St Donats () is a village and

community A community is a social unit (a group of people) with a shared socially-significant characteristic, such as place, set of norms, culture, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given g ...

in the

Vale of Glamorgan The Vale of Glamorgan ( ), locally referred to as ''The Vale'', is a Principal areas of Wales, county borough in the South East Wales, south-east of Wales. It borders Bridgend County Borough to the west, Cardiff to the east, Rhondda Cynon Taf t ...

in south

Wales Wales ( ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by the Irish Sea to the north and west, England to the England–Wales border, east, the Bristol Channel to the south, and the Celtic ...

, located just west of the small town of

Llantwit Major Llantwit Major () is a town and community (Wales), community in Wales on the Bristol Channel coast. It is one of four towns in the Vale of Glamorgan, with the third largest population (13,366 in 2001) after Barry, Vale of Glamorgan, Barry and ...

. The community includes the village of Marcross and the

hamlets A hamlet is a human settlement that is smaller than a town or village. This is often simply an informal description of a smaller settlement or possibly a subdivision or satellite entity to a larger settlement. Sometimes a hamlet is defined f ...

of Monknash and East and West Monkton. It is named after the 6th-century saint, Dunwyd, a friend of Saint

Cadoc Saint Cadoc or Cadog (; also Modern Welsh: Catawg or Catwg; born or before) was a 5th–6th-century Abbot of Llancarfan, near Cowbridge in Glamorgan, Wales, a monastery famous from the era of the Celtic church as a centre of learning, wher ...

. It had a population of 732 in 2011. St Donat's church, dedicated to St Dunwyd, lies in a depression and is unremarkable from the exterior but contains Stradling family

monuments A monument is a type of structure that was explicitly created to commemorate a person or event, or which has become relevant to a social group as a part of their remembrance of historic times or cultural heritage, due to its artistic, historical ...

in the Stradling chapel. It is a 12th-century

Grade I listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

building with a

medieval cross in the churchyard. Atlanticcollege11

The village is primarily known as the location of the 12th century St Donat's Castle, which is now an international

boarding school A boarding school is a school where pupils live within premises while being given formal instruction. The word "boarding" is used in the sense of "room and board", i.e. lodging and meals. They have existed for many centuries, and now extend acr ...

occupied by

Atlantic College UWC Atlantic (formally the United World College of the Atlantic, and often referred to by its original name, Atlantic College) is an Private schools in the United Kingdom, independent boarding school in the Vale of Glamorgan in south Wales. Fo ...

, the first of the United World Colleges. Within the castle grounds lies St Donats Arts Centre. Atlanticcollege5

References

External links

{{authority control Villages in the Vale of Glamorgan Communities in the Vale of Glamorgan