Nanteos (Welsh: Plas Nanteos, Nanteos Mansion) is an 18th-century former country house in Llanbadarn-y-Creuddyn, near Aberystwyth, Ceredigion, Wales. A Grade I listed building, it is now a country house hotel. The gardens and parkland surrounding the mansion are listed on the Cadw/ICOMOS Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales.
The current building was constructed between 1738 and 1757 for the Powell family, with the Shrewsbury architect Edward Haycock Sr. designing the stable block in the 1830s, and William Ritson Coultart designing the east wing and rear offices in 1841. The family occupied the house for some 200 years up until the last of the Powells, Margaret Powell, who died in 1951. At its peak the Nanteos estate comprised some 31,000 acres in 1800, [1] covering most of what is today Aberystwyth, and was the major employer of the county. The name derives from the Welsh for "brook" (nant) and "nightingale" (eos). [2]
The house was once the home of the Nanteos Cup, a medieval mazer drinking bowl that has been attributed with a supernatural ability to heal those who drink from it; it was traditionally believed to be fashioned from a piece of the True Cross. A 1905 pamphlet declared it to be the Holy Grail.
The earliest recorded occupant of the estate was Colonel John Jones, a Royalist during the English Civil War and High Sheriff of Cardiganshire for 1665. He had no sons and so the estate was inherited in 1666 by his daughter Anne, who had married a Dutch mining engineer, Cornelius Le Brun, who in turn became High Sheriff in 1676. Their only daughter Averina duly inherited, having married William Powell (1658–1738) of Llechwedd Dyrus, and passed it on in 1738 to their eldest son, Thomas. Thomas had married a wealthy heiress, Mary Frederick, and started to build the present house soon afterwards. He was MP in turn for Cardigan Boroughs and Cardiganshire and died in a London street.
The property then descended in the family to the Reverend William Powell in 1752, who completed the building work. His son Thomas inherited and was High Sheriff in 1785; Thomas's son William Edward was High Sheriff in 1810 and MP for Cardiganshire between 1816 and his death in 1854. The property passed to his son William Thomas Rowland Powell, who was also MP for Cardiganshire. In 1878 the property was inherited by his son George, an antiquary and collector. The property was inherited by his nephew William Beauclerk Powell and then by his son Edward Athelstan Lewis Powell, whose son and heir William Edward George Pryse Wynne Powell was killed in the First World War.
The property passed to Edward Athelstan Lewis Powell's widow Margaret, who died in 1930. [3] [4] She bequeathed the property in 1951 to Mrs. Elizabeth Mirylees, a distant relative of her husband, who moved in 1956. She sold it only 11 years later to Geoff and Rose Bliss, who lived there until 1983, opening the building to the public. Since then there have been several owners but the mansion now operates as a hotel. In 2004 it was purchased by the Saxoncourt Group which completed a major refurbishment in 2012. [5]
Nanteos is a Grade I listed building. [6] The gardens and park are designated Grade II* on the Cadw/ICOMOS Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales. [7]
David Davies was a Welsh industrialist and Liberal politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1874 and 1886. Davies was often known as David Davies Llandinam. He is best remembered today for founding Barry Docks.
Ceredigion is a parliamentary constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament. Created in 1536, the franchise expanded in the late 19th century and on the enfranchisement of women. Its boundaries remained virtually unchanged until 1983. From 1536 until 1885 the area had two seats : a county constituency (Cardiganshire) comprising the rural areas, the other the borough constituency known as the Cardigan District of Boroughs comprising a few separate towns; in 1885 the latter was abolished, its towns and electors incorporated into the former, reduced to one MP. The towns which comprised the Boroughs varied slightly over this long period, but primarily consisted of Cardigan, Aberystwyth, Lampeter and Adpar, the latter now a suburb of Newcastle Emlyn across the Teifi, in Carmarthenshire.
The Nanteos Cup is a medieval wood mazer bowl, held for many years at Nanteos Mansion, near Aberystwyth in Wales.
Sir Thomas Davies Lloyd, 1st Baronet was a British Liberal Member of Parliament, for Cardiganshire (Ceredigion) 1865–1868 and Cardigan Boroughs 1868–1874. Although he coveted a peerage and spent a fortune in pursuit of that aim, he had to be content with a baronetcy.
Llanerchaeron, known as "Llanayron House" to its nineteenth-century occupants, is a grade I listed mansion on the River Aeron, designed and built in 1795 by John Nash for Major William Lewis as a model self-sufficient farm complex located near Ciliau Aeron, some 2+1⁄2 miles south-east of Aberaeron, Ceredigion, Wales. There is evidence that the house replaced an earlier mansion. A later owner, William Lewes, was the husband of Colonel Lewis's inheriting daughter.
