The Artha, Tregare, Monmouthshire is a farmhouse dating from the mid-17th century. It is a

Grade II* listed building 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 Ir ...

History

The architectural historian John Newman dates the original house to c.1600. 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 their three-volume study, ''

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 ...

'', date the extensions, which make the house such a "showpiece", to 1678-9. The rebuilding was undertaken by Issac Williams, whom Sir Joseph Bradney, the Monmouthshire antiquarian, records as the first known owner of the house. Bradney further notes that Williams's wife was "a

papist The words Popery (adjective Popish) and Papism (adjective Papist, also used to refer to an individual) are mainly historical pejorative words in the English language for Roman Catholicism, once frequently used by Protestants and Eastern Orthodo ...

and

recusant Recusancy (from la, recusare, translation=to refuse) was the state of those who remained loyal to the Catholic Church and refused to attend Church of England services after the English Reformation. The 1558 Recusancy Acts passed in the reign ...

", leading John Arnold, the local

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members o ...

and known persecutor of Catholics, to give evidence against Williams in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...

. Arnold declared, "Williams hath his Children Christened by a Popish priest, that his wife is a violent Papist and that

Mass Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different eleme ...

is very often said in his House". Bradney goes on to record the many owners of The Artha into the mid-18th century. The house remains a farmhouse and is in private occupation.

Architecture and description

The farmhouse is a three-unit, two-storeyed building on an ''L''-plan.Newman describes it as "a farmhouse of exceptional pretension". The construction is principally of

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates ...

rubble Rubble is broken stone, of irregular size, shape and texture; undressed especially as a filling-in. Rubble naturally found in the soil is known also as 'brash' (compare cornbrash)."Rubble" def. 2., "Brash n. 2. def. 1. ''Oxford English Dictionar ...

, with some of the late-17th century extension being undertaken in brick. Fox and Raglan note that this is an exceptionally early use of brick in Monmouthshire for a

gentry Gentry (from Old French ''genterie'', from ''gentil'', "high-born, noble") are "well-born, genteel and well-bred people" of high social class, especially in the past. Word similar to gentle imple and decentfamilies ''Gentry'', in its widest c ...

, as opposed to an

aristocratic Aristocracy (, ) is a form of government that places strength in the hands of a small, privileged ruling class, the aristocrats. The term derives from the el, αριστοκρατία (), meaning 'rule of the best'. At the time of the word' ...

, house. The hipped roof is of slate. Very large chimney stacks at either end create "an architectural west front of 'dollshouse' symmetry". C.J.O. Evans suggests that the site was originally

moated A moat is a deep, broad ditch, either dry or filled with water, that is dug and surrounds a castle, fortification, building or town, historically to provide it with a preliminary line of defence. In some places moats evolved into more extensive ...

but no trace of such a feature now remains. The interior has "exceptionally fine features" including a "remarkable" dog-leg stair with carved

newel A newel, also called a central pole or support column, is the central supporting pillar of a staircase. It can also refer to an upright post that supports and/or terminates the handrail of a stair banister (the "newel post"). In stairs having st ...

, "impressive" chimneypieces and an "alarmingly low-slung plaster ceiling" with a central

rose A rose is either a woody perennial flowering plant of the genus ''Rosa'' (), in the family Rosaceae (), or the flower it bears. There are over three hundred species and tens of thousands of cultivars. They form a group of plants that can be ...

and cherub heads at the corners. Fox and Raglan noted that the chimneypieces again demonstrated the house's modernity, the decoration echoing London examples of only some twenty-five years earlier - "the time-lag for metropolitan novelties in our corner of Britain is visibly shortening". The Artha is Grade II* listed.

Notes

References

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Artha Tregare Buildings and structures in Monmouthshire Grade II* listed buildings in Monmouthshire Country houses in Wales