The Glamorgan-Gwent Archaeological Trust
Historic Environment Record
 

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Merthyr Mawr House

Primary Reference Number (PRN) : 03236m
Trust : Glamorgan Gwent
Community : Merthyr Mawr
Unitary authority : Bridgend
NGR : SS88867794
Site Type (preferred type first) : POST MEDIEVAL House
Status : listed building II*

Summary :
The house is a five-bay two-storey classical mansion faced with sawn white local carboniferous limestone. It has a gently sloping hipped roof and sash windows. It has been built between 1806 and 1809, designed by Henry Wood.

Description :
Merthyr Mawr house is situated towards the eastern end of Merthyr Mawr park. The house is a five-bay, two-storey classical mansion faced with sawn white local carboniferous limestone. It has a gently sloping hipped roof and sash windows, some of which are false. In the centre of the north front is a single-storey supported by two Tuscan columns. A veranda, built in 1819, projects from the ground floor of the west side of the house, running the full width of the house. The house was designed in the classical style by Henry Wood and built by Sir John Nicholl between 1806 and 1809 (CADW, 2000). The plan of the house has not changed since the first edition OS map (1878).
The estate had belonged to the Stradlings of St Donat's Castle from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries, and was divided between three claimants in 1738, Hugh Bowen of Oystermouth obtaining Merthyr House. The original house, Merthyr Mawr Hall, was situated to the SW of the present house, on or near the site of Home Farm, which replaced it when the new house was built. The house has undergone very little alteration since it was built, the main alteration being the addition of a plumbing tower and part of a service wing to the east (CADW, 2000).
The stable court and other outbuildings lie to the east of the house and were built in the same limestone as the house. Their first build was at the same time although Sir John Nicholl altered them (CADW, 2000).
The core of the park is occupied by the house, garden and pleasure grounds, which extend up the hill behind the house and in a finger of woodland between the garden and the road at West Lodge. To the north of the house is the pleasure area of Chapel Hill. Incorporated into the layout is a small fifteenth-century chapel, St Roque's Chapel. This itself stands within a small Iron Age fort (CADW, 2000).

Sources :
The Handley Partnership , HAAbase built heritage assessment system: Buildings at Risk database
CADW, 2000, Glamorgan : Register of Landscapes, Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales, part 1: parks and gardens, pp.14-17
First edition OS map, 1877
Second edition OS map, 1899
Third edition OS map, 1918

Events :

Related records
National Monuments Record NPRN 19319 http://www.coflein.gov.uk/en/site/19319/details
GGAT Historic Environment Record (HER) 00248m
GGAT Historic Environment Record (HER) 00275m
GGAT Historic Environment Record (HER) 00313m
GGAT Historic Environment Record (HER) 02447m
GGAT Historic Environment Record (HER) 03237m

Compiled date : 29-06-1998


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