The Title: From Herbert to Bute

The 1547 lease of Cydwin

NLW, Lockwood estate records, L 11 — “Assignment of a lease for 1000 years of Cydwin in the manor of Llandough”, 1739/40, Feb. 13

Repository:

The National Library of Wales (Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru). Collection GB 0210 LOCKWOOD, series L (Leases). Creator: the Lockwood family of Bishops Hall, Lambourne, Essex; deposited by John Cutts Lockwood in 1940.

Read:

live catalogue, 20 October 2026.

Grade:

DOCUMENTED (catalogue entry; the deed itself unread)

Assignment by (1) Edmond Vaughan of p. Llandough, co. Glam., gent., to (2) Thomas Mathews of Llandaf, co. Glam., esq., of a lease for 1000 years dated 20 June 1547 between George Herbert of Swansea, kt, and Edmund Vaughan of Llandough, yeoman, of a farm called Cydwin (fields named) in the manor of Llandough, co. Glam. Consideration: £1066 13s. 4d. Endorsed: receipt of 1 for £1066 13s. 4d.

What the entry establishes, and what it does not:

  • Parties and date. Lessor: Sir George Herbert of Swansea, knight. Lessee: Edmund Vaughan of Llandough, yeoman. Date: 20 June 1547. By 1545 Sir George Herbert held the manor of Llandough, “as appears by a rent-roll of that date” (J. Hobson Matthews (ed.), Cardiff Records, vol. 2 (1900), “The manors of Cardiff district”, British History Online).

  • Term. A lease for 1,000 years, so a leasehold term running to 20 June 2547, not a freehold. Earlier notes calling it a “1,000-year freehold” are corrected here.

  • The name. The catalogue spells the farm Cydwin. Whether the deed itself writes Cedwyn, Cydwin or another form is SOURCE PENDING: it needs a reading of L 11 at the National Library.

  • Rent, covenants, field names. Not in the catalogue; all SOURCE PENDING.

  • The original 1547 counterpart. Not separately catalogued; it is known only from the 1740 recital.

The descent, step by step

Date

Event

Source

Grade

1106

“The little vill which is called Landochan” confirmed to Tewkesbury Abbey by Henry I.

Cardiff Records vol. 2

DOCUMENTED

1535

The manor of “Llandough Est” belongs to the Abbot of Tewkesbury, with free and villein tenants.

Cardiff Records vol. 2 (Valor Ecclesiasticus)

DOCUMENTED

1543

Henry VIII grants Llandough manor to Lord Clynton and Say and Robert Turwitt.

Cardiff Records vol. 2

DOCUMENTED

by 1545

Sir George Herbert holds the manor (rent-roll). He later conveys it to his grandson Sir William Herbert.

Cardiff Records vol. 2

DOCUMENTED

20 June 1547

Sir George Herbert of Swansea grants Edmund Vaughan of Llandough, yeoman, a lease for 1,000 years of “a farm called Cydwin (fields named)”.

NLW Lockwood L 11 (recital)

DOCUMENTED

1552

Earliest of the Bute archive’s leases of “Cydfin Farm or Ty Mawr Farm (107 a.)” (D219/1). Parties not catalogued.

NLW Bute D 219

DOCUMENTED

1596

“The manor of Landoche-juxta-Cardif had free tenants, demesnes and copyholds.”

Cardiff Records vol. 2

DOCUMENTED

13 Feb. 1739/40

Edmond Vaughan of Llandough, gent., assigns the 1547 lease to Thomas Mathews of Llandaf, esq., for £1066 13s. 4d.

NLW Lockwood L 11

DOCUMENTED

1767–1793

The manors of Dinas Powys, Llandough East and Cogan pass from the Herbert heirs to William Hurst of Gabalfa and Calvert Richard Jones of Swansea, and in 1793 to the Earl of Bute.

Cardiff Records vol. 2; NLW Lockwood D 1/71, D 3/92–93

DOCUMENTED

1795–1798

Schedules of leases of Thomas Mathews’s estates, including Llandough, are made; two are endorsed as the schedules in articles of agreement of 30 April 1798. They are now in the Wood/Lockwood archive.

NLW Lockwood L 41–43

DOCUMENTED

  1. 1798

The Mathews interest in Cydwin passes to Mark Wood of Llandaf Court.

inferred from L 41–43 and D 1/104 sitting in the Wood/Lockwood archive

INFERENCE

14 Oct. 1806

Articles for an exchange: Mark Wood of Llandaf Court gives the Marquess of Bute his fishery in the Taff and “a m. and lands (126a.) called Ty Mawr Farm otherwise Ked Fen Farm, p. Llandough”, for Catch Croft (38 a.) on Pengam Moors and moor land by Rumney Bridge.

NLW Lockwood D 1/104

DOCUMENTED

1807

The exchange is completed: Bute receives “the fishery of the river Taff, a m. and lands called Ty Mawr Farm or Red Fen Farm (126 a.), p. Llandough”.

NLW Bute D205/6–7

DOCUMENTED

1824

Bute’s surveyor records “Cedfin or Ty Mawr Farm”, plan 19, 139a 3r 8p, tenant John Gedrick (reading).

Glamorgan Archives DB/E/1

DOCUMENTED

  1. 1841

Tithe apportionment: John Williams occupies 36 parcels, 33 of them owned by the Marquess of Bute.

NLW tithe apportionment (Legal Wiki EV-0215)

DOCUMENTED

1902

Bute auctions the coppice of Cwm Cydfin Wood, Leckwith and Llandough.

Glamorgan Archives DSA/12/1003

DOCUMENTED

From 1877 the farm’s history runs through the Bute–Thomas agreement, the Williams family’s tenancy and the twentieth-century conveyances. That story belongs to the proposed Title Trail and Litigation Record volumes of this library, and is not repeated here.

How Bute came to hold the Herbert lease’s farm

INFERENCE Read together, the catalogues give a chain:

  1. Sir George Herbert, lord of Llandough by 1545, leases Cydwin to the Vaughans for 1,000 years in 1547.

  2. The Vaughans hold it until 1739/40, when Edmond Vaughan assigns the lease to Thomas Mathews of Llandaf.

  3. The Mathews estate passes to Mark Wood of Llandaf Court around 1798, and with it this farm.

  4. In 1806–07 Wood exchanges “Ty Mawr Farm otherwise Ked Fen Farm” with the Marquess of Bute, who by then also owns the manor (bought 1793).

  5. The title deeds go with the land, which explains why the Bute archive holds leases of “Cydfin Farm or Ty Mawr Farm” from 1552, decades before Bute owned anything at Llandough.

Steps 1, 2, 4 and the dates are documented. Step 3 and the identity of Cydwin with Ked Fen and Tŷ Mawr are inference. The test is to compare the field names in L 11 with the 1806 agreement, D219/1 and the 1824 plan.

Questions for a solicitor

  • Was the 1547 lease term still running in 1807, and did it pass to Bute in the exchange as a term of years, alongside the manor Bute had bought in 1793? If Bute then held both the term and the freehold reversion, did the two merge?

  • If any part of the 1,000-year term survived separately, could a statutory enlargement of a long lease into a freehold (Law of Property Act 1925, s. 153) ever have applied, given its conditions on the original length, the unexpired term and the rent?

  • None of this has been tested. The Cedwyn Estate Working Theory on the Legal Wiki sets out the wider hypothesis; this book records only what the documents show.