Subject: Re: Great House Farm, Llandough
From: Sion Buckler
Direction: sent
Date: Fri, 04 Sep 2026 16:33 UTC
Institution: Welsh Government / Cadw
Refs: none
Archive id: gm-1a06d4518cc4ae45
------------------------------------------------------------

Thank you Andy,

Regards,

Sion

On Fri, 4 Sept 2026, 12:49 ,   wrote:

> Dear Mr Buckler,
>
>
>
> Thank you for your further emails of 27, 28 and 29 August.  I am sending
> this email as a single reply to all three of these emails.
>
>
>
> I appreciate the importance of this issue to you and your family, and we
> have therefore provided all the records that we hold regarding the 1988
> listing decision to assist with your research.  However, we have now
> provided all the information that we hold, which taken together with our
> previous emails, I consider to be self-explanatory.  There is nothing
> further that I can add to our previous replies, and it would be
> inappropriate for me to speculate on the events around the listing
> assessment without our own contemporary evidence being available to me to
> substantiate precisely what occurred.  I am sorry that this final reply
> could not be more helpful to you.
>
>
>
> If you remain dissatisfied with the way Cadw has dealt with this matter
> following this email please find a link to the WG Complaints process How
> to make a complaint about Welsh Government [HTML] | GOV.WALES
>  
>
>
>
> Yours sincerely,
>
>
>
> Andy Wigley
>
>
>
>
>
> Dr Andy Wigley
>
> Prif Arolygydd – Pennaeth Arolygiaeth yr Amgylchedd Hanesyddol / Chief
> Inspector - Head of Historic Environment Inspectorate
>
> Cadw
>
> Dysgu, Cymunedau a Diwylliant / Learning, Communities and Culture
>
> Llywodraeth Cymru / Welsh Government
>
> Tŷ Ladywell / Ladywell House
> Y Drenewydd / Newtown
> Powys
> [postcode redacted]
>
>
>
> Ffôn / Tel: [phone redacted]
> Ffôn symudol / Mobile: [phone redacted]
>
> E-bost/ Email: [email redacted] / [email redacted]
>
> P Helpwch yr amgylchedd - peidiwch ag argraffu hon os nad oes gwir
> raid   Help our environment - only print this if really necessary
>
> Rydym yn croesawu gohebiaeth Gymraeg. Cewch ateb Cymraeg i bob gohebiaeth
> Gymraeg ac ni fydd gohebu yn Gymraeg yn arwain at oedi.
>
> We welcome correspondence in Welsh. Correspondence received in Welsh will
> be answered in Welsh and corresponding in Welsh will not involve any delay.
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Sion Buckler  
> *Sent:* 29 August 2026 18:15
> *To:* Wigley, Andy (LCC - Cadw)  
> *Cc:* Cadw Planning  ; Longford, Amy (LCC - Cadw)
>  ; Weatherhead, Michael (LCC - Cadw)
>  
> *Subject:* Great House Farm, Llandough
>
>
>
> Sirs/Ma'am,
>
> Further to my last two emails this week, and in response to yours, which
> is appreciated, please see the attached documents.
>
> My latest version file on yourselves; CADW. And a mock application to a
> mock AI chancery court; a simulation I'm running in a karpathy autoresearch
> loop as a long horizon agent to refine the arguments my family made for the
> last century before being silenced. And spending the last 4 decades like
> hostage prisoners of war.
>
> While CADW may ultimately have played what could appear to be a relatively
> small part in the wider circumstances surrounding my family's dispossession
> of our home and land, I want that part to be fully understood, accurately
> recorded and, where necessary, properly scrutinised. Any possible
> institutional failure you might have identified isn't the ice berge here, I
> assure you. Not even the tip of it.
>
> I am not approaching this simply to apportion blame, although I am both
> horrified and furious reading into all this. I am trying to establish, as
> honestly and completely as I can, what happened, what was known at the
> time, what was recorded, what decisions were made, and whether proper care
> was exercised when it mattered.
>
> Thank you in advance for your cooperation. This may ultimately develop
> into a formal complaint, and if it does, CADW will of course be given a
> fair opportunity to respond to the concerns we identify. At this stage,
> however, I am trying to understand the full scope of what happened before
> reaching those conclusions.
>
> As my research continues, I may also be in a position to provide CADW with
> records concerning your own involvement which may not presently be readily
> apparent from your current records or understanding of the matter. I hope
> that, if that happens, they will be received in the same spirit in which I
> am providing them: to establish the historical truth.
>
> In the much wider context of my family's grievances concerning BP and the
> local authorities, and the eventual destruction of what had been described
> as a "county treasure", CADW may prove to be only a small part of the
> overall story. Nevertheless, I have also attached a draft Chancery Court
> application so that you can see the wider context of our grievance and
