THE wedding venue former home of Lord and Lady Raglan wants to expand the car park and create a coach drop-off point – but villagers fear it could hit road safety.

Cefn Tilla Court, in Llandenny, near Usk, was orginally built as a memorial to Crimean War commander and Waterloo hero FitzRoy Somerset, 1st Baron Raglan, and stayed in the family until the death of the last Lord Raglan in 2010.

But a new battle is looming over an application for more overflow parking and a coach drop-off area to the north of the house, on the opposite side of a lane, to a clay pigeon shoot.

The venue was granted change of use planning permission in 2020 to host weddings as well as continue as a residence, while it also holds shooting days.

The application says the venue, which hosts 50 weddings a year, is fully booked this year and 2023 and is already half booked for 2024, with 80 people on average attending the ceremonies and some 120 in the evenings.

It holds up to 28 clay shoots a year, with on average 70 to 100 people attending the evehts, usually twice a month.

The existing car park has 35 spaces and the application would create an additional 20 spaces while the planned drop-off point is intended to encourage couples to bus their wedding guests to the venue.

The application states: “Guests will be encouraged to use coach transportation to the venue, reducing the number of vehicles travelling to and from the venue.

“Coaches will be able to turn and park at the overflow parking, small shuttle buses will then transport guests to the venue.”

There is an agricultural barn, that was recently granted planning permission, at the proposed coach drop off area and the applicants say access to the area was recently improved.

But some villagers have objected to the plan, raising concerns over the impact of traffic on the narrow road.

Comments submitted to planners claim the road to the venue is unsuitable for coaches and argue that extra parking should be accommodated within the grounds of the house, though the applicants have stated such use wouldn’t be sympathetic to the Grade II-listed building.

The first Lord Raglan served in the Peninsular War and lost an arm at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, where he was military secretary to the Duke of Wellington, famously demanding the return of the amputated limb so he could retrieve the ring that his wife had given him.

As overall commander in the Crimea, he oversaw the disastrous Charge of the Light Brigade in 1854 at the Battle of Balaclava and died eight months later of dysentry with the war still in the balance.

More than 1,600 comrades and friends funded the building of Cefn Tilla in memory of the field marshall in 1858 and bequeathed it to his family with 238 acres of land.