Hafod Uchtryd is a wooded and landscaped estate in the Ystwyth valley in Ceredigion, Wales. Near Devil's Bridge, Cwmystwyth and Pont-rhyd-y-groes, it is off the B4574 road. Hafod Uchtryd land was within the boundaries of the Cistercian Abbey Strata Florida. Originally a hunting lodge for Welsh Chieftains, it became home to the landed gentry and the nobility. In the late eighteenth century, a celebrated landscape was created under the ownership of Thomas Johnes.
The office of High Sheriff of Cardiganshire was established in 1541, since when a high sheriff was appointed annually until 1974 when the office was transformed into that of High Sheriff of Dyfed as part of the creation of Dyfed from the amalgamation of Cardiganshire, Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire. Between the Edwardian Conquest of Wales in 1282 and the establishment of the High Sheriff of Cardiganshire, the sheriff's duties were mainly the responsibility of the coroner and the Custos Rotulorum of Cardiganshire. The office of High Sheriff remained first in precedence in the county until the reign of Edward VII when an Order in Council in 1908 gave the Lord Lieutenant of Cardiganshire the prime office under the Crown as the sovereign's personal representative.
William Edward Powell was a Welsh Lord Lieutenant and Conservative Party politician who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Cardiganshire from 1816 until shortly before his death in 1854.
Trawsgoed is both a community and an estate in Ceredigion, Wales. The estate is 8 miles (13 km) southeast of Aberystwyth, and has been in the possession of the Vaughan family since 1200. The Vaughans are descended from Collwyn ap Tangno, founder of the fifth noble tribe of North Wales, Lord of Eifionydd, Ardudwy, and part of Llŷn, who had his residence on the site of Harlech Castle.
Bank y Llong was a Welsh bank. It got its name from an engraving of a ship decorating its bank notes. It was probably the first bank in Aberystwyth and was founded soon after the removal of the Custom House from Aberdyfi to Aberystwyth, around 1762.
Edward Haycock Sr. was an English architect working in the West Midlands and in central and southern Wales in the late Georgian and early Victorian periods.
Pryse Loveden Pryse of Gogerddan, Cardiganshire and Buscot Park, Berkshire was a British Lord Lieutenant and Member of Parliament for Cardigan Boroughs from 1818 until his death in 1849.
William Thomas Rowland Powell was a Welsh landowner and Conservative politician who served as Member of Parliament for Cardiganshire from 1859 until 1865.
Thomas Powell of Nanteos, was a Welsh politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1725 to 1727 and from 1742 to 1747.
Glandyfi Castle in Glandyfi, Ceredigion, Wales, is a mock castle dating from the early 19th century. It was built for George Jeffreys, a barrister and High Sheriff of Cardiganshire, in around 1819.
County Hall, formerly Aberaeron Town Hall, is a municipal building in Market Street, Aberaeron, Ceredigion, Wales. The structure, which is now used as a public library, is a Grade II listed building.
George Ernest John Powell (1842–1882) was a Welsh antiquary and collector known for his association with the Nanteos Cup, a medieval wood mazer bowl. He published poetry under the penname Miölnir Nanteos and translated two volumes of translations of Icelandic legends with the Icelandic scholar Eiríkur Magnússon.
Laura Place, in the centre of Aberystwyth, Ceredigion, Wales is a terrace of mid-19th century townhouses. Pevsner considers them "the finest Georgian houses of the town". Laura Place forms two sides of a square, fronting the Church of St Michael and All Angels in the shadow of Aberystwyth Castle. It was developed in the early 19th century by William Edward Powell of Nanteos, High Sheriff and Lord Lieutenant of Cardiganshire. Powell's architect is uncertain, but Cadw suggests George Stanley Repton as a possibility. Repton was certainly the architect of the Assembly Rooms, a separate building standing between 1-9 and 11-12.
St Michael's Church is a parish church in the town of Aberystwyth, Ceredigion, Wales. St Michael's is the fourth church to stand on the site. The first dated from the 15th century but was in ruins by the mid-18th century. Its replacement only stood for some forty years before itself being replaced in 1829-1833 with a church designed by Edward Haycock Sr. of Shrewsbury. Nothing of the two earlier buildings remains. The Haycock church was itself superseded by the present church, built by Nicholson & Son of Hereford in 1886-1890. A fragment of the Haycock church remains to the west of the current building.
Ceredigion is a county in the west of Wales. It covers an area of 1,785 km2 (689 sq mi) and in 2021 the population was approximately 70,700.