> understand where CADW's involvement sits within it.
>
> I believe that context is important.
>
> For 38 years, my family has lived with the consequences of what happened
> in 1988. We were portrayed publicly as little more than "squatters being
> evicted", and that description has stayed with us and shamed us ever since.
> The reality was considerably more complicated and, for my family,
> profoundly distressing. It was, in fact, the first time we had been off our
> land — land which we may even still own — since the 16th century, having
> acquired the estate in 1667.
>
> It remains a theory, but it is possible that an alternate, untold story is
> yet to be told, including that Llandough was once called Cedwyn Estate, and
> that the 1,000-year freehold for it, with 640 years left on that agreement,
> passed from Sir Herbert of Swansea to the Vaughan family and onto us, not
> Bute.
>
> Given that we occupied the manorial house for so many centuries, it is
> entirely plausible that we are the rightful holders of the freehold — and
> that the heirlooms Bute purchased from the last heirs of the Vaughan family
> did not actually include Cedwyn Estate. He nevertheless acted as though he
> did, dividing the land parcels. Developing his houses and the town etc. And
> I note things like the 1824 David Stewart survey in which our estate, being
> reduced to a home on the parcel it occupied, was recorded as Great House
> alias "Cedfin". Elsewhere Ked fin. And other variations.
>
> The same method used in 1974 with BP's licence letters was also used in
> 1955 (rendering our owner/occupier status merely permissive), and this may
> have occurred on multiple other land parcels prior to this — potentially in
> clandestine collaborations with the British State, given that 33 acres were
> carved out for the limeworks in the WWI effort, and War Ag occupied the
> land adjacent to ours in WWII. The council also absorbed our "playing
> fields" and so forth: a sort of eminent domain without our family receiving
> proper reparations (except once, in 1878). Llandough may have been the last
> of Wales to be colonised.
>
> I can tell you as a soldier. In Nicosia the indigenous Greeks and many
> Turks too, would approach the green line with old records of their land
> holding the UN occupied, even 4 decades later, and the UN would have to
> surrender those lands back to the indigenous. I draw a lot of parallels
> between this, our case and Wales' dream of devolution/ decolonisation. This
> case also might show we've been in a land market bubble and so a land
> market crash is coming. Our case isn't isolated or unique.
>
> I was a child in that house. My mother was pregnant, and the three of us
> were still young children. The people who removed us by force — following
> BP and the UK Government (synonymous at the time) after awarding themselves
> victory in their courts, (Magistrates as oppose to Chancery or before the
> Bench as a matter of equity, as should have happened on the merits of this
> case) — caused my mother's shoulder to become dislocated when she attempted
> to serve them with a High Court injunction ordering the occupiers not to
> destroy our home or remove our belongings. Despite that injunction, the
> house was ultimately destroyed and our possessions removed, including all
> our furniture, which came from Cardiff Castle, £30,000 of goods, a stone
> Roman-villa-type pillar, and so forth.
>
> The ITV coverage at the time showed some of what happened, including the
> injury to my mother, but not that she was pregnant and that three young
> children were inside. ITV, it seems, never aired that footage, and instead
> of responding to my FOI request, they quietly published it to a YouTube
> archive last year — apparently hoping that I, or my AI agents, or anyone
> else, would not notice this suppression. I also hold other ITV footage
> which they have not admitted to or disclosed, showing my younger baby
> sister held to watch the looting of our home.
>
> The MP is hesitant to respond, the Llandough councillor will not respond,
> and the longstanding Llandough clerk retired after initially trying, and
> failing, to dismiss me. I am ashamed of my nation. I served in war too, and
> left my military career with honours; I am bona fide, having also completed
> 22 years in Oath in 2024, the last 2 under the employ of the Vale of
> Glamorgan Council in adult care. The Land Registry also tried everything to
> steer me away from identifying their mistake in allowing BP to register our
> land in their name, without our ownership claim being lodged, in 1983. The
> fact that my nan — who had already spent 40 years challenging her ownership
> claim by 1983 — died within the two weeks she would have had to challenge
> BP's registration of our land in their name, is another matter requiring
> investigation.
>
