Swansea councillors have approved the demolition of the former Hendrefoilan student village near Sketty and building of a 300-home estate which developers assured planners that it would not harm Grade II-listed mansion Hendrefoilan House - former home of cigar-smoking pioneering Victorian feminist Amy Dillwyn (1845-1935).
 
Dillwyn was Wales' most celebrated nineteenth century woman industrialist, famously inheriting the near bankrupt Llansamlet Spelter Works, turning it around and eventually selling it at a large profit to William Siemens.
 
Amy was also author of popular books including one about a major rebellion in Welsh history, the somewhat bizarrely-named Rebecca Riots, against taxes in general and the Turnpike taxes in particular, which her father and grandfather had surpassed. The protaganists were men dressed as women, led by a man who lived in the foothills of the Presceli mountains, from where the bluestones of Stonehenge were hauled by ancient Britons.
 
Plas Hendrefoelan - winter dwelling of the bare hill - was built in 1853 by Amy's father, the Quaker industrialist and abolitionist, Lewis Llewelyn Dillwyn (1814-92) who served as Liberal MP for Swansea for 37 years. In 1964 the mansion was purchased by University College Swansea as part of its campus and was the home of the South Wales Miners Library.