Abbey Cwmhir Hall

The hall was built in 1833 for Thomas Wilson, a London lawyer, on the site of a Tudor style house built for the Fowler family, which was later owned by the Hastings family, Earls of Huntingdon. Wilson purchased the 3000-acre estate and landscaped the grounds, building the hall on a steep south facing slope overlooking the ruined abbey and creating a lake so the village would have water power for the sawmill. Having ruined himself financially in the process he emigrated to Australia, where in 1842 he became Mayor of Adelaide. Eventually the hall and grounds fell into a state of disrepair. Wilson's house was extended and altered as a Victorian mansion of ashlar, decorated with polychromatic…