St Donat's Castle (), St Donats, Wales, is a medieval castle in the Vale of Glamorgan, about to the west of Cardiff, and about to the west of Llantwit Major. 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's origins date from the 12th century when the de Haweys and later Peter de Stradling began its development. The Stradlings held the castle for four hundred years, until the death of Sir Thomas Stradling in a duel in 1738.
During the 18th century, the castle's status and condition declined and by the early 19th century it was only partly habitable. The later 19th and early 20th centuries saw several restorations. In 1852, it was purchased by John Whitlock Nicholl Carne, who claimed descent from the Stradlings but whose efforts at reconstruction were not well regarded. More enlightened improvements were made by its subsequent owner, the coal magnate Morgan Stuart Williams.
The castle's transformation occurred after its purchase in 1925 by William Randolph Hearst, the American newspaper tycoon. Hearst undertook a "brutal" expansion, including the incorporation of elements from other ancient structures such as the roofs of Bradenstoke Priory in Wiltshire and St Botolph's Church in Lincolnshire. His approach to architectural reclamation was controversial and the destruction of Bradenstoke was opposed in a vigorous campaign organised by the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings. Bernard Shaw described the castle after Hearst's reconstruction as "what God would have built if he had had the money". Despite spending vast sums of money on St Donat's, Hearst rarely visited and in 1937, with the Hearst Corporation facing financial collapse, the castle was put up for sale, but with war looming, the castle was instead requisitioned for use by the army.
In 1960, some nine years after Hearst's death, it was purchased by the son of the businessman and educational philanthropist Antonin Besse and donated to the trustees of Atlantic College, the first of the United World Colleges. Today the castle is home to some 350 international students and, with a history of occupation extending back to the late 13th century, is among the oldest continuously inhabited castles in Wales. Both the castle and the grounds are of historical and architectural importance, and have Grade I listed status.
History
Stradling family: 1300–1738
According to tradition, the site of St Donat's was the place to which Caradog, the Celtic chieftain, returned after being released from imprisonment in Rome by the emperor Claudius. After the Norman invasion of Wales in the mid-11th century, a timber castle was constructed on the site. The earliest surviving parts of the present castle, the keep and the inner ward, were built in the late 12th century by the de Hawey family. Ownership passed to the Stradling family through the marriage of Sir Peter Stradling to Joan de Hawey. The Stradlings were adventurers from Strättligen in Switzerland, who came to South Wales in the late 13th century. Sir Peter, his wife and later her second husband John de Pembridge, extended the castle around 1300, building the outer gatehouse and curtain wall and enlarging the keep and inner gatehouse.
The Stradling family served as magistrates, members of parliament, sheriffs and deputy lieutenants of Glamorganshire from the 13th to the 18th centuries. A number achieved more than local fame. The third Sir Edward Stradling, in a run of nine Edwards, fought at the Battle of Agincourt, married a great-granddaughter of Edward III and established himself as a powerful landowner and courtier. One of Edward's sons, Henry, was seized by pirates in the Bristol Channel while travelling from his Somerset estates to St Donat's, and was released only on payment of a large ransom. This event has subsequently been much embellished by, among others, Taliesin Williams in his account The Doom of Colyn Dolphyn: A Poem, with Notes Illustrative of Various Traditions of Glamorganshire, which involves the eponymous Breton pirate and the witch Mallt-y-Nos. Henry Stradling's nautical misadventures continued; after acceding to the baronetcy, he died of a fever at Famagusta, returning from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.The Stradlings remained adherents of the Catholic faith following the Reformation and experienced persecution as a consequence. Sir Thomas Stradling (1495–1571) was imprisoned in the Tower of London in 1561, following accusations of his having used the appearance of a "miraculous" cross in the trunk of an ash tree on the St Donat's estate to encourage support for the Catholic cause.