Plays on names and dates

These are the places where a name or a date has carried a meaning the record does not support. Each is a test we apply; none is a finding of any court.

One name, two places: the two Llandoughs

On 26 October 2026 the Ordnance Survey FOI team (request FOI-26-46) offered “Great House Farm, Llandough, Cowbridge” in CF71 as a possible site, after quoting back a request that had named Llandough-juxta-Penarth and County Series sheet Glamorgan 47 NW. The screenshot the same team sent shows Glamorgan Sheet XLVII.NW (revised 1947, published c.1950) with a red circle round Ty-mawr beside the church at Llandough-juxta-Penarth. The farm near Cowbridge is a different place about 17 km to the west. Test: whenever a record or a reply gives “Great House Farm, Llandough”, check which Llandough.

A catalogue heading is not a date of the house

The National Library of Wales files a group of Bute leases under the heading “Cydfin Farm or Ty Mawr Farm, (107 a.)” (D 219). The heading is the cataloguer’s, and the span of years attached to the bundle is the bundle’s, not the house’s. The leases have not been read. A heading written over a bundle cannot carry the name Tŷ Mawr back to the earliest paper in it, so the entry is not used here as a dated mention of Tŷ Mawr: its application and dating are under forensic examination. Tŷ Mawr is first named in the record we have found in 1824.

Cydwin is a name in someone else’s paper

The Cydwin lease (Herbert to Vaughan) and its 1739/40 assignment (Lockwood L 11) name Cydwin, not Tŷ Mawr. Whether Cydwin is Tŷ Mawr is exactly the question: it is under forensic examination, and the lease is not shown here as a record of Tŷ Mawr.

Ked Fen and Red Fen

The 1806 agreement (Lockwood D 1/104) and the 1807 exchange (Bute D 205/6–7) describe one transaction between Mark Wood and the Marquess of Bute. One cataloguer reads the farm’s second name as “Ked Fen”, the other as “Red Fen”. Both readings are catalogue words; the originals have not been compared. These are Bute exchange papers dated before 1824 and are under forensic examination.

The Mansion of Llandough is a separate holding

A local history book records the Crown’s grant of “the Mansion of Llandough” (1543) and its purchase by the Earl of Bute (1793). The book does not say the Mansion is Tŷ Mawr, and no record links the two. Reading one as the other moves Bute into Tŷ Mawr’s story by a word.

Home Farm, Church Farm, Llandough Farm

The 1881 census labels the household of John Williams at “Llandough Home Farm”; finds of 1858 are filed by the national museum as from “Church Farm”; the developer’s drawings of 1994 call the site “LLANDOUGH FARM”. A separate Llandough Farm of the Rees family also existed. Each label is listed in the register with its source; none is assumed to be Tŷ Mawr without a record that shows it.

Great House, manor house and the courts

The Historic Environment Record states that the manorial courts for Llandough and Leckwith were held in Great House. That is a use of the house, not a title: “manor house” is our interpretive phrase and is used only with that context.

Owner, proprietor and title

From 1982/83 the BP companies are the registered proprietor; a court’s word “owner” is that court’s wording, given with its date. A title number names a piece of land in the register; it does not of itself show how the land was taken.