> Much like my late father's sudden death at age 41, between BP's
> application and approval of housing development, his ECHR claim was
> rejected, and his appeal of the 1987 ruling was dismissed — on the grounds
> that BP's companies were treated as one and the same. Yet in the ruling
> itself, BP's companies were considered separately, meaning our challenge to
> one would not have affected the other. Outrageous. The same judge also went
> out of his way to say my nan "conceived the notion she owned" and said the
> unajudicated ownership dispute, set aside to award BP possession of our
> land, was final. Very suspect and nobody raised questions or challenged
> except our family i.e. 'Buckler vs United Kingdom' at the ECHR in 1988/89.
> Who also ruled in lieu of BP rights over ours as the owners. In 1974 the
> ownership hearing was ajourned. Ownership to this day has never been
> properly adjudicated.
>
> For us, this was not simply a "squatters being evicted" case, as was
> falsely reported in the news. It was the loss of our family home since
> 1667, and the forceful and prolonged seperation and severing of our
> connection to that land, which our family had maintained for generations
> and owned, and still appear to own in spite of who awarded themselves
> possession of it or occupy it — and perhaps not just the parcel we were on,
> but half the town of Llandough, by birthright. With 6 centuries left on
> that freehold from the Knight in 1500, to a military commander and leader
> like myself. The true title chain. All the while the occupiers operate from
> defective title. It's possible getting to me may prove more difficult than
> how my dad before me or nan before him were gotten to, as I am a military
> warfare professional of almost 3 decades now.
>
> It is otherwise difficult to explain what all we went through does to a
> family, particularly when the public account of what happened does not
> reflect the reality experienced by those of us who were inside the house at
> the time. My younger sister had nightmares when I brought this up with her.
> It's subsequently cruel to see her having to visit archieves for a 4th
> time, to try to see again what we are there to see.
>
> I therefore hope that CADW will understand why I am asking you to approach
> this matter with some care and humanity, as well as with the proper
> historical and professional scrutiny that it deserves. The non response
> from the Llandough councillor, classification of the 133 house plans on the
> council planning portal, delay from MP responding, is also an outrage. And
> clear bias towards the houses being developed on our stolen occupied land,
> by the holders of the defective title. No wonder my surviving family, of
> mainly women, aren't speaking up or out. It just horrifies me how they have
> had to live like such hostages under such terrorists. After a literal act
> of terrorism against us.
>
> I was involved in the effort in Iraq to break two SAS soldiers out of an
> Iraq prison under police guard, days before their execution. Me and a lot
> of the squadrons of soldiers I have around me to this day. I see my family
> in a similar light there, under the tyranny of this. And I am not standing
> for it. I'm only 41, I'm in full mental and physical health. I may have a
> lot of years left in my life which I'm able to dedicate to this.
>
> I have also passed this matter to my Cardiff based BBC producer friend,
> who also confirmed they'll be looking into this too. And Gareth Wyn Jones
> and others will a platform. This is a matter of public and national
> interest. It should not be drawn into clandestine warfare, with silence and
> violence, albeit that is my domain. Because there's already been plenty of
> it by the looks of it. I want this to remain in the open. Emails, open
> letters, courts and Senedd public enquiry etc.
>
> Application of Property Law, did in this case, result in an inhumane
> outcome in my estimation. It may need to be petitioned to be rectified.
>
> I am not asking CADW to accept my conclusions simply because I have
> reached them. I am asking you to look at the evidence, to consider what
> your own records show, and to be willing to acknowledge anything that may
> have been overlooked, misunderstood, or inadequately dealt with at the time.
>
> If mistakes were made, I would much rather see them acknowledged and
> properly understood than defended simply because they are now part of an
> institutional record.
>
> I trust you will now appreciate the importance, significance and magnitude
> of this matter for my family. I will continue to provide the material I
> uncover, and I sincerely hope that CADW will continue to give it the proper
> care and attention it deserves.
>
> Regards,
>
>
>
> Sion Buckler (Ret'd Sergeant)
>
> Royal Signals Cyber/Electronic Warfare Professional and Life Member
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