On the West, the site is partly encircled by three large ornamental lakes, probably late 17th century, though the Middle Pool, traversed by a causeway is now dry.

Opposite, on the Middle Pool are the stone walls of a curious ‘fortified’ farmyard (either a folly, or for militia training) and a Georgian brick farmhouse.

A letter from Lord Herbert of Chirbury in 1673 mentions that he intended to sow the frith with nuts and acorns for a perpetual stock of fuel[1] The cricket pitch is to the North East of the house.

A slightly later feature is a possible Deserted Medieval Village, which may have been a vill of Chirbury Priory, with a large area of ridge and furrow cultivation.

The house had a close-studded frontage, with an open three-bay loggia on the ground floor, six gables, and, rising from the centre, a pyramid-roofed look-out tower.

A series of letters between Edward Herbert and his agent Roger Jones[8] provides a fairly detailed outline of the building work that was taking place.

Although Lymore is thought primarily as being a timber framed house, a huge quantity of bricks were used in the extensive kitchen and service wing that lay to the south.

The earliest drawing of Lymore is dated July 1684, when it was sketched by Thomas Dineley, who was accompanying the Duke of Beaufort on his progress through Wales.

[12] Thomas Pennant intended to re-publish this tour and in 1794–5 he commissioned three further watercolours of Lymore from John Ingleby, which are now in a collection in the National Library of Wales.

His widow Lady Catherine continued to live at Lymore until her death in 1714, when the house and estate devolved to Francis Herbert of Dolguog at Penegoes in Montgomeryshire.

In 1903 Fletcher Moss in his Pilgrimages to Old Homes, mostly on the Welsh Borders gives a graphic account of being shown round the deserted house by the daughter of the caretaker.

He recounts cycling up to the hall amid a herd of grand Herefords, some of which looked like weighing a ton, and by a picturesque saw-mill where great trunks of trees are piled up.

It was reported that there was a considerable congestion of people near the main entrance … suddenly without any audible promontory symptoms, a knot of guest were observed to disappear outright.

[19] On the West the site is partly encircled by three large ornamental lakes, probably late 17th century, though the Middle Pool, traversed by a causeway is now dry.