Egryn: Conservation of a Working Farm

Egryn is a working farm on the west coast of Meirionnydd, Wales. Its cultural landscape represents a fascinating slice of history, and includes a collection of buildings and monuments ranging from Neolithic long cairns to twentieth-century manganese workings encompassing a Bronze Age stone circle, an Iron Age round house, early medieval platform sites, a sixteenth-century hall house, a seventeenth-century house, and eighteenth- and nineteenth-century agricultural buildings. The medieval house is Grade II*-listed, while all the other buildings are Grade II-listed and the majority of the archaeological sites are Scheduled Ancient Monuments.

The farm was given to the National Trust in 2000, and provided an exciting challenge; how should the property be cared for using the highest building conservation standards, whilst giving public access to both the buildings and the landscape, and supporting the continuation of farming on the site?

Figure 9 The spere truss following restoration using green oak. Compare the quatrefoil openings above the collar with the perspective reconstruction before detailed investigation had been carried out, showing trefoil-headed openings.

Liz Green

Since 2002, Liz Green has been National Trust Curator for North and Mid Wales and, more recently, two small areas of Northern Ireland. She graduated from Nottingham University with a BA (Hons) in Architecture in 1994 and completed her PhD on the Medieval Hall Houses of North and East Wales in 2006. Liz is Honorary Conference Secretary for the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain.

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Donhead Publishing 2010