Island House Restoration Ltd

The Project

Restoring Island House

Island House, Laugharne, was purchased by Island House Restoration Ltd in March 2020. A 17th-century house on a medieval quayside plot, listed Grade II*, empty from 2004 until the restoration began in 2020 and by then seriously dilapidated, it is being restored to its original condition and converted into a hotel, bar and restaurant. The house stands on Wogan Street, close to Laugharne Castle.

The company's architects are making planning applications and discussing the project with Carmarthenshire County Council and Cadw, the Welsh Government's historic buildings department.

Island House under scaffolding during the chimney repairs of November 2020, the roof stripped back to its timbers. — Scaffolded for the chimney repairs, November 2020 — the first winter of the work.

2021 / 2022

Island House Restoration Ltd Exhibition

Island House Restoration Ltd hosted an exhibition in December 2021 / January 2022 showcasing the work carried out on the house from purchase to the present day, including the proposals for its future as a boutique hotel, bar and restaurant. It was open to everyone and held at Globe House, opposite the Town Hall.

The help of many consultants and researchers, and the dedication and private funding of the owners, made this extensive exhibition possible for the people of Laugharne and its wider communities.

View the exhibition online

The Island House Restoration exhibition at Globe House, Laugharne

Antiquities of Laugharne, 2nd edn, 1880

An extract of Mary Curtis's text

Mary Curtis's 1856 sketch of Island House from the rear of the garden — A sketch of Island House from the rear of the garden, by Mary Curtis (1856)

"Island House, a most ancient and interesting one, is near the castle; its walls in some parts as thick as those of the castle. The projecting part of it is properly the middle of the house; the other half, extending on the other side of it, was destroyed by accident by the cannon-balls fired on the castle by Cromwell's soldiers. At that time a partisan of his was living in the house; and a small part of the half now extending out from the other side of the projecting part, was destroyed; one of the balls was preserved in the house up to 1823. It extended farther out at the back; for on the outside wall, on the castle side, are two protuberances showing there had been a room; besides, foundations proving a building went farther out. In the garden the foundation of a rounded tower was discovered underground in 1818; also Roman baths and leaden pipes; an Etruscan urn was found in the Roman remains. About 150 years ago a small cottage was at the bottom of the garden not far from the wall by the Strand; there were steps from it to the sea; the wall at bottom of the garden did not go so far out as now. At the front of the house an old door opening into a yard bears the date 1658. There were two bridges belonging to Island House till 1800, when, through the neglect of a guardian to the then minor — the heir to the property — their possession was lost. One bridge was on the Strand, and taken away a few years ago; the other remains close to the house. Formerly there was no thoroughfare before the house; the public road went by that row of houses opposite the turning to Stoneway, and probably passed hence round the back of the mill which is on the Grist. This house appears in the sketch of the castle, dated 1740, and to the right of it."

Mary Curtis recorded this in 1880 as local tradition; it is not borne out by the archaeology. The modern excavations found no Roman structures here — only a single small, residual sherd of Samian pottery — and the national monuments record notes no Roman remains at Island House. The Civil-War commander in the district was the Parliamentarian Major-General Rowland Laugharne, not Cromwell.