Bedwellty House

Description

Postcard showing Bedwellty House from 1910.
Built 1825, Bedwellty House was a small house belonging to the Morgans of Tredegar Park. It was purchased by the Merthyr Ironmaster, Samuel Homfray of Penydarren whose son made later additions when he became manager of the Tredegar Ironworks. The house had achieved its present form by 1842, when shown on a survey by William Adams of the Ebbw Vale and Tredegar Ironworks. These additions presumably included the addition of the two rear wings. From the mid nineteenth century, the house was again the property of the Morgan family, who reserved it for the managers of the Tredegar Iron and Coal Company. The house is the best surviving example in Gwent of an ironmaster's house.
In 1901, the Morgans gave the house and grounds to the people of Tredegar for public recreation and the house was remodelled inside for offices for the Urban District Council. In the grounds, which are now used as a public park, are a collection of mining artefacts, and a 15 ton block of coal cut for the Great Exhibition of 1851, but which proved too difficult to transport.
The house is a two-storey building with stuccoed elevations, scribed to imitate ashlar. It has a slate hipped roofs and deep eaves with paired brackets. The house plan consists of a main block with two deep rear wings. It has twelve-pane sash windows and the Bow has three sashes to each storey, with the taller to the ground floor with six-over-nine glazing. In the right porch, there is a red granite plaque to the right corner which was erected in 1918 to commemorate Alderman Henry Bowen, who was instrumental in obtaining the house and the park for public use. There is a single storey service range to the right with a corrugated roof. The interior of the house is largely of 1901.