Old Swan Inn, Llantwit Major

The claim

A pub in the middle of Llantwit Major, just north of the town hall, in a house Cadw grades II star as an unusually complete sixteenth-century Welsh townhouse: mullioned windows under dripstones, a stair built into the wall thickness leading to paired doorways, and old cobbles laid before the door. A twelfth-century date circulates locally; the register dates the fabric four hundred years later. The front bar keeps up to four changing ales.

What the records show

Cadw's record 13260 was read in full on 20 September 2026 and settles two things that were open. It lists the house as Old Swan Inn PH at grade II*, designated on 16 December 1952, and dates it to the sixteenth century or the early seventeenth. The description is unusually full for a pub: squared limestone rubble under a Welsh slate roof, a three-light mullioned ground-floor window with arched heads and a dripstone, a projecting bay with a mounting block built against its return, cobbled setts before the front wall, chamfered beams with two sets of mortice holes inside, and a stair built into the thickness of the wall rising to a pair of doorways. The high grade is explained by how completely the sixteenth-century townhouse survives. First, then, the grade: CAMRA's entry calls the building grade II, and both the register and English Wikipedia's list of the town's listed buildings say II star. Second, the date: the twelfth century, which the same Wikipedia article attaches to the house in one passing and uncited phrase about the cobbled streets beside it, is four hundred years earlier than the fabric the register describes, and it is a date for a building rather than for a drinking house, so the claim is recorded as tradition. No claim by the house itself could be read, its operator's pages refusing an automated request, and no record of drinking here has been traced of any date, so no earliest year is entered rather than one being guessed at from the name. It is a drinking house today and not a dining room: CAMRA describes a front bar with up to four changing local ales beside the restaurant, OpenStreetMap maps it as a pub open from noon to eleven Monday to Saturday, and the Food Standards Agency rated the business at this address on 3 March 2026.

What to look for inside

Grade II* listed by Cadw as a sixteenth-century Welsh townhouse
A stone stair in the wall thickness, rising to paired first-floor doorways
Cobbled setts still laid in front of the door

Visiting

Old Swan Inn is in Llantwit Major, Wales, at Church Street, Llantwit Major CF61 1SB. We do not list opening times, because they change; the pub’s own site is the place to check before you set out.

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