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 In the 13th century St Donats was held by the de Haweys family who also had
estates in Somerset and Dorset. The heiress Joan de Hawey married Sir Peter de
Stratelynge (Stradling), a Swiss who was in command of the castle at
Neath
in 1296. He died soon afterwards so it was either his sons or Joan's second
husband John de Pembridge who built the castle in the early 14th century. In the
late 14th century, Edward Stradling was twice Sheriff of Glamorgan and his wife
Gwenllian Berkerolles inherited
Coity
Castle. Their grandson Edward married a daughter of Henry VI's great uncle
Cardinal Beaufort and became Chamberlain of South Wales in 1423. He died on
pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1453, four years after his son Henry was captured
by the pirate Colyn Dolphyn while sailing to Wales from Somerset and had to be
ransomed. Henry married Elizabeth Herbert of Raglan and their son Thomas died
young, leaving a widow who married
Sir
Rhys ap Thomas. Sir Rhys became guardian of Edward, the heir, later infamous
for his numerous and lawless illegitimate sons.
John Stradling was made a baronet by James I in 1611, despite the family
having remained faithful to the Roman church at the Reformation. They fought for
King Charles in the Civil War, a Stradling being leader of the Royalist force
defeated in 1648 at St Fagans. They later declined to the status of local gentry
and in 1738 Sir Thomas, the last male heir, was killed in a duel at Montpellier
in France. The estate passed to his cousin Bussey, 4th Baron Mansell of Margam.
On his death the estates were divided, St Donats going to Sir John Tyrrwhitt in
1755. His heirs neglected the castle, but in 1862 Dr. Nicholl-Carne, a
descendant of the Stradlings, bought the castle and began restoring it as his
residence. In 1901 it was sold to Morgan Stuart Williams who sought a refuge
from his coal mines at Aberpergwm and carried out further work on the castle. In
1922 Richard Pennoyer bought the castle, but in 1925 he re-sold it to a fellow
American, the newspaper millionaire William Randolph Hearst. The castle was
commandeered for training of army officers during the war and then in 1960 was
taken over by an international school called Atlantic
College, which is still thriving there.
The castle lies on a promontory with precipitous cliffs on the west. An inner
ward about 40m across with a polygonal wall is closely surrounded by an outer
ward with a dry moat facing the eastern approach. The
 outer wall mostly survives
and has a small original tower entirely contained with it on the north, and a
square gatehouse on the east. The inner ward is entered by an arch beside the
rectangular Mansell Tower on the east side. The western part of the inner
curtain is gone, making room for the early 16th century north and west ranges,
and the remainder has buildings of various dates against both sides of it. The
late 15th-century hall lies on the south of the ward. Beside it, squeezed in
between the inner and outer curtains, is the Bradenstoke Hall, a modern building
re-using the early 14th-century roof. The Lady Ann tower southwest of this is
also modern and on the west side of the castle is a large modern dining hall.
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St
Donats Castle,
South Glamorgan, Wales...
