Treowen
| Treowen | |
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Treowen
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| General information | |
| Town or city | Dingestow, Monmouth |
| Country | Wales |
| Coordinates | 51°47′45.0″N 2°46′56.2″W / 51.795833°N 2.782278°WCoordinates: 51°47′45.0″N 2°46′56.2″W / 51.795833°N 2.782278°W |
| Construction started | 1623 |
Treowen (or Tre-owen) is an early 17th-century house in Monmouthshire, Wales, regarded as "the most important early C17 gentry house in the county". It is located in open countryside within the parish of Wonastow, about ½ mile (1 km) north-east of the village of Dingestow, and 3 miles (4.8 km) south-west of Monmouth. It is a Grade I listed building, and, after being used as a farmhouse for three centuries, is now a conference and functions venue.
Treowen is home to the annual Wye Valley Chamber Music Festival.
The house was built in about 1623–27 for William Jones, on the site of a 15th-century building. Jones was briefly Member of Parliament for Monmouthshire in 1614, and was High Sheriff of Monmouthshire in 1615. He later inherited a fortune from his uncle, a trader in London. The building was constructed of Old Red Sandstone, with caramel-coloured ashlar blocks and green Bridgend sandstone dressings. The house was very large by local standards, and commanded extensive views. Newman wrote that "as originally built, the height of the house must have been as daunting as the sheer repetitiveness of its design". The originally austere façade was altered early in its history by the addition of a porch, with a "classical frontispiece of distressing crudity", and the Jones shield.
The Jones family moved out of the house in the 1670s, and let it out as a farmhouse. The building itself remained largely unchanged except for the removal of the top storey of the front half of the building in the 18th century. Inside the house, the ground floor rooms rise to a height of 17 feet (5.2 m). There is an oak panelled room with plaster ceiling and Jacobean fireplace, and a great staircase of 72 stairs, the earliest datable open-well staircase in Monmouthshire.
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