85477

 

II  

Designated  

20/10/2005  

20/10/2005  

Multi-purpose farm range at Higher Lanes Bank Farm  

 

Wrexham  

Bronington  

 

Higher Wych  

348496  

343103  

 

On the NE side of the farmhouse.  

 

 

Iscoyd Park was purchased in 1843 by Philip Lake Godsal, a Cheltenham coach builder, and comprised an estate of 202 acres (82hectares) 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'. The stable and shippon at Higher Lanes Bank comprise an early C19 farm range shown on the 1838 Tithe map and 1873 Ordnance Survey. The cart house and piggery are later.  

A lofted multi-purpose farm building of hand-moulded brick, with some timber-framing surviving in the rear wall; slate roof on a dentil eaves course. The main range faces the yard to the S with shippon on the L and stable on the R. Original openings have segmental heads. The shippon has an inserted boarded door and another original split boarded door to its R under a relieving arch. Further R the stable has 3 split boarded doors and 3 windows. The loft has 2 diamond-pattern breathers over the shippon, and 2 pitching eyes and a loading door over the stable. Further R is a lower later cart shed in-line but projecting forward. Its front has 3 pairs of full-height boarded doors. The gable end of the shippon has a blocked doorway, diamond-pattern breathers and loft door. The rear of the main range is timber-framed on a brick plinth, and with brick nogging. Part of the framing has previously collapsed, where the wall has been rebuilt in brick. A low gabled projection is at the W end behind the shippon. At R angles at the L end of the shippon is the lower former piggery, which has altered and blocked openings, including full-height double doors, and a room at the L end, with 3-light window, which formerly housed boiling pans for the swill, the entrance to which is in the gable end. The rear of the piggery, facing the rear of the house, was formerly open at ground level for the troughs, but has been infilled. It retains broad sliding windows.  

The interior has timber-framed partitions and tie-beam trusses.  

Listed for its special interest as a farm building retaining definite early C19 character. It is part of a strong farm group, and contributes to the distinctive historic character of the district provided by surviving former Iscoyd Park estate buildings, which together provide a good example of estate-sponsored improvement in the mid-late C19.