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Notable Houses in and around Llanelli

 

Llanelly House

Situated near the Parish Church and also called Ty Mawr (Great House) and Plas

The house is currently being restored and is due to open to the public in 2012

Photographs taken in May 2009 while the interior was being stripped prior to restoration

Llanelly House in 1900

In the late Middle Ages and the Tudor period a landowning family descended from Cadwgan Fychan of Gwempa lived there, and the last male representative, Thomas Lewis left an only child, the heiress Anne Lewis, who inherited the house and estate. Anne Lewis married Walter Vaughan, the younger son of Walter Vaughan of Golden Grove by Mary Rice of Dinefwr before 1608.

Walter Vaughan who was the first of his family to live at Llanelli House, served as High Sheriff in 1626 and died in 1635. Llanelli House was described as being particularly commodious and in 1670 contained 12 hearths.

The last of the Vaughans was Walter Vaughan, JP, DL who was High Sheriff in 1683. Walter Vaughan died unmarried on 12 October 1683 aged 34 and the estate, consisting of 101 messuages, 6 water corn mills, and several cottages, was partitioned between his four sisters in 1705.

Llanelly House was among the properties that passed to Mrs Anne Lloyd of Cwmgwili, and on her death without issue, she left the property to her youngest sister, Margaret Vaughan, who had married Sir Thomas Stepney 5th Baronet, in 1691. Around 1714 Sir Thomas pulled down the older house and built a new residence which has lasted to the present day. Sir Thomas Stepney died in 1744.

Extensive grounds extending as far as Falcon bridge formed its demesne but these have been built over for many years and the house is now hemmed in by houses and streets of later developments.

The left-hand side of the house corresponds to the present shop frontage of Llanelly House in Vaughan Street.

On 13th May 1776, Sir John Stepney 8th Baronet, then living at Fludyer Street, St Margaret’s, Westminster, granted a lease for seven years at £27 per annum to Hildebrand Oakes of Hampton Court Park, of Llanelly House with stables, gardens and closes of land, in Llanelly Parish together with certain furniture (specified) except the ‘stove garden’ and ‘pinery stoves’, glasses and implements, adjoining to the courtyard of the house, which were reserved to the lessor.

From 1768 to 1788 John Wesley, the Methodist Minister, preached to the people of Llanelli on eight occasions and often stayed in Llanelly House until Sir Thomas Stepney 7th Baronet died in 1772. Wesley was ‘hospitably entertained’ by the Stepney household and he lamented the death of Sir Thomas Stepney, writing in his diary that it was a ‘tremendous loss to the community.’

Sir Thomas Stepney’s son John Stepney inherited the Mansion, but he lived abroad and Agents managed his estate. The Mansion was rented out to workmen and their families and by 1800 the property had fallen into disrepair and was no longer used as a gentry residence.

In 1803 the traveller Malkin noted it as ‘an old mansion of the Stepney family, an old deserted seat of Sir John Stepney, in a state of dilapidation, inhabited principally by fishermen and colliers’.

In 1804 the house was said to have ‘for years wept for the loss of its respectable owners, and is now dividing into three distinct family messuages and the out-offices are converting into comfortable tenements’.

The antiquary Richard Fenton makes a brief mention – ‘A House at Llanelly was lately the Seat of John Vaughan Esq.’ Also in 1804 The Cambrian newspaper reported that the venerable old mansion of the Stepney family of Llanelly, which had been empty for years was converted into three separate family dwellings. The outbuildings were also converted into ‘comfortable tenements’ and the accommodation was described as ‘much wanted from the increase in the population in the neighbourhood’.

Sir John Stepney, 8th Baronet, died in 1811 without issue and the house passed to named friends.

By 1827 William Chambers senior was in possession and he took steps to restore the house, converting the conservatory into a market for the townspeople.

By 1833 Llanelly House had been renovated by the after being deserted by the Stepney family for more than 60 years and neglected by their Agents.

When William Chambers Senior died in 1855 his son, another William Chambers, who had established the Llanelli Pottery, found he was unable to retain the estate, because his mother and father’s marriage was not recognised under British law.

After a period of lengthy litigation the Mansion passed to the line of Sir John Cowell Stepney’s sister, Maria Justina, and eventually came to Catharine Meriel Cowell Stepney, who married Sir Edward Stafford Howard in 1911.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Lady Howard-Stepney thoroughly restored the two upper floors, the ground floor having been previously transformed into business premises. The front elevations still retain two of the original lead rainwater spouts, bearing the date 1714, with the Stepney coat of arms.

John Innes recorded that he had heard that it contained several panelled rooms, and a few panel pictures ‘of no great merit’ and that according to a report, there had been a very fine stained glass window in the house.

It is said locally that the house is haunted. The ghost is supposed to be that of a servant girl who became pregnant, as tradition suggests, by a gentleman of the house.

Because the servant girl was afraid of losing her job, and of the embarrassment that would be caused to her family, she threw herself down the stairs and died as the result of her injuries. Her ghost is said to walk the upstairs rooms at Llanelly House.

By the 21st century  the spacious grounds surrounding Llanelly House have long since disappeared under Tarmac and redevelopment but the house itself remains – an exterior restoration of 1996 hinting at its historic importance.

The interior is a different story and lies sadly neglected and awaiting restoration.

Llanelly House after exterior renovation in 1996