Margam Castle, Margam, Port Talbot, Wales, is a late Georgian

country house An English country house is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were often owned by individuals who also owned a town house. This allowed them to spend time in the country and in the city—hence, for these peopl ...

built for

Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot FRS (10 May 1803 – 17 January 1890) was a Welsh landowner, industrialist and Liberal politician. He developed his estate at Margam near Swansea as an extensive ironworks, served by railways and a port, which was ...

. Designed by Thomas Hopper, the castle was constructed in a Tudor Revival style over a five-year period, from 1830 to 1835. The site had been occupied for some 4,000 years. A Grade I listed building, the castle is now in the care of Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council.

History

The Margam estate was occupied in the Iron Age, and the remains of a hill fort from that period, Mynydd-y-Castell, stand north of the castle. After the Norman Invasion of Wales, Robert, 1st Earl of Gloucester, and Lord of Glamorgan, granted the lands at Margam to Clairvaux Abbey, for the establishment of a new

Cistercian The Cistercians, () officially the Order of Cistercians ( la, (Sacer) Ordo Cisterciensis, abbreviated as OCist or SOCist), are a Catholic religious order of monks and nuns that branched off from the Benedictines and follow the Rule of Saint ...

monastery which became Margam Abbey. Following the Dissolution of the Monasteries from 1536, the Margam estate was bought by Sir Rice (Rhys) Mansel. His descendants built a substantial Tudor mansion in the park. In the 18th century, this mansion was demolished, and the family returned to one of their earlier ancestral homes,

Penrice Castle Penrice Castle ( cy, Castell Pen-rhys) is a 13th-century castle near Penrice, Swansea on the Gower Peninsula, Wales. Nearby is a neo-classical mansion house built in the 1770s. The mansion is a Grade I listed building and the surrounding gardens ...

, Thomas Mansel Talbot (1747–1813), commissioning

Anthony Keck Anthony Keck (1726–1797) was an 18th-century English architect with an extensive practice in Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, Herefordshire and South Wales. Life Keck was born at Randwick, Gloucestershire in 1726 He designed in the "austere ...

to build a new mansion next to the castle ruins. Keck was also employed at Margan, which Talbot turned into a pleasure garden, using Keck to design an enormous orangery.

succeeded his father in 1813 at the age of ten. Enriched by the development of Port Talbot in the early 19th century, and after making a Grand Tour of Europe as a young man, Talbot returned to south Wales and from 1830 re-established Margam as his main seat. A new house, Margam Castle was designed in a Tudor Gothic style by the architect Thomas Hopper (1776–1856), with

Edward Haycock Snr Edward Haycock Sr. (29 July 1790 – 20 December 1870) was an English architect working in the West Midlands and in central and southern Wales in the late Georgian and early Victorian periods. Biography Haycock was the grandson of William Hayc ...

(1790–1870) as supervisory architect, and designer of parts of the interior and exterior of the house, the stables, terraces and lodges. Talbot also took a keen interest in the project, encouraging his architects to borrow elements from Lacock Abbey in Wiltshire (ancestral home of the Talbots and home to his cousin William Henry Fox Talbot) and

Melbury House Melbury House is an English country house in the parish of Melbury Sampford near Evershot, Dorset, This Grade I listed mansion is the home of the Honorable Mrs Charlotte Townshend, a major landowner in east Dorset, through her mother, Theresa ...

in Dorset (home of his mother's family, the Fox-Strangways,

Earls of Ilchester Earl of Ilchester is a title in the Peerage of Great Britain. It was created in 1756 for Stephen Fox, 1st Baron Ilchester, who had previously represented Shaftesbury in Parliament. He had already been created Baron Ilchester, of Ilchester in ...

). William Henry Fox Talbot was a frequent visitor to Margam, and the castle featured as an image in some of his early photographic experiments. Margam's links with photography also include being the location of the earliest known Welsh photograph, a

daguerreotype Daguerreotype (; french: daguerréotype) was the first publicly available photographic process; it was widely used during the 1840s and 1850s. "Daguerreotype" also refers to an image created through this process. Invented by Louis Daguerre an ...

of the castle taken on 9 March 1841 by the Reverend Calvert Richard Jones. After the death of

Emily Charlotte Talbot Emily Charlotte Talbot (1 August 1840 – 21 September 1918) was an heiress and industrialist of South Wales, the daughter of Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot. She was born in Belgrave Square, the centrepiece of Belgravia in London London ...

, the daughter of its first owner, the castle passed to her nephew and continued to be used by the Talbot family until 1941, when it was sold.

David Evans-Bevan Sir David Martyn Evans-Bevan (4 March 1902 – 9 September 1973) was a wealthy industrialist from south Wales. He was the owner of the Vale of Neath Brewery, and purchased Margam Castle from the Talbot family. David Evans-Bevan was the son of Evan ...

, who bought it, found it too large to live in, but could not find any public organisation interested in taking it on, and it fell into disrepair. For many years it belonged to the local authority, but was not open to the public. In 1977, a fire caused substantial damage, and it was only after this that a restoration project began in earnest. Today Margam Castle is in the care of Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council.

Reputed hauntings

The castle is reputedly haunted. In 2019, paranormal investigators from American television series '' Paranormal Lockdown'' visited the castle; the resulting investigations became an episode of the show's third season. A TV movie was made in 2020
The Haunting of Margam Castle
directed, written and co-produced by Andrew Jones, distributed by 4Digital Media (US and UK) and Netflix (Netherlands).

Architecture

Margam Castle is a Grade I listed building. Its service courtyard is listed Grade II*, as are the terrace walls and screen, while the steps in the terraced garden are listed Grade II.

References

Sources

External links

* {{Commons category inline Houses completed in 1840 Grade I listed buildings in Neath Port Talbot Grade I listed houses Mock castles in Wales Castles in Neath Port Talbot Tourist attractions in Neath Port Talbot Country houses in Wales Mansel family