Harp Cottage

Cadw's description

Location

Located approximately 2.3km SSE of Leighton church on N side of a minor road between Forden and Trelystan. The house stands at the S edge of a woodland plantation.

History

Late 1850s and possibly by W.H. Gee for John Naylor's Leighton Estate. Naylor, a Liverpool banker, had acquired the Leighton Estate in 1846-47 and embarked on an ambitious programme of building, notably Leighton Hall, church and Leighton Farm, all designed by Gee and largely completed by the mid 1850s. Naylor continued to extend and improve the Estate until his death in 1889, during which time a number of dwellings were built. These dwellings exhibit a clear hierarchy of status between the lodges faced in stone, generally in prominent locations, and the humbler brick labourers’ cottages. Naylor’s grandson, Captain J.M. Naylor, sold Leighton Hall and the Estate in 1931.

Exterior

Single-storey cottage of brick with rock-faced quoins and plinth band, and hipped slate roof with central brick stack, which has rock-faced quoins and 3 square pots. The cottage is double fronted with centrally-placed boarded door and 12-pane sash windows in dressed stone surrounds. Similar windows in the 2-window R side wall and single-window rear. (L side wall has modern single storey extension to L.)

Interior

Not inspected (November-December 1996) but rooms probably planned around central chimney.

Reason for designation

The Leighton Estate is an exceptional example of high-Victorian estate development. It is remarkable for the scale and ambition of its conception and planning, the consistency of its design, the extent of its survival, and is the most complete example of its type in Wales. Harp Cottage is an important element of this whole ensemble at Leighton. As a small labourer's cottage it is characteristic of the Leighton Estate, and its plainness in comparison with the lodges and dwellings at Leighton Farm expresses the hierarchy of estate buildings.