Court Farm in Pembrey, Carmarthenshire, Wales, is an ancient and formerly imposing manor house which is now an overgrown ruin, but structurally sound, and capable of repair and restoration.

[1] Sir George died without issue and the remaining Pembrey and Porthaml estates passed to his younger brother, the Reverend Frederick Vaughan, who had been blind from infancy as a result of smallpox.

In order to reduce the amount of tax payable, the Ashburnham estate arranged for many of Court Farm’s stone and wooden mullion windows to be blocked up.

Its master was John Thomas junior and it traded to Liverpool, Malta, Ancona, Venice and as far as San Francisco, where the whole crew deserted the ship to join the Californian gold rush.

The other portion comprises a very good large kitchen, small cellar, old Entrance Hall, a parlour not inhabitable but now undergoing repairs and filling up, and a new staircase has been lately made to lead to two new formed bedrooms.

[1] The 1878 Ordnance Survey map gives the first known ground plan of Court Farm, this shows the original Vaughan L-shaped structure, with two wings enclosing a courtyard in the rear.

[6] A Tithe Schedule and map dated 7 June 1839 shows Court Farm with 209 acres (0.85 km2), a slight increase in landholding since the survey of Mr Driver, with Mr. John Thomas still the tenant.

[1] Management of the colliery was undertaken from an office at Court Farm and the coal was carried by packhorse to the estuary of the River Gwendraeth and to the Burry Inlet, from here it was shipped to the west of England and Ireland.

[9] The second Earl Ashburnham, impressed by the success of a canal built by Thomas Kymer in the Gwendraeth valley, decided upon a similar scheme for his Pembrey colliery.

Kymer’s Canal was built between 1766 and 1768 in order to carry coal from pits and levels at Pwll y Llygod and Great Forest (near Carway) to a place of shipment on the Lesser Gwendraeth river near Kidwelly.

The plan initially encountered opposition from colliers, whose ponies used to do the job, but by 1796 work on the canal had begun below Coed Farm, close to the Llandyry-Pinged road.

By 1799, the canal had extended across the Kidwelly-Pembrey road, near to Saltrock Farm, and by the end of 1801 it had reached the sea at Pill Towyn, a creek running in from the south bank of the Gwendraeth Fawr river.

The title thus passed to his younger brother, Thomas, the sixth and last Earl of Ashburnham, who had married Maria Elizabeth Anderson of Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada in 1903.

Mr William Bonnell (Junior) continued to live at Penllwyn Uchaf Farm until his death in January 1962 and during this time Pembrey Court was used for storage.

On 23 October 1980, Llanelli Borough Council refused the application for the following reasons: ~ [Court Farm] is a Grade II Listed Building of special architectural and historic interest, which is capable of renovation, rehabilitation and use, which would ensure its future conservation; and~ in line with national policy, the Borough Council is disposed not to grant consent for the demolition of Listed Buildings which are capable of preservation or conservation.

The late Mr John Evans, of Erw Terrace, Burry Port, who was a member of Carmarthenshire Antiquarian Society, commenced a campaign to save Court Farm and.

The Committee requested that the Borough Council place a compulsory purchase order on the building and plans were formulated to restore it and develop it as a museum, in a £100,000 project phased over 3 years.

[15] On 30 August 1985, Llanelli Borough Planning Officer, Mr Clive Davies, stated that the ultimate step of demolition would not be justified until the results of the feasibility study were known.

Apart from Mr Evans and Cadw, others who objected to demolition included the Royal Commission on Ancient and Historic Monuments in Wales, Dyfed Archaeological Trust, Llanelli Civic Society and Pembrey Community Council.

[19] However, there was renewed hope when, on 29 January 1988, Llanelli Borough Council announced plans to buy the property in order to develop it as a tourist promotion and information office.

The Study established that the building represented an important historical resource and could be saved for a new beneficial use, with repair retaining a flexible layout, allowing fitting-out for an optimum end use.

[6] In the 17th century, Sir Walter Vaughan, conceived a life saving sea rescue scheme, and as local Member of Parliament, enthusiastically tried to get the Government to take-up his plans, to no avail.

Both agreed that their agents and their legal advisers should be allowed to investigate their claims, and depositions were taken from a number of older local men, who indicated that uncertainties about the rights had set in during the 17th century.

The following are examples of wrecks claimed by Lord Ashburnham and listed in the 1830 agreement document: 1763 Received balance left unpaid of Wine (salvaged) sold this year, 8s.

As he did so, he noticed that he was wearing a gold signet ring with the well-known Vaughan crest of the three boys' snake-entwined heads, given to John Walter on attaining his majority.

Dr. Max Hooper, of the Nature Conservancy, pioneered this system of calculation from English hedgerows, whose antiquity was attested by similar documents, such as hedged parts of Anglo-Saxon estate boundaries delineated in the charters, medieval "assarts" or clearances in the forest or waste registered in the manorial rolls, etc.

In early times the oak tree was sacred to the Druids, and in 1842 a newspaper reported that "A grand Druidic procession took place in Pembrey", although it is not clear if there is any link to the wood.

On the afternoon of Saturday, 12 September 1970 the Carmarthenshire Antiquarian Society held its final Field Day of the 1970 season, when a visit was made to the Pembrey area.

Jones welcomed the party and made special mention of "Butler's Window" and the hagioscope, the opening in the church tower through which lepers viewed the consecration of the bread and wine at the altar.

Members then inspected the parish registers, dating from 1700 and the memorial to families such as Rees of Cilymaenllwyd, Mansel of Stradey, Vaughan of Trimsaran, Thompson of Glyn Abbey and Wedge of Goodig.