The Artha

The architectural historian John Newman dates the original house to c.1600. Sir Cyril Fox and Lord Raglan, in their three-volume study, Monmouthshire Houses, date the extensions, which make the house such a "showpiece", to 1678-9. The rebuilding was undertaken by Issac Williams, whom Sir Joseph Bradney, the Monmouthshire antiquarian, records as the first known owner of the house. Bradney further notes that Williams's wife was "a papist and recusant", leading John Arnold, the local Member of Parliament and known persecutor of Catholics, to give evidence against Williams in the House of Commons. Arnold declared, "Williams hath his Children Christened by a Popish priest, that his wife is a…