J W Poundley and D Walker (Land-surveyors and Architects)

Poundley and Walker or John Wilkes Poundley and David Walker were a Land Surveyors and Architects’ partnership with offices at Black Hall, Kerry, Montgomeryshire and at Unity Buildings, 22 Lord Street, Liverpool. The partnership was established probably in the mid-1850s and was dissolved in June 1867. The partnership was involved with large Country Estate building projects, Church and Civic buildings and some civil engineering. They specialized in building Model Farms. J W Poundley was also the County Surveyor for Montgomeryshire from 1861–1872. The Architect, Canal and Railway Engineer, T G Newnham (sometimes incorrectly given as T G Newenham) appears have been associated with the partnership.

Poundley was baptized at Montgomery, 27 April 1807. Following the death of his father, he was taken into the guardianship of William Pugh of Caerhowel and in 1827 he was apprenticed to the Oswestry architect Thomas Penson. He never qualified as an architect. In 1857 Poundley published Poundley's Cottage Architecture.

Poundley had close connections with Naylor family who, in 1835, had acquired the Brynllywarch estates at Kerry from William Pugh, the son of his guardian. They were also to acquire other estates at Leighton and Nantcribba. He was employed to undertake survey work of these acquisitions, now bound in two atlas volumes in the National Library of Wales. The Leighton Estate was purchased in 1847 and Poundley was employed on the construction of the monumental model farm from about 1849 to 1860. Apart from the farm itself, some of the more important structures are the Poultry House and the "cottage orneé", Poultry Cottage, the Cable House of the Railway and the massive stone built slurry tank, for the effluent from the farm.

About 1850 Poundley moved from Brook Cottage in Kerry to Black Hall. In the 1860s until the partnership with David Walker was dissolved, their output was prodigious and included considerable quantities of estate housing. The work extended to David Davies's Llandinam estate, the Abbeycwmhir estate in Radnorshire and model farms for the Earl of Cawdor in Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire. It is difficult to judge to what extent Poundley actually designed buildings, but the decorative bargeboards on cottage orneé buildings as at Glanmule seems to represent his work, as well as the use of red brick with rusticated stone quoining. Poundley was the main promoter of the Abermule to Kerry Railway, which had been authorized as part of the Oswestry and Newtown Railway Act of 1855. This came into effect in May 1861 following the opening of Abermule Station. The construction of the railway and the building of Kerry Station at Glanmule appears to have been supervised by Poundley, opening on 2 May 1864. The railway amalgamated with others to form the Cambrian Railways in July 1864.

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