Dinefwr

Top choice in Swansea, The Gower & Carmarthenshire


This idyllic, 324-hectare, beautifully landscaped estate, immediately west of Llandeilo, incorporates a deer park, pasture, woods, an Iron Age fort, the hidden remains of a Roman fort, a 12th-century castle and Newton House, a wonderful 17th-century manor with a Victorian Gothic facade. The house is presented as it was in Edwardian times, focusing particularly on the experience of servants in their downstairs domain. Other rooms recall Newton's WWII incarnation as a hospital, and the former Billiard Room is now a tearoom.

Dinefwr Castle is set on a hilltop in the southern corner of the estate and offers fantastic views from its walls and towers across the Tywi to the foothills of Black Mountain. Once the seat of the lords of Deheubarth, in the 17th century it suffered the indignity of being converted into a picturesque garden feature.

There are several marked walking routes around the grounds, some of which are accessible to visitors with disabilities. Keep an eye out for fallow deer and the largest of only four remaining herds of White Park cattle, an ancient breed once common in Britain but now rarer than pandas.