page_title: Architecture of Wales
section_title: Box framing
hierarchical_section_title: Architecture of Wales / Regional types of sub-medieval houses / Box framing
caption_attribution_description: English: Abernodwydd Farmhouse, Museum of Welsh Life. The thatched farmhouse was built in 1678 at Llangadfan, Montgomeryshire (Powys). Clay and hazel rods fill in between the timbers.
context_page_description: Architecture of Wales is an overview of architecture in Wales from the Medieval period to the present day, excluding castles and fortifications, ecclesiastical architecture and industrial architecture. It covers the history of domestic, commercial, and administrative architecture.
context_section_description: Box framing is a simple timber frame made of straight vertical and horizontal pieces with a common rafter roof.  The term box frame is not well defined and has been used for any kind of framing other than cruck framing. The distinction presented here is the roof load is carried by the exterior walls. The timber framework, when exposed will be visible as squares or rectangles panels.  and the houses will also show signs of bracing, particularly at the corners. Many of the Welsh houses have decorative features in the panels, such as quatrefoils and lozenge or herringbone deceptive woodwork. The panels may also be filled by Close studding.  Box framing was used for the wings of earlier cruck or aisled timber framed houses, but it was not until the mid-16th that it was used as the main construction form for free standing houses in the Sub-Medieval tradition, such as Glas Hirfryn, Llansilin.
  In the latter part of the 16th century, box framed houses grew larger and more elaborate.  They would now be built to three or four storeys with tall gabled projecting wings and decorative porches. 
  A good example of this is Plas yn Pentre at Trevor near Wrexham. On the dissolution of the abbey in 1536 it came into the possession of the High Sheriff of Denbighshire, Ieuan Edwards. His grandson partially re-built the house in 1634. His initials and the date can be seen carved into the exterior of the west gable. Many of these large timber box framed houses have disappeared, but watercolours and prints record Aberbechan Hall and Garthmyl Hall, Berriew in Montgomeryshire and Bychton at Mostyn in Flintshire. 
   The largest and most impressive of these houses was Lymore, Montgomery, built by Edward, third Lord Herbert of Chirbury, c. 1675 (date on a gable finial but not finished until 1677, a year before Lord Herbert's death) The house had a close-studded frontage, with an open three-bay Renaissance loggia on the ground floor, six gables (later reduced to three), and, rising from the centre, a pyramid-roofed look-out tower or Belvedere. While the main house was built in timber, there was extensive use of brick for the inner courtyard and service wings. The hall was not used as the family seat for long, and for most of its existence it was either unoccupied or used by agents of the estate. It was, however, kept in good order and in 1909 the Prince of Wales, who was shooting in the surrounding parkland, was entertained here. In August 1921 the floor collapsed during a Bazaar Sale, and the hall was finally demolished in the 1931. The Welsh gentry continued to build timber framed houses well into the 17th century, and distinctively these houses, such as Maes Mawr  in Montgomeryshire, have very wide entry porches. Box-framed timber houses for the working class continued to be built in mid-Wales into the early part of the 19th century. These later houses and cottages are constructed of very much lighter timber work or scantling.
caption: Abernodwydd Montgomeryshire, Farmhouse reconstructed at St Fagans
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