Bryncambric Farmhouse

Bryncambric Farmhouse

This is a farmhouse of 14th or 15th century cruck construction with late 16th or early 17th century inserted floors. It has been refenestrated and extended in the late 20th century. The building is timber-framed with walls of limewashed local stone rubble and a thatch roof of reeds, which replaced an earlier gorse thatch. It has a stone ridge and end stacks.

The farmhouse survives as four bays defined by three pairs of crucks, with two bays within the cruck-framing containing upper and lower outer units. A fourth pair of crucks was found in fragmentary form in the downhill gable end. The building is aligned northwest to southeast and set into the hillside.

The northeast elevation has a range of four windows of unequal size and spacing, stepped downhill with stone sills and wooden lintels. All windows have replaced casement glazing in the original openings. The three upper uphill windows are eyebrow dormers. The main entrance is now through a 20th century thatched roofed porch, with a wide internal doorway opening onto the chimney breast in 'baffle entry' style.

The west elevation has two eyebrow dormers and two small ground floor casements with replaced glazing in the downhill units, below a small doorway with a later, now unused, corrugated porch. The uphill gable end has no openings; downhill openings are altered. A matching extension wing was constructed to the south in 2002.

Interior features include internal timber-framed partitions traditionally plastered, with timbers keyed. One exposed wattle panel remains and one has been remade using the original slots. External walls have no such remains, suggesting the timber-framing was replaced with stone perhaps in the 19th century before being wallpapered; 13 layers of wallpaper were found.

The downhill unit may have been adapted from stock accommodation, with evidence of a slurry opening in the side wall. A fireplace was later created on the other side of the main stack. The main living room is accessed from here adjacent to the main entrance, with an internal passage skirting the stack. There is an open fireplace with a heavy chamfered timber bressumer abutting the cruck-blade. Above is a heavy chequerboard ceiling comprising a grid of deeply chamfered and stopped beams creating four compartments with joists grouped at right angles to each other. None of the timbers has been stained black. A window has unequal splays. A timber-framed partition on a stone sill has a replaced wattle partition.

Steps lead up to a 'hall' or staircase bay with a similar ceiling grid of chamfered and stopped beams, though here the joists are all parallel to the frontage. Fine wide floorboards of the upper storey rest on the joists. Stairs, remade in the late 20th century, rise against the northeast wall.

The upper unit has a second open fireplace with a lightly chamfered bressumer and a deep bread oven, with recesses for tallow and salt. A historic wattle partition is opposite. The ceiling comprises parallel spine beams, chamfered and stopped, with joists at right angles. Set into the west wall are three alcoves with timber surrounds or lintels, one with a stone shelf and one thought to have been a spice cupboard with a boarded back and the imprint of butterfly hinges. Floors throughout are mostly flags.

Upstairs, the three pairs of crucks at acute angles are fully visible with collars at different heights, ridge beams, trenched purlins (though in the centre bay these are set well back from the crucks), and principal rafters visible in the plastered ceiling. There are three bedrooms and a 'landing' or staircase bay. The timbers are smoke-blackened.

The building was originally a cruck-framed single storey hall house, tentatively dated to the 14th century. Most Shropshire crucks are 15th century, though other whole tree trusses in Shropshire which have been dendro-dated are later 13th century, such as Cruck Cottage at Upton Magna and Stokesay Castle. Here the two uphill trusses are of whole trees whereas the lower truss is of sawn timbers. A further pair of crucks was recorded in fragmentary condition in the downhill gable end. The better finished truss indicates the higher status end of the original hall, a status continued in the later chequerboard ceiling. There is also some evidence for former passing windbraces. The floors with fine beamed ceilings were inserted in the late 16th or early 17th century. When a staircase became necessary to give access to upper floors, it is thought to have occupied the upper cruck bay, as it does now. The Tithe Map shows a series of small enclosures just above the farm track with the large open hilltop of Caer Caradoc, an important Iron-Age hillfort, above. 'Brincambric' appears in sizeable lettering suggesting a significant building; the only other nearby building shown, on The Patch a little to the northwest, no longer exists. Many of the internal features had been concealed by partitions, blockings or applied modern surfaces and were revealed during repairs in the late 1990s.