Flemish Cottage

Cadw's description

Location

On the S side of the road opposite Pembroke Castle and some 65m E of Monkton Bridge.

History

House of medieval origin, in row inside the former West Gate of the town. The houses are elevated on bedrock, but the roadway has been lowered since medieval times. The undercroft under the main part of the house is large, said to have been the town lock-up. The crosswing may be a C16 addition. Illustrated in 1881, showing the crosswing undercroft doorway blocked and a gable chimney.

Exterior

House in irregular row, rubble stone with close eaved slate roofs, and short stone right end stack. Two storeys with cellar. Irregular front elevation of roughly three bays with projecting gabled crosswing to right, the gable ridge below main range eaves level. Cross-wing has blocked chamfered cambered arch to undercroft, the head a single block with relieving arch over, infilled with small inserted casement-pair window; corbelling above, under ground floor casement-pair with stone voussoirs, and gable over. Centre has lean-to ground floor projection with slate roof, half-hipped at left, with casement-pair window in front wall with stone voussoirs, and 9-pane casement in left return wall. To extreme left is a flat-headed doorway with sloping slate hood, reached by outside steps and platform across front of No 8. Entrance door is recessed within, to right. First floor has a casement-pair window under eaves. Low-pitched roof has C20 eaves board. Right end has first floor triple casement with stone voussoirs to left of raised chimneybreast (probably the chimney of No 10).
Rear has slit window to first floor, and, to E, a Flemish chimney comprising massive rectangular chimney projection with deep sloping offsets and a D-plan chimney stack, perhaps originally circular, with added flue. Slit window lighting fireplace. Door to left.

Interior

Inside, stone steps against S wall descend to a segmentally-arched undercroft under main part of the house, with stone walls and flattened pointed vaulted roof and with iron rings in wall, the last apparently dating from use as a lock-up. Undercroft is slightly set into bedrock at front end, almost wholly subterranean at S end. At bottom of present steps from ground floor was a Tudor-arched doorway with rough rubble voussoirs, the jamb and head not keyed into the vaulting. Recess in E wall, and blocked splayed window in N wall. Access originally was from under crosswing, a short flat-vaulted piece inside blocked door, a second doorway with surviving chamfered broach-stopped jambs, and two steps down into main vaulted room.

Reason for designation

Graded II* as an exceptional medieval house with vaulted undercroft and circular Flemish chimney.