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St Donat's Castle

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St Donats Church, Wales

St Donat's Castle or Castell Sain Dunwyd in St Donats, Wales, is a medieval castle in the Vale of Glamorgan, about 16 miles (26 km) to the west of Cardiff. Positioned on cliffs overlooking the Bristol Channel, the site has been occupied since the Iron Age, and was by tradition the home of the Celtic chieftain Caradog. The present castle dates from the 12th century when the de Haweys and later Peter de Stradling developed it. The Stradlings held the castle for four hundred years. During the 18th century, the castle's condition declined and by the early 19th century it was only partly habitable. In 1925, William Randolph Hearst, the American newspaper tycoon, bought it and undertook a "brutal" expansion, including the incorporation of elements from other ancient structures such as the roofs of Bradenstoke Priory, Wiltshire. Bernard Shaw described the result as "what God would have built if he had had the money". After Hearst's death, the castle was given to the trustees of Atlantic College, the first of the United World Colleges. Among the oldest continuously inhabited castles in Wales, both the building and the grounds have Grade I listed status. (Full article...)