Trawsgoed

Infobox UK place
country = Wales
welsh_name = Trawsgoed
constituency_welsh_assembly =
official_name = Trawsgoed Estate
latitude = 52.33429
longitude = -3.96072
unitary_wales = Ceredigion
lieutenancy_wales = Dyfed
constituency_westminster = Ceredigion
Assembly_Region = Mid and West Wales
post_town = ABERYSTWYTH
postcode_district = SY23
postcode_area = SY
dial_code = 01974
map_type =
os_grid_reference = SN6672
cardiff_distance_mi = 90
cardiff_distance = SE
population =
population_ref =
population_ref =
static_

static_image_caption =

Trawsgoed Estate located eight miles east of Aberystwyth in Ceredigion, Dyfed, Wales has been in the possession of the Vaughn family since the year 1200. [http://www.trawsgoed-estate.co.uk/history.htm Trawsgoed Estate] ] The family are descended from Collwyn ap Tangno, founder of the fifth noble tribe of North Wales, Lord of Eifionydd, Ardudwy, and part of Lleyn, who had his residence on the site of Harlech Castle. [ [http://books.google.com/books?id=Ux4fAAAAMAAJ The History of the Princes, the Lords Marcher, and the Ancient Nobility of Powys Fadog, and the Ancient Lords of Arwystli, Cedewen, and Meirionydd] ] The land falls within the ancient parish of Llanafan, [http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/relationships.jsp?u_id=10202942 Vision of Britain] ] in the upper division of the hundred of Ilar. In Wales an ancient parish was a village or group of villages or hamlets and the adjacent lands. Originally they held ecclesiastical functions, but from the sixteenth century they also acquired civil roles. The parish may have been established as an ecclesiastical parish. Originally a medieval administrative unit, after 1597 ecclesiastical units were separated from civil parishes to serve the ecclesiastical needs of the local community. [ [http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/types/status_page.jsp?unit_status=AP Ancient Parishes of Britain] ] The Trawsgoed estate extended over 22 Cardiganshire parishes, including Llanafan. [ [http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/wal/CGN/Llanafan/#LandProperty Morgan, Gerald. "A Welsh House and its Family: the Vaughns of Trawsgoed (Crosswood)" 1999] ]

History of ownership

The manor and mansion of Trawsgoed came into the Vaughan family by the marriage of Adda Vychan with Tudo, daughter and heiress of Ifan Goch of Trawsgoed, ‘Evan the Red'. [http://www.trawsgoed-estate.co.uk/history.htm Trawsgoed Estate] ]

The founder of the modern estate was the parliamentarian and lawyer, Sir John Vaughan, who was made Chief Justice of the Common Pleas by Charles II. It was Sir John Vaughan who acquired from the Earl of Essex much of the former monastic lands of the Cistercian abbey Strata Florida. At the same time further land was added to the estate through his marriage to Jane Steadman, daughter of John Steadman of Ystrad Fflur and Cilcennin.

The estate has been passed down in the landed family from father to son in a direct line since it was acquired by marriage in 1200. Like the Fulfords in Devon, the Vaughns are one of the few aristocratic families who have retained possession of a house since first taking it on in the Middle Ages.

Trawsgoed became an estate in the English sense of the word in the 16th century. Strata Florida Abbey, in the centre of Wales, was given to the 1st Earl of Essex to broker during the English Reformation and dissolution of the monasteries, and he sold much of it to the Stedman family. Sir John Vaughan married the Stedman heiress [ [http://books.google.com/books?id=iD4LAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA168&dq=trawsgoed+crosswood&ei=jd7NSJyUJYHYtgP7-LkI Annals and Antiquities of the Counties and County Families of Wales: Steadmans of Strata Florida] ] and his brother, Henry, her sister. So almost all the abbey estate was taken over by the Vaughans. In 1695, John Vaughan of Trawsgoed, the grandson of Sir John Vaughan, was created Viscount Lisburne in the peerage of Ireland. during the Civil War he married Malet, daughter of the poet and courtier, the Earl of Rochester, and granddaughter of the Cavalier, Sir John Wilmot, the victor of the Battle of Roundway Down.

The Vaughan family became Earls of Lisburne in 1776 and remained at Trawsgoed mansion over successive generations. The family at one time owned estates in Northumberland and at Mamhead in Devon. In 1947 the mansion house became the headquarters of the Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food in Wales, and the home farm is still occupied by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and managed by the Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research ( IGER).

Present day status

The family still holds over 5,000 acres of the original estate that includes farmland, uplands and Common Land and retains the use of an apartment in the mansion house at Trawsgoed. Shooting rights on adjoining Forestry Commission woodlands and fishing rights on the River Ystwyth have also been preserved. The house is set in listed parkland and gardens and is some eight miles inland from Aberystwyth.

The last remaining Vaughn member to hold residence at the estate is the Honorable John Edward Malet Vaughan, born 3 Oct 1952. He is the youngest child of John David Malet Vaughan, 8th Earl of Lisburne and Shelagh Macauley. [ [http://thepeerage.com/p8194.htm#i81936 ThePeerage] ]

Lisburne Mines

The Trawsgoed estate was home to the Lisburne (Lead) Mines, one of the most profitable in all of Wales. In the 1880s, Trawsgoed had the second largest lead mine in Britain. [ [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/main.jhtml?xml=/property/2005/08/06/pselling06.xml&page=1 Second Largest Lead Mines in Britain] ]

Manor House

It was Ernest George Henry, the 6th Earl of Lisburne, who added the 50-room Victorian wing to the old Georgian house and built the summerhouse, squash and tennis courts and the ornamental fountain. He also had the library ceiling painted in the style of those at Windsor Castle. The house eventually included seventy rooms, a summerhouse, gardens with rare Chilean and Himalayan tree species that thrive in the mild moist climate of coastal Wales, a Roman Fort adjoining the grounds, fountain, stable block, lodge house, and unencumbered view of the Welsh hills of the Cambrian Mountains.

Notable neighbors

The estate shares a border along the River Ystwyth with that of the Hafod estate.

References

Notes

* Crosswood Deeds, estate and family records 1527–1939 of Vaughan of Trawsgoed, later Earls of Lisburne. These deeds are calendared in Green, F. Calendar of Deeds and Documents Vol II; The Crosswood Deeds. Aberystwyth, 1927
* Plas Llangoedmore, estate records relating to Vaughan of Trawsgoed.
* The Roberts and Evans collection solicitors of Aberystwyth includes Trawsgoed C18–C20
*Morgan, Gerald. The Trawsgoed Inheritance. Ceredigion: Cardiganshire Antiquarian Society, Vol 2, No 1, 1993
*Morgan, Gerald. Writing an Estate and Family History: The Vaughans of Trawsgoed. Second Stages in Researching Welsh Ancestry. Edited by John & Sheila Rowlands. FFHS, 1999