2750

 

II  

Designated  

14/05/1976  

19/03/2001  

Graig House (aka Great Graig) including terrace to S and E  

 

Monmouthshire  

Skenfrith  

 

Cross Ash  

340667  

220176  

 

Standing in its own grounds on the E. side of a lane approx. half a kilometre north of Cross Ash Post Office.  

Domestic  

 

One of a number of examples in this area of C17 or early C18 enlargement by the addition of a 2-storey range across one end of an earlier and smaller house. Others include Pen-y-Fedw (Llangattock-vibon-avel), Trebella (Cross Ash), Red House Farm (Llangattock-vibon-avel), and Steps Farm (Rockfield). It was remodelled in Regency style, probably in the early C19 by William Prichard (d.1836), and then purchased by the antiquary Thomas Wakeman (d.1868).  

A painted stucco, Regency-style, 3-window, 3-storeyed symmetrical south façade, and similar treatment to the east return side, disguise the fact that the two main phases of building were probably in the later C16 and later C17: a 2-bay, 1½-storey range on a N-S axis, now forming the rear service wing, and a 2-bay C17 range added across its S end, extended by half a bay to the west and raised and remodelled in the earlier C19. The S front has a stuccoed band over the 1st floor and a shallow-pitched slated roof with prominently oversailing boarded eaves (carried round to form a pedimental east gable); 3 large rectangular windows at ground floor, that in the centre furnished with French windows and that to the right false, all formerly protected by a glazed verandah roof carried out at the ends; three 4-pane sashes at 1st floor, each with a swept canopy roof and formerly with a balconette also, and 3 small lunettes at 2nd floor, each with a cast-iron balconette. There are chimneys at both gables and a coupled ridge chimney close to the west gable. (Attached to the west gable wall is a very high screen wall continued from the former coach-house, q.v.). A stone terrace along the front, with urns on panelled pedestals (and formerly covered by the verandah) returns round the east end, mounting by a broad flight of steps to the E entrance front. The principal features of this are a broad 2-storey bow in the gabled return, which has a large tripartite sashed window on each floor, the upper furnished with a cast-iron balconette and a swept canopy roof; and a wide flat-roofed porch in a stepped-down bay to the right, with 2 pairs of fluted columns and an entablature, protecting a doorway with panelled and glazed double doors. This doorway opens into a 2-storey addition built in the re-entrant angle of the rear wing, the upper floor having a 4-pane sash with a canopy like the others. The 2-bay rear wing has (inter alia) a large tripartite small-paned window to the right, a gabled dormer to each bay, and a large stepped extruded chimney to the rear gable wall.  

At ground floor the rear range (the earliest part of the house) is divided into 2 cells by a thick rubble chimney stack which has a large rectangular fireplace on its S side with a massive stone lintel. This cell has 3 deeply-chamfered lateral beams with triangular stops, one of them passing through the front of the stack. The N cell is on a higher level and has chamfered longitudinal beams (which may be of later date), a large segmental-arched fireplace in the N gable wall, and a flight of stone stairs rising in the NW corner. At the S end of the S cell an inserted partition wall creates a lateral hallway leading from the E entrance to a C19 staircase at its W end. The S crosswing (which provides the S front of the house) contains 2 rooms of full bay width, in each of which are lateral ceiling beams, chamfered with triangle stops, and an added half-bay at the W end (of uncertain function). At 1st floor the rear range has a massive tie-beam truss in the centre now incorporated in the N side of the chimney stack, its tie-beam approximately 1½ metres above floor level and cut through for a doorway to the W of the stack, and each room has an open principal-rafter truss. In the room to the S a closet to the E of the stack contains what appears to be the head of a spiral stair, and an early window with a saddle bar. The staircase in the NW (rear) corner has a return with 3 steps mounting to the position of a former doorway into a former NW wing. At the W corner of the junction of the rear and front ranges a wooden staircase rising to the attic has at its foot 3 stone winders of a former spiral stair, and a blocked window in the W wall suggest this may be the remains of a former stair turret. The chambers in the front range have lateral beams with unstopped chamfer.  

Listed for the historical interest of its C16 and C17 origins, and for the architectural interest of its Regency remodelling.