Lower Celliau, Llangattock Lingoed Explained

Lower Celliau
Type:Farmhouse
Map Relief:yes
Coordinates:51.8842°N -2.9137°W
Location:Llangattock Lingoed, Monmouthshire
Built:16th century
Architecture:Vernacular
Governing Body:Privately owned
Designation1:Grade II* listed building
Designation1 Offname:Lower Celliau
Designation1 Date:9 January 1956
Designation1 Number:1960
Designation2:Grade II listed building
Designation2 Offname:Barn and shelter shed at Lower Celliau
Designation2 Date:19 October 2000
Designation2 Number:24182
Designation3:Grade II listed building
Designation3 Offname:Cowhouse and stable at Lower Celliau
Designation3 Date:19 October 2000
Designation3 Number:24183

Lower Celliau, (aka Lower Kathlea/Lower Celli), Llangattock Lingoed, Monmouthshire is a farmhouse dating from the 16th century. It is a Grade II* listed building. The adjacent barn and shelter, and cowhouse and stable have their own Grade II listings.

History and description

The farmhouse at Lower Celliau is a cruck-framed hall house dating from the early to mid-16th century. In the early 1700s, a parlour bay was added. At a slightly later date, a second, almost free-standing, farmstead was constructed; probably an example of the two-unit system identified by Sir Cyril Fox and Lord Raglan, where two residences are built side by side on a single farm. Cadw notes that the doorcases of the linking lobby are identical in style to one found at Howell's House, Grosmont, a few miles to the north. The doorcase at Howell's House is dated 1611, and Cadw suggests this indicates that the lobby at Lower Celliau was contemporaneous with both the second house at Celliau and with Howell's.

Fox and Raglan, who described and illustrated the house in Sub-Medieval Houses, c. 1550–1610, the second volume of their multi-volume study, Monmouthshire Houses, written in the early 1950s, described Lower Celliau as "long-deserted" but noted the quality of the craftsmanship. In the late twentieth century, when the architectural historian John Newman visited while writing his Gwent/Monmouthshire Pevsner, Lower Celliau remained "disused and inaccessible". The farmstead, which is private property, is a Grade II* listed building, its listing record describing it as an "exceptionally well-preserved 16th-century cruck-framed house". The adjacent barn and shelter shed, and cowhouse and stable have their own Grade II designations.

Sources

. John Newman (architectural historian). The Buildings of Wales. Gwent/Monmouthshire. 2000. Penguin. London. 0-14-071053-1.