History

Small country house, in late Georgian style with some Gothic detail, built in 1831 by the Tredegar estate for the Rev. C.A.S. Morgan, died 1875, vicar of the parish, younger brother of the 1st Lord Tredegar, sometime Chancellor of the Diocese of Llandaff and chaplain to Queen Victoria. The W end section with full height canted bay may be a slightly later addition. Two parallel ranges, originally three, but, after sale by the Tredegar estate in the mid C20, a parallel rear service wing was removed such that the entrance side which had 3 gables now has 2. The architect for this work and the restoration of the remainder was W.S. Thomas of Newport. The house was rented just prior to sale by Peter Thorneycroft, MP for Monmouth and later chairman of the Conservative party.
The special interest of the house is in the Georgian Gothic entrance hall with its extraordinary winding stair, and also its picturesque garden setting with romantic Gothic features: bee-bole, range of outbuildings (The Bothy), miniature lake with humped bridge, winding paths, and castellated corner features to the estate walls.

Exterior

Small country house, painted stucco with close-eaved slate roofs and stuccoed rebuilt chimneys, one each end, one on front ridge and one on E end of rear range. Two storeys with 4-bay garden front to S and 2-gable facade to E (formerly 3 gables) with entrance porch. Garden front has full-height canted bay to left with 3-sided hipped roof and 3 12-pane sash windows each floor. Three-window main range to right has 12-pane sashes above and two C20 broad French windows with external shutters replacing similar sashes. Original windows have blind boxes.
E entrance front has 2 gables, the left one blank, the right one formerly central before removal of gable to right in mid to later C20. Stuccoed square Tudor porch with battlements, angle buttresses and chamfered depressed arches on all 3 sides, lower on N and S. Within porch is moulded pointed arched doorway with panelled doors, and each side of porch is small pointed window with Gothic glazing bars. First floor above porch has large Gothic sash window with pointed hoodmould.
Rear (remodelled after removal of parallel service range) is parallel to the 3-bay main part of the front range, with arched first floor landing light re-using a fanlight from the old back door and a square lead-roofed lantern-light on ridge. The rear of W end section without parallel range has one small first floor window, W end is windowless.
A curving castellated stuccoed screen wall running from NE corner has been extended across site of demolished rear range with broad vehicular opening. It linked the house to the churchyard wall screening the outbuildings from the forecourt.
Attached outbuilding to rear of the house, former larder, linked to house by C20 garages, is L-plan single-storey with slate roof hipped to E and at NW corner, gabled to S. Walls have rounded corners and eaves has band of cast-iron pierced ventilation panels. Two pointed doorways facing S into re-entrant angle with panelled doors and a pointed window facing E with Y tracery. Plain casement pair window on N side right and W side left.

Interior

Front entrance hall with some Tudor Gothic decoration, divided axially by moulded cast-iron piers carrying 3 Tudor arches with quatrefoils in spandrels, the broader centre arch framing the exceptional spiral timber stairs cantilevered from a central column said to have been a ship's mast. Pierced Gothic spandrels under each tread, thin octagonal balusters, remarkable continuous hand rail snaking up in spiral then looping back around upper landing. Pointed recess behind. Top lights of front door has armorial stained glass one with CASM monogramme and 1831 date, remade to original model in later C20, and window to right has armorial glass of c. 1831 in head.
Panelled shutters and reveals throughout, deep skirtings and square-headed 6-panel mahogany doors. The first two front rooms have later C18 Adam-style timber chimney-pieces removed from Ruperra Castle after the fire of 1941, dating from the refit by T. Hardwick after the fire of 1785. The SE morning-room has 2 original Gothic bookcases with detail matching staircase, but missing their cornices, flanking chimneypiece from Ruperra. The centre dining-room has deep Adam-style frieze, restored cornice and floral ceiling border, and chimney-piece from Ruperra, and the long transverse SW drawing room has fine late C18 timber chimneypiece said to have been brought by Lord Thorneycroft from his family home in Tamworth, Staffs. This room has particularly fine plasterwork, enriched cornice with paterae and ceiling in diamond and square panels. Elliptical arched recesses on N and W walls, 2 mahogany 6-panel doors on E wall. first floor has 6-panel doors in plain reveals. From landing is small section of former stair to service range with similar balustrade to main stair.
Former larder to rear has plastered vaulted roof, slate slab shelves and flagstone floor.

Reasons for Listing

Graded II* as a late Georgian Gothic small country house with remarkable spiral openwork staircase. Group value with other listed items in the grounds of Machen House and with St Michael’s Parish Church.

External Links

• Cadwr Listing
• Machen House at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q17741172

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Warwickshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Specifications for Building Conservation: Volume 1: External Structure: Practical Examples v. 2
• 
  [(Cumberland and Westmorland)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1967)
• 
  Kent: North East and East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair by Hunt. Roger ( 2008 ) Hardcover
• 
  London 3: North West: North West v. 3 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)