Grace Evans Cottage

Cadw's description

Location

On the W corner with Red Bank, alongside the E entrance to the churchyard.

Exterior

History: The house is named after a maid of Lady Nithsdale (a daughter of the First Marquis of Powis), who is said to have helped to rescue Lord Nithsdale from imprisonment in the tower of London in 1716. The cottage is variously described as her birthplace, or as a gift to her on her return to Welshpool in 1735. The building itself appears to be a late example of timber-framed construction - perhaps early C18 - with C19 enlargements and alterations to the rear. It was extensively restored in the late C19 (some time after 1873), when a thatched roof was replaced and the timberwork exposed and painted.

Description: Front wall is timber framed: box framing in large square panels with thin timbers (which had been exposed and enriched with painted quatrefoil decoration in the late C19 restoration); painted brick panel infil. Painted rubble gable end walls. Brick to rear. Slate roof with brick gable-end stacks. One and a half storeys, 2-unit plan, with doorway to left of centre in trellis-work porch, flanked by iron small-paned casement windows projecting slightly. Similar windows in gabled dormers above.

An unusual survival of a small vernacular cottage in an urban context which forms an important element in a group of structures around the church; the building is also of historical interest for its association with Grace Evans.

References: Anon, 'Herbertiana', Montgomeryshire Collections, Vol.5, 1872, pp.368-378;
Anon, 'Welshpool: Materials for the History of the Parish and Borough', Montgomeryshire Collections, Vol.14, 1881, p.218;
Eva Bredsdorff, Welshpool in Old Photographs, 1993, pp.31, 40;
Ion Trant, The Changing Face of Welshpool, 1986, p.122;