8665

 

II  

Designated  

24/12/1982  

20/03/1998  

The Old Cable House  

 

Powys  

Forden with Leighton and Trelystan  

Forden  

Leighton  

324777  

305085  

 

Located approximately 1.0km SE of Leighton church and 0.5km E of Leighton Farm, on N side of an unmetalled road and at the foot of Moel y Mab. The tower and part of the vaulted tunnel are in the garden of Park Cottage.  

Agriculture and Subsistence  

 

Built in the late 1850s to receive the cable or chain of a single-track railway inclined plane from Leighton Farm, although the rails had been taken up by 1902. Its precise function is unknown. It was probably used in conjunction with the funicular railway above it to take animal feed from Leighton Farm up to the cow houses at the Slurry Tank on Moel-y-Mab, but it may also have been used partly for pleasure. Water was carried in a pipe which crosses a bridge to SE and powered a turbine said to have been in the basement of the Old Cable House. The turbine operated a large winding drum in the main building. A cable from the main building passed through an underground passage and then up into the tower where a pulley wheel was fixed. The embankment on which the rails were laid survives in part. The Old Cable House was an integral part of the Leighton Estate, acquired by the Liverpool banker John Naylor in 1846-47. Here he embarked on an ambitious programme of building, principally Leighton Hall, church and Farm, which was largely completed by the mid 1850s. He continued to extend and improve the Estate until his death in 1889. His grandson, Captain J.M. Naylor, sold the Estate in 1931. Naylor introduced new rational farming methods at Leighton, applying techniques derived from science and industry, including the pioneering use of turbines and hydraulic rams, and the recycling of manure as fertiliser. He also developed the woodlands on the Estate for pleasure and profit.  

Two-storey building of brick with rock-faced quoins, and snecked stone basement. Brick parapet above a plain plinth band with corbel table and with stone coping; hipped roof. The S front has 2 tall round-headed windows with stone sills, imposts and keys, and with small-pane sashes. (In the upper storey is a small window in similar style inserted late C20.) Between the main windows is a cast iron bearing box behind glass. Slightly higher and to the R is another bearing box, infilled with brick. The basement has 3 equally-placed sash windows. The R side wall has a round-headed window similar to those of the front; the L side wall has an inserted doorway. Extensions at the rear are late C20. To the W is a rubble stone wall with brick parapet leading to a 9-sided tower. The tower is of brick and has similar details to the Cable House, with a parapet above a plinth band with plain corbel table, round-headed openings in the N and S faces and similar-style doorways in the E and W faces.  

Originally a single-storey building with basement but divided into 2 storeys late C20. A bearing box, similar and corresponding to the one in the S wall, is visible in the N wall. From the basement there is a brick-vaulted tunnel to the tower which is partitioned at the property boundary between the Old Cable House and Park Cottage.  

The Leighton Estate is an exceptional example of high-Victorian estate development. It is remarkable for the scale and ambition of its conception and planning, the consistency of its design, the extent of its survival, and is the most complete example of its type in Wales. The Old Cable House is an important element of this whole ensemble at Leighton. It is part of a strong visual group with Park Cottage, both in distinctive Leighton estate style, and is an important surviving component of the advanced technology employed by Naylor at Leighton.