8785

 

II  

Designated  

21/09/1962  

31/01/1995  

Great House including former Barn Range attached to right  

 

Powys  

Gladestry  

 

Newchurch  

321655  

250667  

 

Lies 50m SE of St Mary's Church.  

Agriculture and Subsistence  

 

Late C15 cruck-framed hall house, notable for the great span of its trusses, at 28ft the widest yet recorded in Wales. The house was ceiled in the C17 when a large gabled dormer was added and later the wall framing was rebuilt in rubble stone. In C18 a large wing was added at the upper end on the site of earlier room or rooms connected to the open hall. The status of the house had gradually declined and the lower end rooms were used for farm storage and granary. Substantial remodelling and renovation took place in 1980's and is continuing.  

Modern Rebuilding: Principal alterations to the exterior in recent years include the reduction of the C18 wing to a single-storey with its stone chimney upper being re-used at the lower end of the house; alterations to the porch; the provision of new large roof dormers and velux lights to front and rear elevations; alterations to door and window openings at the lower end; and the replacement of every window with new designs. Inside, the granary end has been converted to domestic use, parts of the hall bays have been sub-divided and new stairs and chimney stack have been inserted. There has also been considerable replacement of structural timbers including many of the purlins, all of the rafters and windbraces, many beams and joists and sections of wall framing and door heads. Some of these are in new oak but there is also substantial re-use of second-hand timbers from elsewhere which show unrelated chamfers, mouldings and mortices, etc. Some structural elements have been moved around within the house, eg a mullion from one window has been re-used in another opening. Some of the reconstruction is speculative and whole areas of the new works are purely modern in conception, eg a small room in one of the hall bays which has a heavy beamed counterchanged ceiling. One-and-a-half storeys, rubble stone, slate roof, large gabled dormer with exposed timber framed front, the upper storey projects slightly and has an ovolo moulded bressummer. Large rubble ridge stack with three diagonally set brick uppers (the bricks do not appear to be early), further recently built stack to the south. Rubble stone porch with timber framed gable. Very fine door with frame dated 1661, the door constructed externally of framed vertical boards with ovolo moulded vertical battens and internally of horizontal boards with a mitred frame. The door has been re-set lower down and a glazed overlight inserted. Substantial door surround with ogee mouldings. Further modern door at right-hand end. The oriel mullion window in the dormer is a modern construction but may have some historical validity. There is a cellar with cobbled edging to flag floor beneath C18 wing.  

The original structure consisted of a two-bay open hall with a two-bay service end and room or rooms at the upper end where the C18 wing stood. The three full cruck trusses which framed the hall survive and there are partial remains of a fourth cruck and further partition framing at the lower end. The central hall truss is arch-braced with chamfered soffit and cusping above the collar forming a quatrefoil and two trefoils. All the trusses have a butted apex. The two closed trusses either end of the hall have notched, lap-jointed head-height rail and two collars, a tall queen post and queen struts, three tiers of chamfered purlins and long windbraces (virtually all modern copies). The roof and wall timbers of the hall bays show some original smoke-blackening; it is not possible to be certain of the other bays. Some sections of original smoke blackened plaster infill panels have recently been removed without detailed recording and sandblasting has also taken place. Two reconstructed doorways in the upper end partition have pointed arch heads. The position of the original doorways leading to the lower end bays is denoted by interrupted chamfers along the head rail. There are substantial chamfered and scroll stopped ceiling beams presumably dating to c.1661 and a large inserted "back to back" stone chimney stack, the fireplace on the northern side had an ornate timber mantel but this has been cut away in the past. Over the mantel shelf is a frieze of painted plaster, partly damaged by crude morta repairs and partially obscured by wallpaper but with two heraldic beasts visible, unicorn and lion (?). The stairs are modern in C17 style with pierced splat balusters.  

Included, despite the recent changes in character, because of the late medieval origins and surviving cruck trusses.