The Lack, Brompton

The Lack

The Lack, Brompton/Churchstoke
Coordinates 52°32′15″N 3°05′05″W / 52.5376°N 3.0848°WCoordinates: 52°32′15″N 3°05′05″W / 52.5376°N 3.0848°W
OS grid reference SO2651693860
Built Late16th Century. Timber-framed Severn Valley
Architectural style(s) Timber framed house with 20th century additions
Invalid designation
Designated 1 December 1951
Reference no. 257342
Location in Shropshire


The Lack is a Grade II* Listed Building, formerly in the historic parish of Churchstoke but now in the parish of Chirbury with Brompton in Shropshire. It is likely to have been built in the latter part of the 16th. century.[1]

Architectural Description

A farmhouse dating from the later part of the 16th century with later additions and alterations. Timber framed with plaster and painted brick infill and a slate roof. It has a lobby-entrance of “Severn Valley” [2] type with the doorway leading into a lobby set against the centrally placed chimney stack. The house consists of four framed bays, with one to the left of the entrance. It is two storied house of transitional or ‘‘sub-medieval’’ form with a jettied first floor with a richly moulded bressumer supported on decorated carved brackets.

leftThe Lack, Brompton/Churchstoke

The timber-framing of the house is close-studded with vertical posts to the ground. The upper floor has herringbone/lozenge decoration to front; jetty also on second floor to right gable end; small square panels to rear on first floor with ground floor under-built in brick. Left bay in C19 brick now painted black and white in imitation of timber frame.

The Lack, Brompton/Churchstoke

The windows are late 19th century casements; first-floor window of right gable end has a moulded woodencill of an earlier window. Brick addition has segmental-headed casement. The interior has been considerably altered in the early 20th century with new staircase and fireplaces but retains chamfered cross-beam ceiling with ogee stops to right ground-floor room.[3]

Comparisons

An immediate comparison to the ‘’The Lack’’ is Glas Hirfryn in Llansilin on the Denbighshire/Montgomeryshire border. This has identical paterned herringbone timbers on the upper storey and similar close studding to the ground floor. It is similarly jettied with decorative brackets supporting the bressumer. Glas Hirfryn has been dated by dendrochronology to 1559 or shortly afterwards. The use of similar decorative brackets to support a bressumer can also be seen on the much larger Trewern Hall in Montgomeryshire.[4]

References

  1. Moran M. (2003), ‘‘Vernacular Buildings in Shropshire’’,Logaston Press pg. 396
  2. Smith P. (1975), Houses of the Welsh Countryside HMSO, pg 457
  3. Scourfield R. and Haslam R. (2013), The Buildings of Wales: Powys; Montgomeryshire, Radnorshire and Breconshire, Yale University Press.pp. 262-3.

Literature

External Links