Dunraven Castle was a mansion on the South Wales coast near Southerndown. The existing manor house was rebuilt as a castellated hunting lodge in the early 19th century and was extensively remodelled later in the century.
The site of the castle was the location for several earlier fortifications, the first of which is said to have been built by Arnold le Boteler (Butler) in the mid-12th century. By the 16th century, a manor house owned by the Vaughan family stood on the site, its existence recorded by John Leland.
In 1642 the house was sold to the Wyndham family. Thomas Wyndham of Dunraven was MP for Glamorgan from 1789 to his death in 1814. He rebuilt the manor house as a castellated hunting lodge in 1802–1806. The building was designed by his wife, although it was probably based on Clearwell Castle.
The estate then passed to their daughter Caroline, who in 1810 had married the Irishman Windham Henry Quin (1782–1850), later 2nd Earl of Dunraven; in 1815 he assumed the additional name of Wyndham in right of his wife, becoming Windham Wyndham-Quin.
Caroline began remodelling the building in 1858; the central tower was replaced by a conservatory and the north and south wings were enlarged by Egbert Moxham. It was inherited by Edwin Wyndham-Quin, 3rd Earl of Dunraven and Mount-Earl, MP for Glamorganshire 1837–1851, and descendants. It was lived in until after the Second World War, having been used as a military hospital. The house was demolished in 1963.
The castle's walled garden, gatehouse and several other structures survive and are part of the Glamorgan Heritage Coast.
References:Ehrenbreitstein Fortress was built as the backbone of the regional fortification system, Festung Koblenz, by Prussia between 1817 and 1832 and guarded the middle Rhine region, an area that had been invaded by French troops repeatedly before. The fortress was never attacked.
Early fortifications at the site can be dated back to about 1000 BC. At about AD 1000 Ehrenbert erected a castle. The Archbishops of Trier expanded it with a supporting castle Burg Helferstein and guarded the Holy Tunic in it from 1657 to 1794. Successive Archbishops used the castle's strategic importance to barter between contending powers; thus in 1672 at the outset of war between France and Germany the Archbishop refused requests both from the envoys of Louis XIV and from Brandenburg's Ambassador, Christoph Caspar von Blumenthal, to permit the passage of troops across the Rhine.