- Heritage

The Chapel

Bible Christian services were first held in Lettaford in 1860, when it seems that permission was given to use the day school for Sunday prayer meetings. For about two years before this a small number of people had been meeting in cottages in hamlets nearby, but with a more regular meeting place the membership quickly rose to about twenty…

Chapel Cottage

A Bible Christian chapel is marked on the OS map of Coombe for 1885 and it had probably stood there already for some 20 years before that. Rev. Hawker was often vehement in his condemnation of the Dissenters but the influence of the Church of England had declined steadily and the Bible Christians were a Cornish offshoot of Wesleyan Methodism that moved so effectively to fill the vacuum…

The Chateau

The Château was built in 1747–8 for a prosperous lawyer from Gainsborough named Thomas Hutton. Mr Hutton and his father before him had looked after the local business affairs of the Earl of Abingdon who owned two small estates nearby (Gate Burton and Knaith) which had come into his family through an earlier marriage and were some distance from the rest of his very large property…

The China Tower

The China Tower was built in 1839 by Lady Louisa Rolle for John, Lord Rolle, a charming surprise birthday gift from a young wife to her much older husband. The Rolles were an ancient Devon family who amassed vast acreages in the county through marriage and purchase. Their main seats were at here at Bicton, and at Stevenstone, where we have another Landmark, The Library. Lord and Lady Rolle were passionate gardeners and together they created fine botanical gardens and a famous arboretum at Bicton…

Church Cottage

Church Cottage has a special place in the history of the Landmark Trust as well as Llandygwydd’s, as it was the very first building Landmark restored. In 1965, John Smith had the idea of setting up a charitable trust to rescue buildings in distress and then offering them for holidays to secure their future maintenance. He discussed his idea with architect Leonard Bedall Smith of Llangoedmon, who was able to suggest some candidates from his own local patch…

Clytha Castle

After the death of his wife in January 1787, William Jones moved back to Wales from London. He consoled himself during his bereavement by creating his own personal Elysium at Clytha, the estate he had bought some years earlier near his family home at Llanarth. The Castle formed the most important new feature, begun in 1790 and completed two years later…

The College

Situated towards the north end of the village on the east side of the road which joins the square and the triangular site of the old Market House, there is a group of buildings which because of their medieval form encourage the visitor to take a closer look…

Collegehill House

Many famous travellers have found rest at Collegehill House, formerly Roslin Inn. The name ‘Collegehill’ refers to the fact that the chapel was built as a collegiate chapel whose priests were to pray for the soul of its founder. Thanks to this position hard by Rosslyn Chapel, the keepers of the inn were through the centuries de facto curators of the chapel, which represents one of the finest expositions of the work of Renaissance stonemasons in Europe…

Coombe Corner

Coombe Corner was built in the 1930s, representing an altogether different approach to building, all light and views, compared to the hunkered-down solidity of the cottages in the valley. The plot was the last piece of land in the valley not owned by either Landmark or the National Trust and as such its acquisition in 1984, though pre-emptive, was an important one…

Coop House

The Coop House is a striking example of the kind of Gothic pavilion with which Georgian gentlemen liked to adorn the landscape around their houses. A hint that it was once something more lies in its name: a coop is a wickerwork basket used for catching fish, a method that dates back at least to the Middle Ages. The Coop House, in fact, overlooked a more sophisticated system than a set of baskets…