Glogue Farmhouse

Cadw's description

Location

About 4km E of Crymych, to W of minor road between Hermon and Tegryn, near disused quarry.

History

Farmhouse on site of gentry house of the Owen family from C17. The house had four hearths in 1670, Thomas Owen died 1768, and his wife married John Ferrier, there in 1786. Sold and presumably rebuilt in late C18 or early C19 to another family called Owen. John Owen owner 1834, with 268 acres. The house was from then linked to the Glogue slate quarry, the most important in Pembrokeshire. The quarry allegedly dating back to 1685 was working in the 1830s-40s with up to 50 men, reduced to 20 by 1854. The quarry produced roofing slates but was better for slabs, for flooring, dairying, billiard-tables, even coffins. When John Owen Sr leased the quarry to John Owen Jr in 1866 there were some 60 men employed. It suffered from the expense of transport to the railway at Clunderwen. The younger Owen backed the Whitland & Taf Vale Railway, and just before the opening in 1873 sought to float the Glogue Quarry Slate & Slab Co. with the backing of other railway and slate speculators including W. H. Yelverton of Whitland Abbey and the architect E. W. Godwin. The floatation did not succeed, the new railway did not increase sales, and the slate boom collapsed in 1876. Owen sought to diversify into bricks from slate waste and then offered to sell shortly before his death in 1886. Owen's nephew bought it prior to sale, tried to float a Glogue Brick and Slate Works Co in 1890, and worked the quarry until 1905. In 1906 taken over by a local syndicate led by Griffith Thomas. After 1920 refinanced and re-equipped, 80 men were briefly employed but with the end of the post-war building boom brick-making ceased and little slate was sold. Closed 1926. When listed in 1997 the house was in course of renovation, work incomplete 2004. The forecourt terrace walls with copings and gatepiers in cut slate mentioned in 1997 are eroded.

Exterior

House, whitewashed rubble stone with slate roofs and renewed chimneys. Two-storey, three-window front range with end stacks (rendered in 1997, now cut slate with dripstones and cornices), windows mostly removed for restoration: 4-pane sashes above, one in situ, and centre door. The front was slate-hung in 1997. Upper windows have renewed slate lintels, ground floor windows have cut stone painted voussoirs, possibly Bath stone. Centre door is heightened in later C19, with timber lintel and overlight. Rubble stone right end wall has window each floor to right, in end of rear outshut. Rendered left end with 12-pane sash to ground floor left. Rear wing partly of rubble stone partly rebuilt in blockwork, in 1997 it was a two-window range with three sashes and a door.

Interior

Interior not available for inspection. In 1997 there were some chamfered beams, flagged floors, a slate partition near rear wing entry, slate sinks in rear outshut, and pegged roof trusses.

Reason for designation

Included for its special interest as a house with C18 origins, of late Georgian character, and for historical connection with the Glogue slate quarry and the Whitland & Taf Vale railway.