Chimney beside the old Village Pound

Location

75 m S of St Florence Church, at the junction of two village streets.

History

Possibly C17. The building to which this chimney was attached appears on the Tithe Survey map of 1840, where it is apparently included in the vicarial glebe together with the adjacent village pound. It is not numbered separately from the pound or indicated as a cottage, and no occupant is named. It was demolished in the early C20, leaving the chimney free-standing, but an old photograph has been published by the Western Telegraph. It was a small single-storey building in rubble masonry, scarcely wider than the chimney itself, thatched, and with gables facing E and W. The marks of the W gable are still visible on the chimney. Part of the S wall survives to a height of about 2 m, and part of the floor may also survive as the site has been raised and grassed over.

This chimney has gained and still enjoys considerable notice in local tourism literature. Such chimneys are often popularly referred to as 'Flemish' (or very occasionally Dutch) from an old theory (popularised by the artist Charles Norris in the early C19) that the architectural peculiarities of Pembrokeshire S of the Landsker were attributable to the early C12 Flemish immigrants; St. Florence, in particular, was thought to be a Flemish village.

Exterior

A chimney about 6 m high, now standing in isolation. The hearth is exceptionally large, about 2 m deep by 2.5 m wide, with a very shallow segmental arch. The height of this arch above floor level is obscured because the original floor has been buried or perhaps destroyed. The rear of the chimney faces W, and on this side the main block is vertical. The E face is slightly inclined, and there are marks of the attachment to the lost building. The N and S flanks are steeply inclined following the gather of the flue. The top section is probably only the remnant of a slightly tapering circular shaft standing above a drip-course, slightly off-set to the W side. The shaft is about 1 m diameter and survives to a height of 1 m. Unlike other examples of the very large chimneys which are such a conspicuous feature of local traditional domestic architecture, there are no ovens or other internal recesses, and no remnants of iron bars or other artefacts set into the stonework.

Reason for designation

Listed as an exceptionally fine chimney and a South Pembrokeshire landmark.