Constructed in the Victorian Gothic style, the house was developed by three major architects, George Vaughan Maddox, Thomas Henry Wyatt and Sir Aston Webb.

[1] The ascent of the Rolls family to the aristocracy, and to the fortune used to develop the Hendre as a fine Victorian country house in Monmouthshire, was through marriage.

John Allan Rolls's ennoblement brought the family, and the house, to its social apogee, culminating in a visit from the Duke and Duchess of York (later King George V and Queen Mary), who stayed with Lord and Lady Llangattock at the Hendre in late October – early November 1900.

Mrs. Assheton – Harbord, Mr. Claud Crompton, and Mr. Charles Freeman, and the balloon landed on the lawn in front of Lord Llangattock's house, The Hendre."

His younger brother, Henry Alan, having died four months previously, and none of Lord Llangattock's three sons having had children, the direct male line ended and John Maclean Rolls was succeeded by his sister, the scientist and balloonist Eleanor Georgiana Shelley-Rolls (9 October 1872 – 15 September 1961) who married Sir John Courtown Edward Shelley, 6th Baronet (1871–1951),[5] of Castle Goring, who in 1917 assumed by royal licence the additional surname of Rolls.

The Harding-Rolls branch of the family continued to live at The Hendre until 30 August 1984 when, following a failed time-share operation, it was sold to Effold Properties Limited.

Wyatt extended the house in the period 1837–41, creating the great hall and improving the park, including the addition of the gate lodges on the Monmouth Road, and he continued the enlargement of the south wing, both to the east and to the west, between 1837 and 1858.

Raised to the peerage as 1st Baron Llangattock, Rolls employed first Henry Pope,[a] who completed the dining room wing and, secondly, Sir Aston Webb, who added the Cedar Library.

The son of the lyricist Jimmy Kennedy recalled his time there in the late 1940s, with little fondness: "Ardmore, in a beautiful old mansion near Monmouth, was not a pleasant place to be, even by the standards of the 1940s.

[10] An article in Kelly's Directory of 1891 describes the Hendre as "a handsome mansion of brick and stone, in the Norman and Tudor styles".

[11] The house is constructed of red brick, dressed with Bath stone and comprises a courtyard bounded to the west by a low wall and on the three other sides by ranges of buildings.

The architectural writer John Harris is rather dismissive of the house's interiors: "a great number of Elizabethan and Jacobean salvages were incorporated to serve as a background to 'Jacobogus' furniture of every sort, in these somewhat incoherent rooms".

[14] Contemporary authors were more appreciative, at least of Sir Aston's work.The naturalist Henry John Elwes and the plantsman Augustine Henry described the Cedar Library in their 1906 publication, The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland, as "One of the best examples of the use of (cedar) for ornamental work is in the library of Lord Llangattock's house, panelled and ceiled by Messrs. Norman and Burt".

[20] The estate boasts an arboretum, stocked with specimen trees (including several ancient oaks), a landscaped lake with an artificial cascade created by James Pulham & Co. and three long drives, the most impressive designed by H.E.

It passes through plantations of the finest conifers, winding upward by easy gradients through oak wood and copse, revealing here and there broad stretches of open park bedded with bracken and peopled with herds of deer.

"[22] The granary and attached barn, the stable block, the rose garden pavilion and fountain pool, the bridge and the Box Bush lodge at the park entrance are all Grade II Listed.

[18] The Swiss Cottage, a lodge at the head of the original main drive, was designed by Aston Webb and is Grade II* listed.