The Artha

Cadw's description

Location

About 800m SE of the church of St mary, at the bottom of a long track running SE from a bend in an old lane to the S of the minor road between Tregare and Dingestow

History

A lesser-gentry hall-house, probably c.1600 but enlarged, remodelled and embellished in the 1670s by its owner Isaac Williams who added (or rebuilt) a parlour, by which it is now principally distinguished. Restored c.1986.

Exterior

A 2-storeyed farmhouse built of rubble (part rebuilt in brick), all painted white, with hipped roofs of blue slate. L-plan formed by hall-range on E-W axis facing S, with parlour wing at W end projecting to S and facing W. The main entry to the hall (by a small modern glazed porch in the angle with the wing) has a fine later-C17 square-headed doorway with wave and ovolo moulding and globular stops. Close to the right-hand side of the porch is a 2-light casement window with renewed glazing (with slender wooden mullions, as all the others have), and on the upper floor are 2 widely-spaced 3-light windows. Attached to the right-hand (E) corner is a pair of classical-style rusticated gatepiers with moulded cornices, painted white, each surmounted by an unpainted cushion-like pad on which sits a very prominent corniced entablature with a low pedestal in the centre (probably intended for a ball-finial). At the rear a flight of steps mounts up the E bay to a granary; in the centre is a very wide extruded chimney stack with 2 wide offsets on its W side; to the right of that, a back door protected by a pentice, and a window above; and at the W end (the rear of the parlour wing) a large projected hearth-stack with a tall rectangular shaft.
The W side of the parlour wing has been rebuilt in brick except for the N bay, but as the whole wall is painted white and the roof is hipped at both ends, it presents a 3-bay architectural west front of "dollshouse" symmetry, with a central doorway up 3 steps with nosings, two 3-light casements at ground floor (the left slightly larger, and segmental-headed), and similar casements of 3, 2 and 3 lights above; and the S bay also has a small cellar window. The enormous chimney at the N end is almost balanced by a large end-wall chimney at the S end. The E side (the re-entrant to the hall-range) has a 1-light window above the glazed porch, one 3-light window on each floor to the left and a small gabled dormer in the slope of the roof above these.

Interior

The hall in the main range contains a very large but crudely-shaped rear-wall fireplace (now blocked) with an enormous hump-backed monolithic lintel. Beyond the W end of the hall is a passage with a stud-and-panel partition to the former kitchen in the N bay of the wing, which has at its N end a very large segmental-arched stone fireplace with chamfered surround, containing two bread ovens. Between the kitchen and the parlour is a dog-legged closed-string staircase, which rises to the full height and has newels with ball pendants and finials, shaped splat balusters and a moulded handrail with raised grip. The bottom newel has strap-work carving and the date 1678; and the risers of the return flights also have elaborate carved decoration. At the S end of the parlour is a fine stone fireplace with a moulded architrave, and a large and unusual floating classical entablature above, the friexe with raised lettering "I / ANNO DOM / 1676 / W", and the cornice with dentils and egg-and-dart enrichment. On the upper floor the chamber above the kitchen has a small fireplace with a corniced architave including "1679" on the frieze. The chamber above the parlour has unusually fine original features, including panelled closet doors in all 4 corners, with small pediments; a stone fireplace with a moulded architrave including bead-and-reel; a moulded plaster frieze; and an extremely elegant moulded plaster ceiling (recently restored) with a central rose, long slender curvilinear ribs with enriched terminals, and winged cherub at the corners. (This ceiling is comparable in style and quality with the ceiling in one of the rooms at Llwyn-y-gaer House, q.v.)

Reason for designation

Listed grade II* as a C17 gentry house with exceptionally fine interior features.