St Donat’s Castle, St Donats, Wales, is a medieval castle in the Vale of Glamorgan, about 16 miles west of Cardiff. Positioned on cliffs overlooking the Bristol Channel, the site has been occupied since the Iron Age, and was by tradition the home of the Celtic chieftain Caradog. The present castle’s origins date from the 12th century when the de Haweys and later Peter de Stradling began its development.
About St Donat’s Castle in brief
St Donat’s Castle, St Donats, Wales, is a medieval castle in the Vale of Glamorgan, about 16 miles west of Cardiff. Positioned on cliffs overlooking the Bristol Channel, the site has been occupied since the Iron Age, and was by tradition the home of the Celtic chieftain Caradog. The present castle’s origins date from the 12th century when the de Haweys and later Peter de Stradling began its development. The castle’s transformation occurred after its purchase in 1925 by William Randolph Hearst, the American newspaper tycoon. Today the castle is home to some three hundred and fifty international students and, with a history of occupation extending back to the late-13th century, is among the oldest continuously inhabited castles in Wales. Both the castle and the grounds are of historical and architectural importance, and have Grade I listed status. The earliest surviving parts of the present castle, the keep and the inner ward, were built in the late 12th Century by the deHawey family. Ownership passed to the Stradlings family through the marriage of Sir Peter StrADling to Joan de Hawey, who came to South Wales in theLate 13th century. Sir Peter, his wife and later her second husband John de Pembridge, extended the castle around 1300, building the outer gatehouse and curtain wall and enlarging the inner gatehouse. The Stradled family served as magistrates, members of parliament, sheriffs and deputy lieutenants in Glamorganshire from the 13th to the 18th centuries.
A number achieved more than local fame. One of Edward’s sons, Henry, was seized by pirates in the Bristol channel while travelling from his Somerset estates to St Donat’s. He was released only on payment of a large ransom. This event has subsequently been much embellished by, Taliesin Williams in his account The Doom of Colyn Dolphyn Dolphin, with the eponymous Brey-Nosy. Notes, with Poets, Poets and Traditions, with Colyn Poets among the Traditions among the Poets. The third Sir Edward Stradler fought at the Battle of Agincourt, married a great-granddaughter of Edward III and established himself as a powerful landowner and courtier. In 1561 he was imprisoned in the Tower of London in 1561 following accusations of his having used the appearance of an ash tree on the estate to encourage support for the Catholic faith. He died in the baronetcy in 1563 and was buried in the estate’s ash tree. The estate is now home to Atlantic College, the first of the United World Colleges, which was founded by the businessman and educational philanthropist Antonin Besse and donated to the trustees of Atlantic College in 1960. In 1960, some nine years after Hearst’s death, it was purchased by the son of the businessman and donated to trustees of the college.
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This page is based on the article St Donat’s Castle published in Wikipedia (as of Oct. 31, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
