Court Farm, Pembrey consists of three buildings. The farmhouse itself is a complex two-storey house of approximately 900 square metres. It was built in the mid 16th century but thought to have an early mediaeval core, possibly a tower house, a form associated only with Pembrokeshire.
It was once the centre of a large estate. To its back are wooded hills. From its front windows, it overlooks a vast expanse of marshland and sea. Almost directly in front, further down the hill, the tower of St Illtyd’s church. Court Farm is an ancient house, with massive stone walls and a haphazard plan. A clue to its quality is the pair of great, diagonal chimneys on the West side of the house, a Tudor architectural feature of important houses. Every fashionable Elizabethan gentleman’s house would sport at least a pair of great chimneys like this – they are an important clue to the architectural quality of Court. Decorative as well as functional. Court, prominently sited on a hill above Carmarthen Bay, was an important navigational aid for shipping
Other Tudor details we can spot are the surviving three light mullioned windows, some with hood moulds, so the rain drips safely away; some of them are stone, others of wood.
Inside the former hall in the South-East wing, you can see two Sutton stone fireplaces on the wall, one on top of the other. They are elegant, simple, but high quality designs.
In the early 17th century additions were made including a kitchen; re-roofing and refenestration took place and fine panelling was installed in a principal bedroom. Later in the 17th century, a north wing, comprising of service quarters, was added. In the 19th century some internal alterations were undertaken as the property was sub-divided to accommodate tenant farmers.
The adjacent barn — a most intreging building; its entrance seems too small for use as a barn or gatehouse, is characterised by a south elevation, also in decay, with a collapsed roof and ominous cracks on the pine end walls. Just under the parapet, corbelling can be seen, projections of stone jutting out from the wall to support its weight. This local building feature is to be found on some old Carmarthenshire buildings. Corbelling can be found on the South wall of Court — (hidden under the ivy) and on the tower of Pembrey church. Another good feature is the pointed arch of the doorway, suggesting an ancient construction, which along with the castellated parapet, gives it a military air.
It is truly a Welsh house untouched by the ‘improvements’ so often undertaken by the Georgians and the Victorians.
Court Farm