Miskin Manor

Miskin Manor is a Victorian manor house built in around 1864 and designed by David Vaughan of Bridgend for David Williams. It incorporates part of late 16th-early 17th century manor house. It lies just off the A4119 to the south west of Miskin village.

The manor, and many of the features within its walled garden was listed as Grade II by Cadw in 1976, amended in 2000, for having ‘architectural interest as a large 19th century Tudor-Gothic country house retaining original character and detail’

There has been a house at this location since at least the early medieval period, and in the late 11th century there was an earlier manor on the site that was the home of Nest, daughter of the Prince of Glamorgan, while from around 1610 to 1857 the house was owned by a branch of the Bassett family of Old Beaupre.

The house is outwardly Victorian neo-Jacobean style. Although no decorative detail of the earlier period survives, irregularities in the plan and in the thickness of the wall suggest that an originally U or E-shaped, double-pile house was rebuilt and extended southwards.

The estate was owned by the Williams family including Rhys Rhys-Williams for many years who were descended from the Welsh bard David Williams. Co-incidentally Judge Gwylim Williams, his son was married to a descendant of Nest

In 1923 the manor house was partly consumed by fire which destroyed the south wing.

In 1940 the manor house was taken over by the Red Cross and used as a convalescent home. Lady Williams was commandant of the Red Cross Hospital there and continued to occupy part of the building until after her husband’s death in 1955.

The manor was then passed from the Red Cross to the local health authority in 1948 for continued use as a hospital until the late 1960s when it was sold.

Today the manor is used as a hotel and venue for wedding receptions.

For more information about the history of the community of Pontyclun please visit our online museum