GREAT HOUSE FARM / TŶ MAWR — STATEMENT TO LLANDOUGH COMMUNITY COUNCIL
Thursday 22 October 2026, 7.00pm. About three minutes.

Chair, councillors, thank you for placing this on the agenda.

My grandmother was Mary Williams of Great House Farm, Tŷ Mawr, beside St Dochdwy's Church. Our family account is that we lived in that house from 1667 until it was demolished at about four in the morning on 6 December 1988.

Item 10 describes a plaque and a mailing list. The subject is wider than that, so I will take it in short parts.

The house. Heneb's record says the manorial courts of Llandough and Leckwith sat at Great House. The Local Plan said its buildings should be retained. It was never fully recorded before it came down.

The ground. A published study reports 1,026 burials from the early medieval cemetery excavated there in 1994, the largest such population recovered in Wales. The monastery's exact site has never been established. Nothing on the ground marks any of it, and the Council's own village history does not mention Great House.

My grandmother. For decades she said the house was hers. She refused every tenancy offered for it. In February 1983, while she lived there, BP applied to register the farmhouse as its own title; she died that March. In 1987, while the appeal was running, that title was merged into the fields.

The courts. They decided who could stay. The family lost. They did not decide who owned the house. The house came down the morning after Cadw refused to list it, while our Strasbourg application was pending.

The records. More than twenty bodies have been asked. Cadw's 1988 file is missing with no record of destruction. The Land Registry's list of 43 documents does not include the 1969 deed BP's title rests on. The Ministry of Justice has not yet answered our MP.

Our research has only started. Nothing yet meets the threshold to reopen the case, and we do not claim it does. That is why the records matter.

We ask for four things. Put our statement on the public record. Make Great House Farm a standing item, with a named councillor. Recommend to the Senedd that an independent inquiry be considered. And write in support of disclosure and preservation of the records. We also ask you to recognise what three generations of my family have been through. We are not seeking anyone's home at Church View Close.

Your mission is “Serving our community, preserving our identity”. Tŷ Mawr is part of that identity. Thank you.


SIXTY-SECOND VERSION

Chair, councillors, thank you. My family lived at Great House Farm, Tŷ Mawr, beside St Dochdwy's Church, from 1667 until it was demolished at about 4am on 6 December 1988. The manorial courts sat in that house. A published study reports 1,026 early medieval burials from the ground beside it. In 1983 the farmhouse was registered to BP while my grandmother lived in it; the courts decided possession, not ownership. Your own village history mentions none of this. Our research has only started, and the records that would test it have not yet been produced. Tonight we ask four things: put our statement on the record, make Tŷ Mawr a standing item with a named councillor, recommend a Senedd inquiry, and write in support of disclosure. Your mission is preserving our identity. Tŷ Mawr is part of it. Thank you.


THE FOUR ASKS FOR TONIGHT
1. Receive our statement and pack, and minute them.
2. Make Great House Farm / Tŷ Mawr a standing item, with a named councillor.
3. Recommend to the Senedd that an independent inquiry be considered.
4. Write to the bodies holding the records in support of disclosure and preservation.


BRIEFING CUE CARD (say the line, move on; expand only if asked)

C1  WHO WE ARE
    SAY: We are the Williams–Buckler family of Tŷ Mawr, the Great House of Llandough. Our family lived there for 320 years.
    IF ASKED “Weren't you tenants?” The 1939 tenancy plan, now held, depicts the eastern fields only, not the house. Mary refused the tenancies offered for the house.
    AGAINST US: The heritage record says the Vaughans held Great House as the chief freehold farm from the mid-16th to the late 18th century. Both accounts can be true only if the Williamses held under them.

C2  WHAT LIES THERE
    SAY: The ground at Church View Close held one of the great early Christian cemeteries of Wales. Nothing marks it.
    IF ASKED “Isn't this history already told?” The Council's own village history says 800 burials and does not mention Great House at all.
    AGAINST US: Museum Wales traces the medieval spur and spearhead linked to the “armour” story to Church Farm, 1858, not to Great House.
    AGAINST US: It has not been shown that the 1994 burials lay on the family's own parcel.

C3  MARY'S PARCEL
    SAY: For decades Mary Williams said the house was hers. She was treated as a tenant, and in 1983 her home was registered to BP while she lived in it.
    IF ASKED “The register is conclusive.” The register can be corrected for mistake, and a person in actual occupation in 1982 had protected rights.
    AGAINST US: The 1916 tenancy described the farm as one holding, and later documents repeated that wording.
    AGAINST US: HM Land Registry says there is no evidence of a mistake; its stage-two decision says the title is registered correctly. That decision is with the Independent Complaints Reviewer.

C4  THE COURTS
    SAY: The family lost every round on who could stay. No court has ruled on who owned the house.
    IF ASKED “The courts have decided this.” They decided possession. The family's title case on the house parcel has not been tried.
    AGAINST US: The Court of Appeal found the 1974 letters made later occupation permissive, whether or not Mary accepted them.
    AGAINST US: Strasbourg held the interference with William Buckler's home lawful and justified.

C5  THE DISPOSSESSION
    SAY: In 1988 a Welsh family was removed from its home and the house demolished before dawn. It was reported as an eviction.
    IF ASKED “Why has it taken so long?” Witnesses died, papers were lost and the trauma silenced the family. Key records surfaced only in 2026.
    AGAINST US: Press, 1989: one charge was withdrawn as out of time; William Buckler pleaded guilty to the others.

C6  THE HERITAGE ERASED
    SAY: A Welsh manor house beside an early Christian site was cleared, and the official record was left saying almost nothing.
    IF ASKED “Missing records prove nothing.” Agreed, on their own. These are files public bodies had a duty to keep, and they should account for the gaps.
    AGAINST US: GGAT disclosed its dual role in 1990, recommended recording and protection, and did not advise demolition.
    AGAINST US: Cadw said in 1988 that the house was not of sufficient architectural merit to list.

C7  THE RECORDS WALL
    SAY: More than twenty bodies have been asked for the records over eighteen months. What would settle the questions has not yet been produced.
    IF ASKED “Isn't this a fishing expedition?” Every request names a specific record. The registers list them one by one.
    AGAINST US: Several bodies have disclosed material: the Royal Commission, Museum Wales, Cadw's photographs and the Land Registry schedule.
    AGAINST US: A missing record is not, on its own, proof of concealment.

C8  RIGHTS, IDENTITY, PUBLIC INTEREST
    SAY: This is a matter of human rights, Welsh heritage and public interest, not one family's grievance.
    IF ASKED “Why should a community council get involved?” Its own mission is preserving our identity. It is the community's voice to the Senedd and the Vale.
    AGAINST US: Indigenous-rights language is the family's framing; it is not a legal category UK courts currently apply to Wales.

C9  WHAT WE ASK
    SAY: Put it on the record. Make it a standing item. Recommend an independent inquiry. Support disclosure, and the family. We are not seeking anyone's home at Church View Close.
    IF ASKED “What can a community council do?” Record it, write letters, recommend an inquiry, and keep it on the agenda. That is how this starts.