Five teenagers have been charged with arson following the fire that gutted Rheola House, the Grade II* listed manor in the Neath Valley, on Tuesday.
South Wales Police said all five appeared at Swansea Magistrates’ Court on Thursday morning.
Kyle Renzoni, 18, from Cadoxton, Neath Port Talbot, is charged with arson with recklessness as to whether life was endangered and possession of a knife blade in a public place.
Ellis Harding, 19, from Gendros, Swansea; Yian Foster, 18, from Resolven, Neath Port Talbot; and Evan Traynor, 18, from Waunarlwydd, Swansea, are each charged with arson with recklessness as to whether life was endangered.
A 17-year-old boy from Dowlais, Merthyr Tydfil, who cannot be named because of his age, faces the same charge.
Police said on Wednesday that the fire had been started deliberately and that four people had been arrested. Thursday’s charges bring the number of defendants to five.
A roofless shell by nightfall
Emergency services were called to the house, which stands in parkland between Glynneath and Resolven, at around 4.50pm on Tuesday 18 August.
Photographs taken as the fire took hold showed flames bursting through the slate 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 from Amman Valley and Gorseinon took over as relief cover overnight, damping down the shell into Wednesday morning to stop it reigniting and spreading into the surrounding woodland.
Two centuries of history, and a hotel plan on the table
Rheola House was built between 1812 and 1818 and is recorded by Cadw as almost certainly the work of John Nash, the architect of Regent Street and Buckingham Palace’s famous facade, who designed it for his cousin John Edwards.
The estate passed through the Edwards, Vaughan and Lee families before an aluminium company bought it in 1939 and ran the house as offices until the works closed in the early 1980s. It was offered for sale in 2021.
Developers Brook Group lodged proposals with Neath Port Talbot Council in 2024 for a 295-bed hotel, spa and leisure complex across the estate, with the restored house at its heart.
Photographs taken inside the house by urban explorers in May last year, published by Swansea Bay News this morning, show what was lost: a cantilevered stone staircase curling up beneath an oval roof lantern, its iron balustrade intact, along with wallpapered bedrooms, a Victorian lavatory and a basement vault.
Property journalist Jo Ridout, who wrote about the house when it went on the market, said this week that although it had been described as derelict, “it was not past the point of renovation”.
The case continues.
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