Penrice Castle

The stone castle is a large, irregular hexagon with a round keep on the west side, to which were attached two other towers and a partial mantlet or chemise wall.

[1] The mansion built in the 1770s by the neo-classical architect Anthony Keck for Thomas Mansel Talbot (1747–1813) of Margam and Penrice, is itself Grade I listed and among the finest country houses in Wales.

He visited Italy between 1769 and 1773 and bought antiquities from Thomas Jenkins, Gavin Hamilton and Giambattista Piranesi, including a Minerva with bronze helmet and a funerary monument (now in the Courtauld Institute, London).

He also bought modern furniture by Albacini and Valadier and contemporary sculpture by Johan Tobias Sergel, and commissioned busts of himself and Pope Clement XIV from Christopher Hewetson (the latter now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London).

In addition he bought paintings by Rembrandt and Jacob Philipp Hackert, and drawings by Nicolas Poussin.

Information on the Penrice household and family in 1799–1806 and after appears in the published diaries and correspondence of a Scottish-born governess, Agnes Porter.