NAR SS96NE6
Ruins of a rectangular building, thought to have been a late-medieval defensible hall or tower.
Farmbuildings to the E are suggested to have preserved something of the layout of a medieval court (see Nprn307477).
(source: RCAHMW 2000, 431-4)
J.Wiles 19.12.02
The designated Malefant Castle (GM626), also known as Llanmaes Castle, consists of the standing remains of a late medieval fortified manor house or castle of the De Malefant family. Historical documents suggest that the castle seems to have become abandoned at some time in the 17th Century and from then on it began to fall into decay. the castle having become covered in ivy over time, masonry robbed to accommodate the construction of neighboring farm buildings in the 18th and 19th Centuries and almost lost cartographically and visually. The remains of the castle are now in a hazardous state and in desperate need of consolidation.
The monument is of national importance as a documented defended manorial residence of the Malefant family which occupied the second rank of Glamorgan medieval nobility. The castle forms an important high status element within the wider medieval landscape and early settlement of Llanmaes and shares group value with a variety of other defended houses and minor castles in the Vale of Glamorgan.
Source: Report of an Archaeological Building Investigation, Recording & Watching Brief of Melefant Castle, Llanmaes, produced by Richard Scott Jones of Heritage Recording Service Wales, June 2024.Report no: 274.