Welsh Journals

SIR WILLIAM MORGAN OF PENCOED: 'A MAN MUCH TO BE ACCOUNTED OF' six miles east of Newport on a slight rise of ground near the hamlet of Llanmartin stands Pencoed Castle. The visitor who passes through the archway of the massive gatehouse with its tall moss-covered turrets finds himself in a square courtyard. Before him stands a grey stone mansion of impressive size but ruinous condition whose embattled walls contain rows of long square-headed windows. The building itself is entered by a broad gothic porch which leads into a great hall thirty-six feet in length. There are remnants of several floors, and also stone stairs at either end of the house which give some idea of the large interior quarters that once existed. This building, erected early in the Tudor period, is situated on the site of a Norman castle, and remains of the older structure still exist in the crumbling walls and in the round tower in the south-east comer of the courtyard. Pencoed Castle was probably the birthplace of Sir William Morgan in 1541, a Welshman who, in a brief and tragic career, won con- siderable distinction as a soldier in the Netherlands and Ireland during the reign of Queen Elizabeth.1 The eldest son of Sir Thomas and Cecily Morgan, he belonged to an old Monmouthshire family. His ancestors had originally lived at Langstone Court, a few miles from Pencoed, and one of them had purchased the manor of Pencoed in about the middle of the fifteenth century. William's great-great- grandfather, Sir Thomas Morgan, was the first of the family to settle at Pencoed. He began construction of the present mansion early in the reign of Henry VII, and it was later completed by his eldest son.2 During these years the Morgans of Pencoed gradually achieved local prominence. Sir Thomas Morgan, the father of the subject of this paper, was particularly successful in advancing the family fortunes. Under Henry VIII and his three successors he held various offices, including those of sheriff, justice of the peace, and steward 1 Inquisition post mortem of Sir Thomas Morgan, P. R. 0., C142/143/73. IOn Pencoed Castle and the Morgans of Pencoed, see Joseph Bradney, A History of Monmouthshire, IV, part II (London 1932), pp. 212-16; Western Mail, 29 September 1931; Octavius Morgan and Thomas Wakeman, Notices of Pencoed Castle and Langstone (printed for the Monmouthshire and Caerlean Antiquarian Association, Newport, 1864). I would like to thank Mr. A. J. Parkinson for sending me photographs of Pencoed Castle and much valuable information concerning it. On Morgan's great-great-grandfather, Sir Thomas, and his descendants, see also G. T. Clark, Limbus Patrum Morganiae (London, 1886), p. 320.