Can you help me date this?

[FamilyWiggs]

We've always been led to believe that our North Wales farmhouse is late 16th / early 17th century.

Here are some of what we believe to be orginal fabric - can anyone confirm or otherwise our date assumptions?

Thanks all.


Horrible lights now gone - this was taken before we moved in.

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[FamilyWiggs]

View attachment 1


(new header stone, but uprights original.)

 

[Gareth Hughes]

circa 1600 (like a builder's estimate, that's actually 1550-1650) looks about right. The round-headed dorway to the porch is quite sophisticated and I'd put it just post-1600 rather than pre.

 

[biffvernon]

That fireplace is very like some illustrated in Elements of Style ed. Stephen Calloway, which gives a date of early to mid 16th century.
My wife says she used to live in a house with a fireplace just like that built in 1565.
The telephone wires and velux window, however, suggest 20th century.

 

[Hatster]

absolutely charming pics - you must love living there!

 

[JoceAndChris]

I also love seeing pics of your house Robin- complete porn, lovely.

 

[Penners]

The telephone wires and velux window, however, suggest 20th century.

And I doubt whether the hanging baskets are original. Sorry.

I defer to those much more knowledgeable than I, but to my untutored eye it certainly looks Elizabethan/Jacobean.

Wonderful woven wattle (and everything else!).

 

[yamin]

Just gorgeous, no good on dating I'm afraid, but can you post a pic of the whole house?

 

[Gareth Hughes]

Is it on Coflein?

http://jura.rcahms.gov.uk/COFLEIN/Map

 

[Penners]

Not sure about that link, Gareth. It gave me a map of Scotland.

Unless.... is Wales in Scotland? I've never been sure.

 

[Gareth Hughes]

That's bizarre, it just did the same for me, but it was fine when I posted it.
I'll have another go:
http://jura.rcahms.gov.uk/COFLEIN/Map

(edit; no, it goes to the Scottish version, canmore, not coflein!)

Or Google coflein and choose Cymraeg or English according to taste, and then the map search...

 

[Cloudscape]

http://www.coflein.gov.uk

I'd never seen the site before. Most interesting. Thanks for the info. The info for our village seems not to have been updated since 2000, but a lot of local buildings are included. I was quite relieved to see our local red phone box was also included.

Are old-style red phone boxes listed/protected? I've been worried about ours since someone nicked the entire phone. I'm worried that BT will give up on it.

 

[Schoolmarm]

Yes, they can be, ours in the village is.

 

[FamilyWiggs]

Thanks all for your comments - esp Gareth, Biff for their "professional" views. It looks like what we are told is correct, or it may even be a little earlier. We have some lovely outbuildings which although typical for a Welsh hill farm, are we think a little later. There seems to be an addition also at a different time for a cart store. Will try and post some pics as dating those would also be interesting to us.

Hatster/Joce/Yamin - yes we love living here and can not imagine ever moving. The mortgage is eye-watering, but we feel very very lucky to have got the house. Will try and dig out some more pics.

As you can see, we have a fair amount of cement pointing to attack, but we're doing internal stuff at present - mainly because fortunately damp is a minor problem and the roof, etc are pretty sound. I also want to tak time to work out what to do with the windows, and the stone which is in poorest condition (mullions, porch arch, etc). I have wondered if the arch is original - as it is made of a different (and much softer) stone than the walls and mullions.

That fireplace is very like some illustrated in Elements of Style ed. Stephen Calloway, which gives a date of early to mid 16th century.
My wife says she used to live in a house with a fireplace just like that built in 1565.
The telephone wires and velux window, however, suggest 20th century.

Looks a fab book on Amazon, but very expensive. Need to get t'library to get a copy out methinks. Yes I had begun to wonder if the electric and velux windows were not quite original...

Is it on Coflein?

No - and I was puzzled too by the Scottish link for a while. Coflein/RCAHMS is great.

Thanks again all. Update on doorframe progress is delayed - am currently using my new-found woordworking skills (well enthusiasm plus "big boys toys"!) to build a router table in order to rout the simple decoration on the frame.

 

[FamilyWiggs]

Incidentally there are some whacking great stones that have been used in various places as "foundation" - both for the house and the outbuildings. They are out of line vertically with the wall above and not as dressed as the wall stones - is it likely that these may have been what was left from a former building?

The other thing that troubles me about our location (both historically and also planning for future apocalyptic scenarios!) is the lack of water nearby. There is a spring in a field about 300-400 yards away. If the house is 16th century, is this too far away a supply for a large farmhouse? Should I be looking for a well source nearer to the house/farm? We are basically sitting on a shallow amount of soil andthen solid rock (as I can testify every time I do a bit of fencing in the fields!).

How exactly does one go about finding water/an old well? :?: (And before Penners posts a pic of same, we've already had the mad Corsican great aunt doing her divining trick with some sticks - she failed to find either water or my wedding ring... )

 

[Schoolmarm]

Something we also found whenever fencing, all the rocks. It drives husband mad.
I have worked out that all the lines we are fencing were old dry stone walls. Usually they fall sideways and gradually become nearly invisible but they are there on all the sensible fencelines underground, waiting to hinder posts going in.

 

[Penners]

the mad Corsican great aunt doing her divining trick with some sticks

Well, I'll tell you a story about water divining.

A couple of years ago on our village Open Gardens day, I visited a neighbour's garden. He had a couple of divining rods (ie: straightened wire coathangers bent at 90 degrees and inserted into biro tubes), lying on the garden table. "Come on," I said diplomatically, "you don't believe in that rubbish, do you?"

The neighbour pressed the divining rods into my hands and told me to walk around on his lawn. Hoping for a laugh at his expense, I did so.

As I crossed the failr large lawn the horizontal rods suddenly swung quite rapidly inwards, so that they crossed. I wlked across another area and the same thing happened. This was repeated about six times.

"You might like to know," said my smug neighbour, "that you have just exactly mapped the line of our water main", and he showed me the line from the water company's stopcock outside the hedge to the rising main inside the house. It was an exact match to my rod "reactions".

Honestly!

 

[biffvernon]

Something we also found whenever fencing, all the rocks. It drives husband mad.
I have worked out that all the lines we are fencing were old dry stone walls. Usually they fall sideways and gradually become nearly invisible but they are there on all the sensible fencelines underground, waiting to hinder posts going in.

Well, to state the beedin' obvious, you shouldn't be fencing, you should be walling. It's the local tradition, the materials are already on site, waiting to be reused, it does not involve the mining, transport and carbon footprint of wire, it looks a whole lot nicer, costs nothing and even saves you money as the exercise will avoid you having to go to the gym. No brainer.

 

[Schoolmarm]

As a hobbyist dry stone waller I agree. But to temporarily replace the trashed sheep fencing to keep our sheep in is the only option.

And the original wall line is kept for whenever anyone wants to get stuck in.

It is too huge an undertaking though. I do have my eye on some possible areas of digging out all the stone and rebuilding but honestly it would be damn near impossible in some areas as there is barely any sign at all so to dig out would create a huge trench.

 

[FamilyWiggs]

Biff - you arer right. My life's ambition (I kid you not) is to have repaired the house, planted a load of oak and fruit trees, done up the outbuildings and repaired the miles of stone walling I have. If I have time when that lot is finished, (currently 36) I hope to relax and enjoy it for a wee while before the gene-puddle dump me in a hole somewhere on the land.

In the meantime, the sheep and cows need restraining...