Cresselly House


Cresselly House is a grade II* listed Georgian country house in the small village of Cresselly, near Kilgetty, Pembrokeshire. It now also serves as a country house hotel and wedding venue.
The main range is rubble built in three storeys with two storey blocks on either side. It faces west looking down a valley towards the Cleddau Estuary.

History

Cresselly had belonged to the Bartlett family since 1564. It came into the Allen family in 1728 when John Allen, of Goodhooke, married Joan, the daughter and heiress of John Bartlett of Cresselly. John Allen was appointed High Sheriff of Pembrokeshire in 1732. The estate lay on reserves of coal, which were mined to provide an income and exported from Cresswell Quay. The present house was built in 1769 by John Allen's son, Captain John Bartlett Allen, an army officer in the First Foot Guards, to replace an earlier building which was undesirably close to the coal mines.
The estate descended in the male line down to Henry Seymour Allen who died unmarried, when it passed to his nephew, Hugh Evelyn Allen. Hugh Evelyn's heir was his only daughter, Auriol Joan Bartlett Harrison-Allen. Her son, Hugh Harrison-Allen is the present owner.