The Rolls Family, Monmouth

The Rolls family were substantial landowners and benefactors in and around Monmouth in south east Wales. Charles Stewart Rolls was the co-founder of the Rolls-Royce company. The ascent of the family to the aristocracy was through marriage.

The family's arms were described in 1852 as:

Quarterly: 1st and 4th, or, on a fesse, dancettée, with plain cotises between three billets, sa., each charged with a lion, rampant, of the field, as many bezants; 2nd, gu., an eagle, displayed, barry of six, erminois and az.; 3rd, or, a saltier, sa., in chief, a leopard's face, of the second.

James James of the parish of Llanvihangel-Ystern-Llewern, Monmouthshire, son of John James the Elder, purchased several farms and parcels of land in Llanvihangel-Ystern-Llewern and between 1639 and 1648. He settled in London and acquired a valuable estate in along the area of Old Kent Road between the parishes of Bermondsey and Camberwell (both now part of Southwark) Surrey.

In his will published in 1677 he left his estate to his only surviving child, Sarah, who was the wife of Dr Elisha Coysh, a physician from London. Their daughter married William Allen, who also bought land in Monmouthshire. William Allen's daughter and heir married her cousin Thomas Coysh.

They were succeeded by their son Richard, who was succeeded by his sister Sarah Coysh (d. 1801), the eventual sole heir of the families of Coysh, Allen and James. Sarah married John Rolls (1735–1801) of the Grange, Bermondsey, and of the Hendre, Monmouthshire, High Sheriff of Monmouthshire in 1794, bringing him much property both in Monmouthshire and London. John Rolls died the day after his wife.

John was succeeded by his son John Rolls (1776–1837) who, with his wife Martha, built the finest country estate in Monmouthshire: The Hendre (Welsh: Yr Hendre). It was a shooting lodge that was expanded throughout the next one hundred years. It is Monmouthshire's only full-scale Victorian country house, constructed in the Victorian Gothic style. It is located in the parish of Llangattock-Vibon-Avel, some 4 miles (6.4 km) north-west of the town of Monmouth. The first of three expansions by the Rolls family began with the architect George Vaughan Maddox who rebuilt parts of the south wing in 1830. John Rolls' successor, John Etherington Welch Rolls, continued the mansion's development, using Thomas Henry Wyatt as his architect.

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