A Wander Through 'Timber-Land'

Close-timbered house in Pembridge

A quiet weekend, digging and delving (aka 'war against the grond elder!!'), unlike the weekend before, when we made a foray into beautiful Herefordshire to attend a family wedding. I have not been to that exact part of the country for over 25 years, so it was a delightful reminder to return and find that things had changed very little.

There is a quilt hanging in Leominster Priory, showing various aspects of the local countryside, with the script 'the Land that Time Forgot' embroidered below and for once, it did not seem to be a hyperbolic description - the towns and villages are still very much as I remember towns and village from my childhood and youth in Wales - which could be summed up as 'big skies, a slower pace and a lack of monster plate glass shop windows' - know what I mean?

 

Quilt in Leominster Priory

 

Quilt key

I live in an old house, and I am used to seeing pretty cottages dotted about the countryside here in Hampshire. In Herefordshire, I was lucky enough to visit several very untouched villages and towns, noticing that old buildings are very much more evident there because of the presence of blackened  timber frames, infilled with both brick (as is Autumn Cottage) but also the earlier, 'wattle and daub' woven hazel panels, coated with a horsehair/mud/cow dung mixture.

The timber framing creates the characteristic 'black and white' houses of Herefordshire (you can actually follow a 'Black and White villages'  trail from Leominster), many of which survive from very early periods (a rule of thumb being that the closer together the framing is, the earlier the building, stemming from the greater availability of timber when Britain was a more extensively wooded landscape, earlier in our architectural history). You can see, lower down, the notice board giving details of a dendrochronology (tree ring) dating project in the village of Pembridge.

I spent an idyllic, sunny Sunday afternoon meandering through a few such villages - here are some of the  images that I captured of those streets and houses, which you may enjoy (virtually!) walking past as well…

Woven hazel stakes - the 'wattle' - visible above the front door of a house in Pembridge

 

 Lattice-paned windows

 

Steps leading up to the front door - the planter filled with  patriotic red, white and blue flowers for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee

 

The 'New Inn' hostelry and ancient covered  market  in Pembridge (with a somewhat more modern Harley Davidson parked alongside!)

 

Dendrochronology datinmg project on some of the Pembridge houses

 

The river at Eardisland

 

Less wood in this timber frame at Eardisland

 

Sunlight through heleniums

 

God Bless Her Majesty!!

Comments

[Margaret Lambert]

It's always a relief to know that some beautiful places are unchanged. Love the dendrochronology for the village! It's fun to know just how old "ye olde" is. How nice to have gone back, after a long while, and not be disappointed.

[Jamie]

Would some of these houses have had thatched roofs, back in their early lives? I'm totally ignorant about these things!

[Hannah]

Since moving to Aberystwyth we've grown very fond of that part of the world - driving to the south of the UK involves the A44 which takes you through Pembridge and a host of other black and white villages.

A work friend co-runs Ye Olde Steppes in Pembridge, with his partner Gary, which is pretty much perfect cup-of-tea distance (just under 2h drive) from Aberystwyth. I thoroughly recommend them for all your tea and cake needs.

http://www.yeoldesteppes.co.uk/

[BrittArnhild]

Yes. I LOVE your part of the world :-) And one day I´ll be there.

[Gracie]

I just love those old houses and every time I see photos of where you live my longing to be back there grows bigger and bigger.....

[Heat Treated Pallets Dubai]

Wow the house built with timber is very traditional and happy to live.