

 

On the N side of the lane leading to the church, approximately 150m WSW of the church.  

 

 

Iscoyd Park was purchased in 1843 by Philip Lake Godsal, a Cheltenham coach builder, an estate of 202 acres (82 hectares) comprising 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. 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'. The latter smallholdings include many that were built on the site of earlier smallholdings. Church Holding is a 5-acre (2 hectares) smallholding built in 1856 (date on building).  

A 1½-storey double-fronted cottage of hand-moulded brick and freestone surrounds, slate roof on overhanging eaves, with brick end stacks. The front has a plat band over the openings. The central entrance has a triangular head to a replacement half-glazed panel door. Above it is a stone tablet inscribed 'PLG 1856'. Windows are 3-light casements. A central gabled dormer has a replacement 2-light window. In the gable ends are iron-framed attic windows flanking each stack, with glazing in a pattern of hexagonal and diamond panes. In the rear is a central replacement half-glazed panel door flanked by segmental-headed small-pane iron-frame windows incorporating opening lights.  

The cottage has a 2-unit plan, with straight stair behind the room on the L side, but the cottage is otherwise modernised internally.  

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