Wales · Restored
Wenvoe Castle
Wenvoe Castle was a late-18th-century castellated country house on an estate between Barry and Wenvoe in the Vale of Glamorgan, south Wales. Built in 1776–77 to designs by Robert Adam for Peter Birt, the house was largely destroyed by fire in 1910, restored in 1928 and later adapted as the clubhouse for Wenvoe Castle Golf Club; its gardens and park are Grade II listed.
First raised
1776
Its prime
1777
Today
Restored
As it stood in 1777
What Wenvoe Castle looked like in its prime.
Late 18th-century Georgian castellated country house: a symmetrical three-storey ashlar central block with regular vertical sash windows and a low battlemented parapet, flanked by taller, slightly projecting square towers; low crenellated curtain walls and matching two-storey pavilions extend at either end. Stone appears pale ashlar. Roofline is flat behind parapets. The house sits on a gentle open lawn within parkland dotted with mature deciduous trees, visible from a wide pastoral approach.
Its story
The story of Wenvoe Castle.
The Wenvoe estate, between Barry and Wenvoe in the Vale of Glamorgan, came to the Thomas family in 1560, when Jevan ap Harpway of Tresimont married Catherine, only daughter and heiress of Thomas ap Thomas. The Thomases were prominent figures in Glamorgan — among them Edmund Thomas, who sat in Cromwell's Upper House, and Colonel Charles Nassau Thomas, vice-chamberlain to the future George IV — until debt forced the estate's sale in 1774.
The buyer was Peter Birt, a Yorkshire coal magnate, for whom the castellated house was built in 1776–77 to designs by Robert Adam. The Birts passed the estate in 1823–24 to the Jenner family, prominent in nineteenth-century Glamorganshire, who gave their name to Barry's Jenner Park district.
The house was largely destroyed by fire in 1910 and restored in 1928. The former estate now forms the Wenvoe Castle Golf Club, with the house adapted as its clubhouse, and the gardens and park are Grade II listed.
Step inside
6 places to explore in 1777.
The record describes 6 distinct spots at Wenvoe Castle — including the full exterior approach. Create your own photoreal reconstruction and walk through every one — more scenes means more rooms, more angles, and more of the place to stand in.
Create History
Recreate Wenvoe Castle with AI to explore it.
The artist rebuilds it as it stood in 1777 — a photoreal walk that belongs to you alone. Pay with coins, no subscription needed.
Recreate this castle →Whose castle
Clans who held Wenvoe Castle.
The families that held Wenvoe Castle for a decade or more across its history — follow a name to its clan.
Held by the Thomas family from 1560 until debts forced its sale in 1774.
Birt
Bought by Peter Birt, coal magnate, in 1774; the Birts held it until 1823–24.
Jenner
Passed to the Jenner family in 1823–24.
Nearby
