Atlantic College: Global Connections
The Historic Houses Foundation is offering a grant to a medieval castle in Wales that now champions truly global connections for the modern world.
American newspaper proprietor, William Randolph Hearst, is famous for his vast fortune and his invention of “yellow journalism”in the USA – mixing sensationalism and human interest with the news. He is also celebrated for his love of extravagant architecture. While his American home, San Simeon in California, is a celebration of Spanish baroque with touches of gothic and neoclassical, he also owned a house in Wales – St. Donat’s Castle. When Hearst bought the largely 12th century castle in 1925, it had already been restored but this did not stop Hearst adding his own touches, including 34 new bathrooms. Captivated by the gothic authenticity of St Donat’s in the pages of Country Life, he had snapped it up unseen, perhaps as a gift for his mistress, Marion Davies. He pillaged the remains of a medieval priory at Bradenstoke in Wiltshire to expand the entertaining spaces, building a banqueting hall around Bradenstoke’s fourteenth century hammerbeam roof and carved fireplace of 1514. He added a series of garden buildings and a swimming pool, designed by the architect of San Simeon, Julia Morgan, to the celebrated Tudor gardens. Although Hearst only visited his Welsh retreat four times for a few months, he threw parties for the leading celebrities of the time – Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin, Clark Gable, George Bernard Shaw, P G Wodehouse, Winston Churchill and a 21-year-old John F Kennedy.
With his purchase, Hearst also bought an important piece of Welsh history. The castle had been built by the Stradling family, prominent as courtiers from the 1300s. Members of the family are recorded on pilgrimage, fighting at Agincourt, being captured by Breton pirates, imprisoned for recusancy, as Royalists in the Civil War and finally running out of heirs when the last of line, Sir Thomas, was killed in a duel in Montpellier in 1738. The most distinguished was perhaps, Sir Edward Stradling (1528–1609), an Elizabethan antiquarian, who amassed an important library and laid out a celebrated Renaissance garden of which the terraces survive. Over the following centuries, the castle declined - although it was painted by J M W Turner and saw John Wesley preach - before various owners began its long restoration from 1862.
The Historic Houses Foundation are offering a grant to the current owners of the castle, United World Colleges, an international educational charity founded at Atlantic College at St Donat’s in 1962. The school was founded by the educationalist Kurt Huhn, the first of a series of international schools, which aim to foster individual resilience and co-operation between nations. UWC Atlantic College is undertaking a programme of restoration to repair failing roofs in part of the building. The grant is specifically for the roof to the Outer Gatehouse and adjacent Brewhouse.
The Gatehouse dates from the time of the first Sir Edward Stradling who built an extensive curtain wall between 1316 and 1327 in response to a Welsh revolt against Edward II in 1316. It marks the rise of the Stradlings who were then charged with the confiscation of the property of Hugh Despenser at Caerphilly Castle, when the King’s favourite fell from power. The adjoining Brewhouse was built more than 250 years later in the late 16th century by the fifth Sir Edward Stradling who undertook many improvements to the castle and laid out the gardens. Part of Atlantic College’s mission statement specifies that education takes place “a unique and exceptional setting where the entire campus is the classroom”. For today’s 380 students from more than 25 countries, the heritage of the Stradlings and William Randolph Hearst and the medieval beauty of St Donat’s Castle and Gardens can only enrich their learning and the Historic Houses Foundation
