John Rolls was a native of Bermondsey, Southwark, London, Surrey, England. A member of the Rolls family of The Grange in Bermondsey and The Hendre, Monmouthshire, he married heiress Sarah Coysh. That marriage was instrumental in furthering both the fortune and the social rank of the Rolls family. In addition to serving a term as High Sheriff of Monmouthshire, Rolls was a Justice of the Peace.
St Mary Magdalen, Bermondsey
The Hendre at Llangattock-Vibon-Avel
The Hendre, in Rockfield, is the only full-scale Victorian country house in the county of Monmouthshire, Wales. The ancestral estate of the Rolls family, it was the childhood home of Charles Rolls, the motoring and aviation pioneer and the co-founder of Rolls-Royce. Constructed in the Victorian Gothic style, the house was developed by three major architects, George Vaughan Maddox, Thomas Henry Wyatt and Sir Aston Webb. It is located in the civil parish of Llangattock-Vibon-Avel, some 4 miles (6.4 km) north-west of the town of Monmouth. Built in the eighteenth century as a shooting box, it was vastly expanded by the Rolls family in three stages during the nineteenth century. The house is Grade II* listed and is now the clubhouse of the Rolls of Monmouth Golf Club. The gardens and landscape park, mainly laid out by Henry Ernest Milner in the later 19th century, are designated Grade II* on the Cadw/ICOMOS Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales.
"a striking Victorian country-house, the eclecticism of its architectur(e) reflecting its complex history"
The Great Hall of the Hendre with hammerbeam roof created between 1837 and 1841
Window in the Cedar Library built by Sir Aston Webb, featuring the arms of Baron Llangattock
View of the Hendre from the main lawn to the south