Little Pitt Cottage is a medieval house in

Llanarth, Monmouthshire Llanarth is a privately owned estate village and community within a conservation area in the Welsh county of Monmouthshire. Llanarth is roughly east of Abergavenny and west of Raglan. the community includes Llanvapley and Bettws Newydd. Hi ...

South South is one of the cardinal directions or Points of the compass, compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both east and west. Etymology The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Pro ...

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...

. It was designated a

Grade II* In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

listed building in 1956, its listing record describing it as a "fine and exceptionally intact timber-framed house".

History and description

The house has a cruck trussed gable, with an exposed timber frame and four monumental centred doorways, modified to form a three-unit plan in the 17th century. The architectural historian John Newman describes the cottage as "the most completely surviving cruck-truss

hall house The hall house is a type of vernacular house traditional in many parts of England, Wales, Ireland and lowland Scotland, as well as northern Europe, during the Middle Ages, centring on a hall. Usually timber-framed, some high status examples wer ...

in the county". The windows have timber lintels under a painted stone dripmould. The ends of beams for the inserted hall floor are visible. Sir Cyril Fox and

Lord Raglan Baron Raglan, of Raglan in the County of Monmouth, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created on 20 October 1852 for the military commander Lord FitzRoy Somerset, chiefly remembered as commander of the British troops ...

, in the first of their three-volume history of vernacular architecture ''

Monmouthshire Houses ''Monmouthshire Houses: A Study of Building Techniques and Smaller House-Plans in the Fifteenth to Seventeenth Centuries'' is a study of buildings within the county of Monmouthshire written by Sir Cyril Fox and Lord Raglan and published by the Na ...

'', give a detailed description of the cottage, with plans and illustrations. Peter Smith, in his work, ''Houses of the Welsh Countryside'', describes Little Pitt as "a good example" of the

plan. The house was, and remains, part of the Llanarth estate and is Grade II* listed.

References

Sources

* * * {{Cite book , last=Smith, first=Peter , authorlink = Peter Smith (architectural historian) , title=Houses of the Welsh Countryside , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fKs_nYwrOHcC&q=houses+of+the+welsh+countryside, year=1988 , publisher=Her Majesty's Stationery Office , location=London , isbn=9-78011-300012-8 Grade II* listed buildings in Monmouthshire Grade II* listed houses