Wern-ddu farmhouse,

Llantilio Pertholey Llantilio Pertholey ( cy, Llandeilo Bertholau) is a small village and community (parish) in Monmouthshire, south east Wales. It is located to the north-east of the market town of Abergavenny, which it is part of, just off the A465 road to Herefo ...

Monmouthshire Monmouthshire ( cy, Sir Fynwy) is a county in the south-east of Wales. The name derives from the historic county of the same name; the modern county covers the eastern three-fifths of the historic county. The largest town is Abergavenny, with ...

is a

farmhouse FarmHouse (FH) is a social Fraternities and sororities in North America, fraternity founded at the University of Missouri on April 15, 1905. It became a national organization in 1921. Today FarmHouse has 33 active chapters and four associate ch ...

of 17th century origins. It has been significantly altered in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries and the Monmouthshire antiquarian,

Sir Joseph Bradney Colonel Sir Joseph Alfred Bradney, (11 January 1859 – 21 July 1933) was a British soldier, historian and archaeologist, best known for his multivolume ''A History of Monmouthshire from the Coming of the Normans into Wales down to the Present T ...

recorded that it had "suffered so much by continual alterations that it shows but little of its antiquity". It is a Grade II* listed building.

History

Sir Joseph Bradney described Wern-ddu as "in its origins one of the oldest in the county". He ascribed the original building to the Herbert family.

Cadw (, a Welsh verbal noun meaning "keeping/preserving") is the historic environment service of the Welsh Government and part of the Tourism and Culture group. works to protect the historic buildings and structures, the landscapes and heritage s ...

considers the current building to date from the early 17th century, while the architectural historian John Newman places it somewhat later, in the late 17th century. Sir Cyril Fox and Lord Raglan, in the second of their three-volume history of vernacular architecture '' Monmouthshire Houses'', give a date of c.1675. Wern-ddu was reconstructed in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries and Bradney recorded in the early 20th century that "it shows but little of its antiquity". It remains a private house. The historical importance of the house was long recognised. The American journalist and diplomat

Wirt Sikes William Wirt Sikes (November 23, 1836 – August 18, 1883) was an American journalist and writer, perhaps best known today for his writings on Welsh folklore and customs. Early life William Wirt Sikes was born in Watertown, New York, the son of W ...

, United States consul at Cardiff in the 1870s and 1880s, recorded an encounter between its last hereditary owner, Roger ap Probert, and a stranger, in his ''Rambles and Studies in Old South Wales'', published in 1881. Questioned as to the history of the house, Probert replied; "Werndu (is) a very ancient house. Out of it came the Earls of Pembroke, the Lords Herbert of Cherbury, the Herberts of Coldbrook, the Joneses of

Treowen Treowen (or Tre-owen) is an early 17th-century house in Monmouthshire, Wales, regarded as "the most important gentry house (of its date) in the county". It is located in open countryside within the parish of Wonastow, about ½ mile (1 km) nor ...

and Llanarth and all the Powells; also, by the female line, came the Dukes of Beaufort".

Architecture and description

John Newman describes the farmhouse as being of a "semi-double-pile plan". It is built of rendered Old Red Sandstone rubble and is of two storeys with attics, and a three-storey stair turret. The roof is of

Welsh slate The existence of a slate industry in Wales is attested since the Roman period, when slate was used to roof the fort at Segontium, now Caernarfon. The slate industry grew slowly until the early 18th century, then expanded rapidly until the l ...

. It contains an important staircase, which Newman considers "a fine piece" and a "

coffered A coffer (or coffering) in architecture is a series of sunken panels in the shape of a square, rectangle, or octagon in a ceiling, soffit or vault. A series of these sunken panels was often used as decoration for a ceiling or a vault, also c ...

wooden ceiling with bold mouldings". It is a Grade II* listed building.

Notes

References

* * * {{Cite book , last=Sikes , first = Wirt , author-link=Wirt Sikes , editor=Alan Roderick , title=Travels in Gwent , url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/26549951 , year=1992 , publisher=Handpost Books , location= Newport, Wales , isbn=9780951521328 , oclc = 26549951 Buildings and structures in Monmouthshire Grade II* listed buildings in Monmouthshire