The Prince’s Forgotten Palace: Step inside the multimillion-pound royal estate
Deep in the rugged heart of Wales, where the ghosts of ancient kings still whisper in the mountain wind, stands a structure that is more tomb than house. Nannau Hall, a three-story Georgian mansion built in 1790 by Sir Robert Vaughan, is a place where layers of history have been stripped bare, quite literally, to the bone. To step inside today is not to visit a home, but to witness the slow, agonizing death of a thousand-year legacy. It is the ancestral site of the Nannau family, descendants of the 11th-century Prince of North Wales, and it is a place where the air itself feels heavy with the weight of unfinished business.
The story of Nannau is a cycle of destruction and rebirth. The original 11th-century palace was razed in 1402 by Owain Glyndŵr, the last native Prince of Wales, during his fierce rebellion. For centuries, the Nannau family remained, but the 20th century was less kind. After a series of renovations by a barrister in the 1960s, the estate was fractured and sold. By 2008, after failed attempts to turn the “Prince’s Mansion” into a bed and breakfast and later a country club, the global financial crash pulled the plug. Nannau Hall was left to rot.
I. The Skeletal Grandeur
Discover more
Bigfoot hunting expeditions
NFL merchandise
Aviation history books
War history books
Military documentaries
Travel guides wartime locations
Spiritual guidance courses
True crime podcasts
Survival gear
Afterlife exploration books
Entering Nannau Hall today is a disorienting experience. Most abandoned mansions are “frozen in time,” but Nannau is “stripped in time.” In a desperate attempt at renovation before the 2008 crash, workers stripped the plaster from the walls, revealing the raw, jagged stones of the 18th-century masonry.
In the main drawing room, the luxury of the past sits in chaotic heaps:
The “Piano of the Dead”: An old upright piano stands against a bare stone wall, its keys still functional but covered in a thick layer of white mold.
The Marble Graveyard: Massive slabs of marble, intended for bathrooms and bar-tops during its brief life as a country club, are leaned against the walls like headstones.
The Golden Frame: Propped against a pile of timber is a massive, ornate gold-leaf frame—larger than a man—that once likely held a portrait of Welsh nobility. Now, it frames only the dust.
II. The Labyrinth of Furniture
The house has become a warehouse of lost ambitions. Because it was being converted into a luxury hotel and club, the floors are piled high with “new-old” furniture. Victorian dressers, heavy oak tables, and elegant chairs are stacked like a barricade against the windows.
Walking through the ground floor, you realize that nothing is where it is supposed to be. A bathtub sits in the middle of a hallway; a mobility scooter is parked next to a 200-year-old fireplace. It is a house that has lost its mind.
III. The Staircase to Nowhere
The center of Nannau Hall is dominated by a magnificent, sweeping staircase. It remains one of the most impressive features of the building, though the walls around it have been hollowed out.
“You have to use your imagination,” a neighbor had warned the explorer. Without the carpets and the wallpaper, you see the “bones” of the mansion. Standing on the second floor, looking out the massive windows, the view of the Welsh mountains is breathtaking. It is a cruel irony: the view remains royal, while the house has become a ruin.
IV. The Haunted Basement and the “Mist”
Local legend says Nannau is haunted, a claim bolstered by a local man who told the explorer, “Go in if you dare.” In the 1400s, Owain Glyndŵr supposedly killed his cousin here and hid the body in a hollow oak tree on the grounds—the “Ceubren yr Ellyll,” or the Hollow Tree of the Ghosts.
The basement of the hall is a stark, cold contrast to the airy upper floors. It is a place of heavy iron safe-doors and dark, bricked-up tunnels. While exploring the food storage cellars, the explorer encountered a strange phenomenon: a thick, localized mist that hung in a doorway. “It wasn’t my breath,” the explorer noted, shivering. The mist didn’t move; it just lingered in the cold, damp air, guarding the lower reaches of the prince’s tomb.
V. The Rot of the Listed Status
The tragedy of Nannau Hall is a common one in the UK. Because the building is “Grade II* Listed,” it is legally protected. This sounds noble, but in practice, it is a death sentence. To renovate a listed building of this scale requires millions of pounds and adherence to strict, expensive historical standards.
When the 2008 crash happened, the owners couldn’t afford to continue, but they also couldn’t afford to “cheaply” fix it. So, Nannau sits in a legal and financial limbo. It is too important to be torn down, but too expensive to be saved. It is fading away, one winter storm at a time.
VI. The Last Native Prince
Nannau is a reminder that in Wales, the past is never truly gone. The fact that the direct descendants of Owain Glyndŵr—the very man who burned the first house—bought it in 1991 to try and save it, completes a poetic circle of 600 years.
As you look at the “Spirit of the House” now—the mold on the piano, the gold peeling off the frames, and the raw stone walls—you realize that Nannau Hall is a masterpiece of “Correctness” in decay. It has returned to the stone from which it was built. It stands as a monument to the fact that strength isn’t just in the building of a mansion, but in the ability of a culture to remember its princes, even when their palaces are in ruins.