The original house at Cefn Tilla dates from 1616 and is recorded as the manor house of the Oates family.[1] During the English Civil War, the Parliamentarian general Thomas Fairfax established his headquarters at Cefn Tilla while laying siege to Raglan Castle, some three miles to the north. In August 1646, the terms of surrender by the Marquess of Worcester were signed "in the dining room of Mr Roger Oates' house of Kevntilla".[2] By the 18th century, the court had become a farmhouse, and when, in the 19th century, it was bought by Crawshay Bailey, the ironmaster, as part of his Monmouthshire estate at Llanfoist, the house was derelict. In 1856 Bailey sold the house to the Memorial Committee which had been established to commemorate the life of Lord Raglan.[2]
FitzRoy Somerset (1788-1855), was born at Badminton House, the youngest son of Henry Somerset, 5th Duke of Beaufort. The Beauforts were the hereditary owners of Raglan Castle, but had abandoned it in favour of Badminton in Gloucestershire, after the castle's slighting in the Civil War. Enlisting in the British Army in 1804,[3] Somerset fought in the Napoleonic Wars, attaining the rank of lieutenant colonel and serving on the staff of the
Duke of Wellington at the Battle of Waterloo.[4] He subsequently followed a political career and was raised to the peerage as Baron Raglan of Raglan in the County of Monmouthshire in 1852.[5] In 1855 he was appointed a full general and commander-in-chief of the British forces during the Crimean War.[6] He died in 1855 and was succeeded by his second son, Richard.[6] In 1858, a group of the late Lord Raglan's "friends and admirers and comrades"[1] purchased the house and estate as a memorial to him and presented it to Richard and his heirs in perpetuity.[a] Richard engaged Thomas Henry Wyatt to undertake complete rebuilding of the court in a Tudor style.[1]
The Cefn Tilla estate passed by descent through the Raglan family, until the death of FitzRoy Somerset, 5th Baron Raglan in 2010. He bequeathed the court, its estate, and its major contents to his nephew Henry van Moyland of Los Angeles, while the title passed to the 5th Baron's younger brother Geoffrey.[8] This led to a legal dispute between family members, at the conclusion of which the Raglan collection of military memorabilia, and many of the contents of the house, were sold at auction.[9][10][11] In 2015, the house itself was sold.[12][13] The court is a private residence, but is available for hire as a wedding venue.[14][15]
^A carved inscription above the entrance porch reads: "This house with 238 acres of land was purchased by 1623 of the friends, admirers and comrades in arms of the late Field Marshal Lord Raglan GCB and presented by them to his son and his heirs forever as a lasting memorial of affectionate regard and respect."[7]
