Cilthriew is a Grade II listed house and former farm in

Kerry, Powys Kerry () is a village and geographically large Community (Wales), community in Montgomeryshire, Powys, Wales. The village lies on the A489 road southeast of Newtown, Powys, Newtown and possesses two public house, pubs — the Herbert Arms and ...

, in the historic county of

Montgomeryshire Montgomeryshire ( ) was Historic counties of Wales, one of the thirteen counties of Wales that existed from 1536 until their abolishment in 1974. It was named after its county town, Montgomery, Powys, Montgomery, which in turn was named after ...

, now

Powys Powys ( , ) is a Principal areas of Wales, county and Preserved counties of Wales, preserved county in Wales. It borders Gwynedd, Denbighshire, and Wrexham County Borough, Wrexham to the north; the English Ceremonial counties of England, ceremo ...

. Cilthriew was used by the Papworth Trust which provided a range of high quality services for disabled and disadvantaged people. Cilthriew provided free short breaks for disabled people and their families in a farm surrounding.

History

In the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

Cilthriew was one of the

townships A township is a form of human settlement or administrative subdivision. Its exact definition varies among countries. Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, this tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, Canad ...

in Kerry. The township is also referred to as ''Kilroith'' or ''Kilroyth''. Richard Williams makes the claim that Cilthriew and the neighbouring house of Brynllywarch (which was also a township) were in the ownership of the Pugh (ap Hugh) family from at least 1500. A William Pugh of Kilroith is mentioned in 1632, when he purchased from Ann Foxe, widow of Somerset Foxe lands in Kilroith including ''Maes y Deynant'' William Pugh of ‘‘Kilthrew’’ was the Sheriff of Montgomeryshire in 1767 and his son William, who was also Sheriff of Montgomeryshire in 1813, became a very successful attorney and purchased the Caer Howell estate in Montgomery. His son was the notable William Pugh, an

entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value in ways that generally entail beyond the minimal amount of risk (assumed by a traditional business), and potentially involving values besides simply economic ones. An entreprene ...

, who did much to develop trade and infrastructure in the Montgomeryshire

Severn The River Severn (, ), at long, is the longest river in Great Britain. It is also the river with the most voluminous flow of water by far in all of England and Wales, with an average flow rate of at Apperley, Gloucestershire. It rises in t ...

valley. He paid for the final extension of the Montgomery Canal from

Berriew Berriew () is a village and Community (Wales), community in Montgomeryshire, Powys, Wales. It is on the Montgomeryshire Canal and the Afon Rhiw, near the confluence (Welsh: ''aber'') with the River Severn (Welsh language, Welsh: Hafren, Afon Hafr ...

to Newtown, and for various road building schemes including a road from

Abermule Abermule () is a village lying on the River Severn 6 km (4 miles) northeast of Newtown, Powys, Newtown in Powys, mid Wales. The A483 road, A483 Swansea to Chester trunk road, the Cambrian Line railway, connecting Aberystwyth to Shrewsbury, ...

along the Mule valley. In Newtown he encouraged the growth of the textile industry and was responsible for the Flannel exchange, designed by

Thomas Penson Thomas Penson, or Thomas Penson the younger, (c. 1790 – 1859) was the county surveyor of Denbighshire and Montgomeryshire, and an innovative architect and designer of a number of masonry arch bridges over the River Severn and elsewhere. Fa ...

. In 1828 he sold the Caer Howell estate, using the proceeds to develop Brynllywarch. For this work he may have employed T G Newnham and J W Poundley as his architects and surveyors. His schemes were over ambitious and in June 1835 he fled to

Caen Caen (; ; ) is a Communes of France, commune inland from the northwestern coast of France. It is the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Departments of France, department of Calvados (department), Calvados. The city proper has 105,512 inha ...

in Normandy to escape his creditors. This resulted in the Brynllywarch and Cilthriew estates, which then consisted of 27 farms, being sold in 1839 to Richard Leyland (Bullin), a very wealthy banker from Liverpool. Leyland was to give these estates, together with the Leighton Hall Estates to his nephew John Naylor in 1846. The very detailed survey of the estates purchased by Leyland and later John Naylor, drawn up by J W Poundley, is now in the

National Library of Wales The National Library of Wales (, ) in Aberystwyth is the national legal deposit library of Wales and is one of the Welsh Government sponsored bodies. It is the biggest library in Wales, holding over 6.5 million books and periodicals, and the l ...

