Bethesda’r Fro

Queen’s Attorney to the Council of Wales and the Marches in the 1590’s. It remained in the hands of the family until the last heiress Jane Seys married Robert Jones of Fonmon at which time its fixtures and fittings were stripped out. Jones sold the estate but...

In 1830 Bethel was “ erected for the use of the Particular Baptists”. Its first minister Jabez Lawrence was a shopkeeper in the town. It is said that the opening services were conducted by Christmas Evans, the famous one-eyed Welsh preacher.

One of the oldest surviving secular buildings if the town, belonging to the Raglan family. It then became the rectory for the parish before being converted in the early 1870’s into the Board School.

This is described as an end-entry house built in the late sixteenth century. As with The Old Swan it is unclear when exactly it became an inn, though again tokens were issued under its name in the eighteenth century. There are claims that it was once a court house...

This was probably a substantial local dwelling built in the sixteenth century. When it became an inn however is open to speculation. In the mid seventeenth century it belonged to Edward Maddock, who was permitted to mint his own tokens as there was a shortage of coin...

The house was built in the early eighteenth century and substantially altered a century or so later. There is evidence that it was leased to a member of the Throckmorton family from Coughton Court, Warwickshire whose ancestor had been involved in the Gunpowder Plot....

Sometimes called Ty Mawr or Upper House, its association with the Nicholl family goes back to their first arrival in the parish in the Elizabethan period. The building originally consisted of a square central section to which a southern wing was added providing...

This building has mistakenly been called Llantwit Castle. It is in fact the ruin of an Elizabethan manor house with two wings enclosing a paved courtyard. It was built in 1596 by Griffith Williams for his daughter and her husband Edmund Vann. They represented the...

It used to be claimed that Plymouth House was one of the surviving halls of residence from Illtud’s monastery. Its history does not go that far back but there is evidence that it may incorporate the remnants of a halled house of the fifteenth century. It was often...

This row of houses was built in the early years of the nineteenth century as housing for the poor of the parish. When the workhouse in Bridgend was opened they became surplus to requirements and were sold as private residences. Originally each unit was divided into...