Allt-y-Bela | |
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![]() "the dignity of Allt-y-Bela" [1] | |
Type | Country house |
Location | Llangwm, Monmouthshire, Wales |
Coordinates | 51°42′01″N2°51′08″W / 51.7004°N 2.8523°W Coordinates: 51°42′01″N2°51′08″W / 51.7004°N 2.8523°W |
OS grid reference | SO 4119 0053 |
Built | late Medieval |
Architectural style(s) | vernacular |
Listed Building – Grade II* | |
Designated | 19 August 1955 |
Reference no. | 2031 |
Allt-y-Bela in Llangwm, Monmouthshire, Wales, is a house of late medieval origin with additions from the sixteenth to the twenty-first centuries. During the early seventeenth century, it was owned by Roger Edwards, a wealthy Midlands merchant and the founder of Usk Grammar School. Edwards made significant alterations in the Renaissance style to the medieval cruck house. By the twentieth century, the house was in ruins until restored by the Spitalfields Historic Buildings Trust in the early twenty-first century. Now owned by the garden designer Arne Maynard, the house is a Grade II* listed building recognising its significance as an "exceptionally important sub-medieval house with ambitious early renaissance additions". [2]
The house was built in the late-medieval period, [3] the first datable reference being an "ovolo-moulded mullion window of 1599." [4] This period also saw the construction of the three-storeyed parlour tower. [5] This building was undertaken by Roger Edwards, a cloth merchant from the Midlands, who founded the grammar school at Usk. [5] This phase of construction was investigated by Sir Cyril Fox and Lord Raglan in their multi-volume study Monmouthshire Houses . [4] Fox and Raglan described the architectural style employed as Renaissance, [3] identifying it as a significant development in Monmouthshire vernacular architecture. [6] Peter Smith, in his study Houses of the Welsh Countryside, records their view that the construction of the parlour block at Allt-y-Bela "heralded the beginning of the Renaissance in th(e) county". [7]
The Monmouthshire author and artist, Fred Hando, visited the house in the early 1950s and described it is his book Journeys in Gwent. Although, in 1951, the house was still habitable, Hando wrote presciently of its coming fate; "Here are ominous signs that unless immediate and drastic action is taken, we shall lose priceless relics." [8] By end of the twentieth century, the house was in a state of advanced decay with the parlour tower having almost completely collapsed. [4] In 2000, the architectural writer John Newman described the house as "miserably derelict." [6] Following compulsory purchase by Monmouthshire County Council, control of the building passed to the Spitalfields Historic Buildings Trust in 2001. [9] After a large-scale restoration project, jointly funded by the Trust and by Cadw, [10] the fully restored building was sold to the landscape designer Arne Maynard in 2006. [9] It now operates as a bed and breakfast and can also be rented in its entirety. [11]
Llangwm is a small rural village and former community, now in the community of Llantrisant Fawr, in Monmouthshire, south east Wales. It is located 3 miles (4.8 km) east of Usk, on the B4235 Chepstow to Usk road. The main village is at Llangwm Uchaf, with a smaller and more dispersed settlement about 1 mile (1.6 km) to the north-east at Llangwm Isaf .The other settlement in the community is Llansoy. In 2022 the community was abolished and merged with Llantrisant Fawr.
Frederick James Hando MBE was a Welsh writer, artist and schoolteacher from Newport. He chronicled the history, character and folklore of Monmouthshire, which he also called Gwent, in a series of nearly 800 newspaper articles and several books published between the 1920s and 1960s.
Monmouthshire is a county and principal area of Wales. It borders Torfaen and Newport to the west; Herefordshire and Gloucestershire to the east; and Powys to the north. The largest town is Abergavenny, with the other major towns being Chepstow, Monmouth, and Usk. The county is 850 km2 in extent, with a population of 95,200 as of 2020. The present county was formed under the Local Government (Wales) Act 1994, which came into effect in 1996, and comprises some sixty percent of the historic county. Between 1974 and 1996, the county was known by the ancient title of Gwent, recalling the medieval Welsh kingdom. In his essay on local government in the fifth and final volume of the Gwent County History, Robert McCloy suggests that the governance of "no county in the United Kingdom in the twentieth century was so transformed as that of Monmouthshire".
Monmouthshire is a county and principal area of Wales. It borders Torfaen and Newport to the west; Herefordshire and Gloucestershire to the east; and Powys to the north. The largest town is Abergavenny, with the other major towns being Chepstow, Monmouth, and Usk. The county is 850 km2 in extent, with a population of 95,200 as of 2020. The present county was formed under the Local Government (Wales) Act 1994, which came into effect in 1996, and comprises some sixty percent of the historic county. Between 1974 and 1996, the county was known by the ancient title of Gwent, recalling the medieval Welsh kingdom. In his essay on local government in the fifth and final volume of the Gwent County History, Robert McCloy suggests that the governance of "no county in the United Kingdom in the twentieth century was so transformed as that of Monmouthshire".
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