Fire has gutted Rheola House, the Grade II* listed Regency manor in the Neath Valley credited to John Nash, the architect who gave Buckingham Palace its famous façade.
The blaze broke out on Tuesday afternoon at the house, which sits in parkland between Glynneath and Resolven, and Mid and West Wales Fire and Rescue Service sent crews, a water bowser and fire officers to the scene.
The building was well alight, the service confirmed, and crews stayed on into Tuesday evening because the fire-damaged structure was unsafe.
Photographs taken as the fire took hold show flames bursting through the roof as firefighters trained jets on the building from an aerial platform. By evening the roof was gone, its blackened trusses standing bare against the smoke.
Crews damped down through the night to stop it spreading
Overnight, crews from Amman Valley and Gorseinon took over as relief cover, damping down the property into Wednesday morning “to eliminate any risks of the building reigniting and spreading to the wider area”, Amman Valley fire station said.
The station praised the firefighters who had worked through the evening to bring the blaze under control.
Built for John Nash’s cousin as Regency Britain’s finest worked in the valley
Rheola House was built between 1812 and 1818, and is recorded by Cadw as almost certainly the work of John Nash, who designed it for his cousin John Edwards.
Nash was the defining architect of Regency Britain, the man behind Regent Street and the transformation of Buckingham Palace for George IV. At Rheola he produced something gentler: a country house in the picturesque tradition, its angled bays built to catch views up and down the valley.
The estate passed down through the Edwards, Vaughan and Lee families before being bought in 1939 by an aluminium company, which used the house as offices and turned over part of the land to industry.
The aluminium works ran until the early 1980s and was later demolished. In 2014, planners approved 46 homes on the old factory site as an enabling development, with the proceeds intended to secure the crumbling house’s restoration.
A 295-bed hotel plan was on the table
Bigger plans followed. In early 2024, developers Brook Group lodged proposals with Neath Port Talbot Council for a 295-bed boutique hotel, spa and leisure complex across the estate, with the listed house itself to be restored as the hotel at its heart.
Property journalist Jo Ridout, who wrote about the house when it was offered for sale in 2021, said she was “absolutely devastated” at the loss, adding that its John Nash design made the fire “even more heart-breaking”.
She said the house had been described in some reports as derelict, but “it was not past the point of renovation” when it went on the market.
South Wales Police later said the fire was started deliberately, with four teenagers arrested on suspicion of arson.
The loss caps a punishing month for the fire service, whose crews only left the six-day Rhandirmwyn wildfire on Tuesday. Last week they were battling flames above Pendine. And it lands weeks after five local landmarks joined the UK register of buildings at risk of being lost for good, a list Rheola House never made.
Discover more from Swansea Bay News
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
