Lordship & Manor of Worlton Dyffryn St Nicholas

The Lordship of the Manor
of Worlton, Dyffryn St Nicholas
The Manor of Worlton, Dyffryn St Nicholas comprises of the former Parish of St Lythans, St Nicholas and a small part of Wenvoe in the county of Glamorgan South Wales.
The Manor lies within the
Cantref of Brenhinol Now called the Hundred of Dinas Powys in County of Glamorgan, South Wales. There is a cromlech on St Lythans common, The common commands one of the most extensive, luxuriant and diversified prospects in South Wales. About 200 acres, of the common are uncultivated.
The manor of Worlton, Dyffryn St Nicholas has been know as Manor of Worlton, or Dyffryn St Nicholas, Dyffryn Golych, Tref Golych, or Columbarium.
The earliest record of the Manor are of the land of the manor granted by the King of Glamorgan to the Bishop of Llandaff, These grants and donations of land are found fully documented in Llandaff Charters in the Book of Llandaff
The story of Manor dates back to the 640 A.D. when the Manor was granted to Bishop Oudoceous (Welsh: Euddogwy) of Llandaf by The King Of Glamorgan, King Judhail (Welsh: Ithael) in 640 CE
According to the Liber Landavensis, The Book of Llandaff, The King Of Glamorgan King Ithael, son of Athrwys, riding across the land of Guocof (Wenvoe), his horse stumbled, and he was thrown. With a gratitude perhaps slightly heightened by the badness of his horsemanship, he, while rising, vowed the church of Elidon, then before him, with all the lands, and the village of Guocof, (Wenvoe) with all its liberty and comanage if fields and woods in water and in pastures to Almighty God, as represented by the church of Llandaff.’ As usual with this book, the boundaries, though minutely set forth, are not now to be identified, the very names being gone. These are the spring of Gurunni, the dingle of Cui, the Carn, Blaen-​Pant-​Golych, Lotre Elidon, Powisva Dewi, and Carn-​Ynis-​Tair-​Erw. (L. Land., p. 401.)
In a later grant, in the same book, The King Of Glamorgan King Meurig ap Hywel, being excommunicate and repentant, restored to the church the village of Tref-​Golych, which the context shews to be St. Lythan’s, and which had been resumed. With it he also gave three modii (about twenty– seven acres) of land. The places named as boundaries are, Powisva, the Mound, the Stone, Carn-​Gistlerth, Carn-​Guocof, the Gurunni, the Gulich, Carn-​Tair-​Erw, and Powisva-​Dewi. [Ibid., 527.] The earns and the mound have disappeared, but were not improbably the casing of the cromlechs of St Lythans
After the Norman Conquest the Christian Church in Wales was formed into and governed by four principal bishoprics or diocese. The first was Llandaff in mid south Wales followed by St. Davids in the South West, Bangor in the North West and finally St. Asaph in the North East. The first Bishop of the diocese of Llandaff was Bishop Joseph, Bishop of Glamorgan appointed in 1027 – 1045. The bishops were the principal property and landowners in their diocese and as such held the titles of Lord of the Manors. Each Manor provided income to the church by way of land rent, tolls, fishing rights, rights of wreck, markets and fairs
Each successive Bishop became the Lord of the Manor until the disestablishment and disendowment of the Church of England in Wales and the formation of the Church of Wales in 1920. The ecclesiastical manorial titles were passed to the custody of the University of Wales who disposed of some of them in the mid 1980’s and all the remaining thirteen titles in July 2000 including the Lordship of the Manor of Worlton, Dyffryn St Nicholas, Because the Lord of the Manor was the legal owner of most of the property and land in the manor including the common land these ancient titles are counted as property and purchased and transferred in the same way as all agricultural land and property by legal contract and conveyance.
And so it was on July 8^th 2000 the ownership of the ancient title of the Lord of the Manor of Dyffryn, Worlton and St Nicholas, Which recorded history can be traced back to 640 AD and for the first time became the property of a lay person and his family. His name will be recorded and added to the Manorial Rolls which are held in safe custody by the Master of the Rolls at the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth.
In June 2000 the University of Wales on behalf of the Bishop of Llandaff
Sold The ancient chief Lordship Of The Manors of Dyffryn, Worlton and St Nicholas,.
It was purchased by a local land owner Sean Thomas Arthur Rafferty
Who wishes to protect the future rural countryside way of life in the vale of glamorgan.
On this special day
Sean Thomas Arthur Rafferty, Lord Of Dyffryn, Worlton and St. Nicholas, who is the also the
Baron Of Ballyanne, Lord Of Ballyanne, A Barony Estate comprising of 6,480 Acres, in Parish Ballyanne, Co Wexford and 45,724 Acres Barony of Idrone, Co Carlow, Ireland.
Lord of St Mullins, and Lord of Poulmonty, a Barony estate comprising of 19,474 Acres in Barony of