Rheola House
| Rheola House | |
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| Type | House |
| Location | Resolven, Neath Port Talbot |
| Coordinates | 51°43′28″N 3°40′59″W / 51.72457°N 3.68298°WCoordinates: 51°43′28″N 3°40′59″W / 51.72457°N 3.68298°W |
| Built | 1812-18 |
| Architect | John Nash |
| Architectural style(s) | rustic picturesque |
| Owner | Howard Rees |
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Listed Building – Grade II*
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| Official name: Rheola House, Glynneath | |
| Designated | 1973 |
| Reference no. | 11771 |
 Location of Rheola House in Neath Port Talbot
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Rheola House is a Grade II* listed country house between Glynneath and Resolven, in the Neath valley, South Wales. Designed by John Nash, it was built between 1812 and 1814 for Nash's cousin, John Edwards. It passed through inheritance to members of the Edwards, Vaughan, and Lee families, until in 1939, with the house becoming run down, it was bought by an aluminium company for use as offices, and part of the land was put to industrial uses. In 2012 an application was made for housing on the industrialised area, to enable restoration of the house and a leisure complex to sustain the estate. The application was granted in 2014.
There was a water mill in the vicinity of the current house in Norman times or earlier, utilising the power of Rheola Brook. A later mill building still stands near the house, although it not certain that it is on the same location. In 1296 it was documented as having formerly been a grange of Neath Abbey, known as Hirrole Grange, forerunner of the present name. By the late 18th century, there was a farmhouse on the site, and was part of the huge estates of Sir Herbert Mackworth of Gnoll Castle.
In 1800, John Edwards of Belvedere House, Lambeth, Surrey (d, 1818), an engineer with family links to the area, was able to buy 120 acres of land, including Rheola farmhouse, to provide himself with a welsh estate, with extended family living around south and west Wales. His son, also named John Edwards (although later to change his name to John Edwards-Vaughan) (1772 – 1833), was a successful solicitor and land agent. He took on the task of developing the farmhouse into a picturesque villa, for which he used his cousin, the fashionable architect John Nash.
John Nash had begun a promising architectural career in London, but had become bankrupt in 1793. The following year he went to live in Carmarthen, where his mother was living, and over the next 13 years, established himself as an architect of provincial public buildings and private houses. During this time he got to know Uvedale Price, the enthusiast for the Picturesque. Also working in partnership with the landscape architect Humphry Repton, these influences gave Nash a new direction to his architecture. In 1794 he returned to London, and developed a practice as a fashionable exponent of the Picturesque style. John Edwards junior was by this point in close contact with Nash, handling all his legal affairs through his London solicitors practice. By 1809, when the Edwardses were looking to re-build Rheola farmhouse, it is John Nash that they turned to. This was one of his last private commissions, as from 1810 Nash was almost exclusively occupied in works for the Prince Regent.
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