History

The medieval hall-house at Hendy features as the frontispiece to Part 1 of Fox and Raglan's ‘Monmouthshire Houses'. On plan this exceptional mid C15 building had a 3-bay hall in centre, and solar cross-wing at upper end, and service room at lower end. Broad entrance doorways led into a wide screens passage at lower end of the hall. The hall had arch-braced roof trusses and a late C16 inserted chimneystack. At each end of hall, post and panel partition with doorways gave access to a service room at lower end, and the solar cross-wing at upper end. Solar had a fine trefoil headed window (Fox and Raglan Plate XVI) and fireplace was flanked by unusual ‘decorative brackets for torches or lamps in the form of polygonal moulded half-caps supported respectively by a male and female mask'.
Since Fox and Raglan recorded the building in 1949, the interior of this remarkable building has been almost entirely destroyed and the cross-wing demolished. At the time of resurvey the building was in use as a cartshed.

Exterior

Ruins of medieval hall-house of c1450. Rubble stone with ashlar dressings and corrugated asbestos roof. E front has external stone quarter-turn stair leading to entrance doorway of former screens passage. Doorway has two-centred arch with chamfered ashlar surround and C20 boarded door. Former ground-floor windows to hall (right) and service room (left) are blocked but retain timber lintels to window-head. Projecting (far right) is the curved ruined wall of the solar cross-wing, which includes the base of projecting gable stack. Attached (far left) is single-storey dairy with lower roof-line. Ground-floor of dairy has C17 4-light diamond mullion window with angled dripstone (left) and plank and batten door with strap hinges (right). Garden front faces W and the principal feature of interest is the blocked entrance doorway to former screens passage which has similar two-centre arched door. To right of doorway is small chamfered blocked window opening. S gable has former entrance doorway (left), tiered base of projecting gable stack (centre) and W wall of dairy (right).

Interior

The building has been reroofed with C20 trusses. A single C17 chamfered ceiling beam is the only internal feature that now survives of the former hall-house.

Reasons for Listing

Listed as containing the very important remains of C15 hall-house at Hendy, including fine stone cross-passage doorways to former medieval hall.

External Links

• Cadwr Listing
• Wikidata Q29501312

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

• 
  Oxfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Pevsner's Architectural Glossary (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Introductions)
• 
  The Shredded Chef: 120 Recipes for Building Muscle, Getting Lean, and Staying Healthy
• 
  County Durham (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England) by Elizabeth Williamson Nikolaus Pevsner(1983-03-11)
• 
  Lancashire: Liverpool and the South-West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Sussex: East with Brighton and Hove (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)