1135 days ago
This is a cupboard in the largest bedroom at the Welsh Hovel. The original fireplace to its right was covered up when we arrived but is now rediscovered. And what is behind that cupboard was at one time a window. But then along came Good King Billy and the Window Tax of 1696. So you can still see the window on the outside but it is bricked up and has been for 325 years. On the inside, there is thus a window-sized cupboard, an ideal place for a cat.
1312 days ago
You saw the before shots from the dining room at the Welsh Hovel earlier. This is a room we can date to somewhere between 1649 and 1695. The start date is when the castle here in the village, about 300 yards away from the hovel, started to be dismantled and some of the stones here are, I am sure, from the castle. The end date is the year before the Window Tax. Who would build extra windows after 1696 only to brick them up?
1312 days ago
Work at the Welsh Hovel is now taking place in what has been the dining room but will become the main kitchen. This part of the house was bolted onto the original hovel but is still very old. We uncovered a window tax window on its outside in what was the hidden room, a tiny room plastered in by the previous owners which you enter from the library but lies on the outside wall of the dining room. So one can date the dining room as pre 1696.