. John Naylor died on13th July 1889 and the estates continued in the Naylor family ownership until about 1930, when the various farms including Cilthriew were sold.

Architectural description

Originally a ‘‘sub-medieval’’ timber-framed house of Peter Smith’s ‘‘Lobby Entrance Houses’’ dating to the later years of the 16th century. The house is orientated NW-SE on a flat recessed area before a rising hill (as the Welsh name ''Cil-Rhiew'' would appear to suggest). A porch on the NW side suggests that this was a standard ‘‘lobby-entrance’’ house and there is a large rectangular stone chimney stack which is placed directly in front of the entrance, originally forming a lobby. The chimney stack, consisting of three brick chimneys of ''stellar'' form, is a fine example of type that occurs in the last two or three decades of the 16th century in this area. Peter Smith in ''Houses of the Welsh Countryside'' has mapped the occurrence of these chimney stacks (including Cilthriew), which are distributed mainly in North West Wales, along the border with England. The existence of an ''ornate doorhead'' cut into a wall plate at 1st floor level, may represent an early alteration to the house. Major alterations were made in the late 18th century or more probably in the 1840s, when Cilthriew was acquired by the Brynllywarch Estates. The house was transected by two stone wings (at right angles and aligned NE-SW) which override the earlier timber-framed structure. The timber-framed structure survives within the stone wings, but it was then chopped off to the off to the SW. When the house was altered it was re-roofed with very fine massive ''tun'' slates above the eaves and with graduated slates up to the ridge. This is a very rare survival of a technique common in the 18th century, but in this case it may later. At the N E in the angle between the timber framed house and the stone wing is a slightly sunken room, described as a ‘’cellar’’, but almost certainly a dairy, as it would have been ideal for cooling milk. Brick ranges have been added to the SW with a doorway and a dormer with two arched windows above. This has been done in a ‘‘Tudoresque ‘’ or

Jacobethan The Jacobethan ( ) architectural style, also known as Jacobean Revival, is the mixed national Renaissance revival style that was made popular in England from the late 1820s, which derived most of its inspiration and its repertory from the Engli ...

style and must be contemporary with the carved

bargeboards A bargeboard or rake fascia is a board fastened to each projecting gable of a roof to give it strength and protection, and to conceal the otherwise exposed end grain of the horizontal timbers or purlins of the roof. The word ''bargeboard'' is pro ...

on the gables and shaped brackets on either side of an upper chamber window on the timber framed section. These additions give Cilthriew a

Cottage orné dates back to a movement of "rustic" stylised cottages of the late 18th and early 19th centuries during the Romantic movement, when some sought to discover a more natural way of living as opposed to the formality of the preceding Baroque and Neo ...

appearance suggesting that it is the work of an estate architecture, working for the Naylors, most probably John Wilkes Poundley, who published "Poundley’s Cottage Architecture" in 1857.J D K Lloyd, John Wilkes Poundley: A Montgomeryshire Architect, ‘‘Montgomeryshire Collections’’ 65, 1977,47–56. Poundley had his offices at the adjacent Blackhall File:Cilthriew, Kerry, (Montgomeryshire) 07.JPG, Victorian brick extension with arched dormer windows and arched doorway File:Cilthriew, Kerry, (Montgomeryshire) 04.JPG, The older timber-framed house on the NW side File:Cilthriew, Kerry, (Montgomeryshire) 05.JPG, Stone wing with “tun” slates and stellar chimney File:Cilthriew, Kerry, (Montgomeryshire) 06.JPG, Brick extension with dormer to SW File:Cilthriew, Kerry, (Montgomeryshire) 10.jpg, Porch to “Lobby entrance File:Cilthriew, Kerry, (Montgomeryshire) 08.jpg, End brick gable of stone wing with Tudoresque window detailing File:Cilthriew, Kerry, (Montgomeryshire) 09.JPG, Victorian bargeboard detail File:Cilthriew, Kerry, (Montgomeryshire) 11.JPG, Interior timber framing File:Cilthriew, Kerry, (Montgomeryshire) 12.JPG, Beam with label stop File:Cilthriew, Kerry, (Montgomeryshire) 13.JPG, Beam with label stop File:Cilthriew, Kerry, (Montgomeryshire) 15.JPG, Raised floor level File:Cilthriew, Kerry, (Montgomeryshire) 03.JPG, Converted barn

References

{{Reflist, 2 Houses in Powys Grade II listed buildings in Powys Timber-framed houses in Wales Farms in Wales Buildings and structures in Powys Hall houses

History

Architectural description

See also

References