Llanarth Court

The first house recorded on the property goes back to the early medieval period and was called Hendre obaith, Home of the Old Faith.[lower-alpha 1][2] It came into the possession of ancestors of the Jones family well before 1469.[2] In the late 16th and early 17th centuries, it was the home of Philip Jones, merchant and member of parliament for Monmouth Boroughs.[3] His family subsequently rebuilt the house as Llanarth Court in the seventeenth century.[2]

The current house was originally built around 1770[2] for John Jones.[4] It was remodelled 1849–51 by Edward Habershon and his brother, W. G. Habershon, in an Italianate style.[2] Lord Treowen, the ennobled descendant of the Joneses, died in 1933 and, his only son having predeceased him,[lower-alpha 2] the court was inherited by his daughter, the Hon. Fflorens Roch, who gave it to the Roman Catholic Church in 1948.[2] The church passed the court to the Dominican Order which ran a school there, Blackfriars School, until 1967. The Benedictine Order then took over the building, operating a preparatory school for Belmont Abbey School.[6] The school closed in 1986 and the court was sold to AMI Healthcare for conversion into a private hospital.[2] The hospital is currently run by the Priory Group and caters for patients with mental illness or intellectual disabilities.[7] A fire at the court in late April 2020 saw no loss of life, but the destruction of a modern ward. The court itself was undamaged.[8][9]

The gatehouse on the southwest drive

The architectural historian John Newman describes the court as a "monster Neo-classical house",[4] consisting of a three-storey, double pile block of thirteen bays. The entrance porch, reputedly modelled on the temple at Paestum,[4] has been removed. The Habershons' work included the rendering and much classical decoration.[2] The interior has been modernised and institutionalised and contains "little of either the later eighteenth or the mid-nineteenth centuries".[4] The Monmouthshire author and artist Fred Hando, recording a visit to the court in the 1960s, noted the presence of two pictures by Tiepolo, The Healing at the Pool of Siloam and The Woman taken in Adultery.[10] The latter is now in the collection of Amgueddfa Cymru – Museum Wales.[11] The court used to contain the original hall screen from Treowen, but, writing in 1999, Newman stated that the screen "is likely to be returned thither",[4] a view which echoed that of Hando, writing 30 years earlier; "The oak screen dated 1627 was transferred from Treowen where, in my opinion, it would be more happily housed".[12]

The gardens surrounding the court are a "well preserved early 19th century landscape park".[13] It is possible that the landscape gardeners Samuel Lapidge and John Claudius Loudon were involved in its design.[13] Developments after World War II significantly altered the landscape and many features have been lost, including the kitchen garden dating from the 19th century,[14] and the lake, which is now silted-up.[13] The gardens are listed at Grade II on the Cadw/ICOMOS Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales.[15] The Church of St Mary and St Michael, originally the private chapel for the court, stands in the grounds and has its own Grade II* Listing.[16] The gatehouse to the southwest of the court,[17] and the gates and gate piers to the north have their own Grade II listings.[18]

• Bradney, Joseph Alfred (1992a) [1906]. The Hundred of Abergavenny, second part. A History of Monmouthshire from the Coming of the Normans into Wales down to the Present Time Volume 1, Part 2b. Academy Books. ISBN 9781873361139. OCLC 60103879.
• Hando, Fred (1964). Here and There in Monmouthshire. Newport: R.H.Johns Ltd. OCLC 30295639.
• Monmouthshire, County Council (2013). Llanarth Conservation Area Appraisal & Management Proposals (PDF). Forum Heritage Services.
• Newman, John (2000). Gwent/Monmouthshire. The Buildings of Wales. Penguin. ISBN 0-14-071053-1.

• Coflein record with images of Llanarth Court