Four teenagers detained for three years after fire gutted historic country house

Nation.Cymru staff

Four teenagers have each been sentenced to three years in a young offender institution after setting fire to a Grade II* listed country house in the Neath Valley. One of them wore a camera to film the attack.

The fire gutted Rheola House, an early 19th-century villa designed by architect John Nash between Resolven and Glynneath.

Emergency services were called at about 4.50pm on 18 August, during a summer heatwave.

Kyle Renzoni, 18, from Cadoxton, Ellis Harding, 19, from Gendros, Yian Foster, 18, from Resolven, and Evan Traynor, 18, from Waunarlwydd, were sentenced at Swansea Crown Court after pleading guilty to arson with recklessness as to whether life was endangered.

A fifth defendant, a 17-year-old boy who cannot be named, pleaded guilty to the same offence. He was given a 12-month referral order and referred to a youth offender panel.

CCTV showed the group arriving by car at the gates of the Rheola Estate and putting on face coverings. Footage recorded by Renzoni showed the group trying to start a fire in an outbuilding before they forced their way into the house with crowbars. They set a fire inside and fled.

The blaze spread from the former servants’ quarters into the main house and through the roof. Judge Geraint Walters described the teenagers’ actions as “an unfathomable display of unspeakable wickedness”.

Detective Sergeant Victoria Bayly, of South Wales Police, said the fire destroyed a historic local building at a time when fire and rescue services were already stretched. She added: “I’m pleased to see they have been held accountable for their actions.”

Farmhouse

Nash turned an existing farmhouse into a country villa for the Edwards family, with work beginning in 1812 and finishing in 1814. The design retained the appearance of a rustic cottage set against a wooded landscape. Nash also designed some of the estate buildings, and the surrounding park and gardens have their own Grade II designation.

The estate passed through the Edwards, Vaughan and Lee families before the British Aluminium Company bought it in 1939. The company used the house as offices and built an aluminium plant on part of the estate between the house and the road.

A proposal submitted in 2012 aimed to fund the restoration of the house by building homes on the former industrial land and creating a leisure complex. The scheme secured planning permission in 2014 but did not go ahead. In 2024, new proposals included turning the house into a hotel and spa.