The September '21 Grand Tour of mid and north Wales in a motorhome Day 23

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We are on the way to Llangollen and Wern Isaf Farm.

With news of petrol queuing and some stations running out of fuel due to panic buying, we debate whether to fill up. We have just under half a tank and so wisely opt for filling up at the Benllech fuel station.

At Betws y Coed we stop for a stroll around the outdoor shops. As a child, this was my regular Sunday afternoon outing with parents. A drive over the mountains via Llyn Craftnant, we would park in the car park alongside the river bridge in the centre of the village and then spend time skimming stones in the river and clambering over the rocks below the bridge. Some days we strolled up river through woods and meadows to what was then called the ‘Ugly Witch’s Cottage’. Betws is one of my ‘spiritual’ homes.

Maggie walks away with a new fleece, and unusually for me, I manage to go into six outdoor shops and walk away with nothing. It is a first!

The drive to Llangollen is one I know well. As kids we were regularly crammed into an Austin 1300 for the two-hour drive to Shropshire to visit grandparents. Along the twisty section up past the river Conwy which used to make us all car sick. Out across the boring moorland vistas around the Nebo area (as an adult I now love those rolling hills).

 

Sometimes as a diversion, Dad would go via the Horseshoe Pass (as we have elected to do today) and on nice days we would stop at the viewpoint to admire the Vale of Llangollen and the Berwyn slate quarries in all their glory.  Ah, those famous limestone escarpments and the chasms in the side of mountains where quarried slate was extracted. Fond childhood memories.

The drive down into Llangollen around the tight bends is good practice for Scotland next year! At least that’s what I tell Maggie!

Plas Newydd, a National Trust property at Llangollen is delightful. Meaning ‘new house’ or ‘new mansion’, it is positively charming and comes with a wonderful history.

 

The wood carvings are truly remarkable, the location is romantic and the stories of the two ladies who lived there extraordinary. Lady Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby, two upper-class Irish ladies, lived here for nearly 50 years.

‘The Ladies of Llangollen’ eloped from Ireland to escape ‘conventional marriage pressures and set up house together in the late 18th century, causing great scandal in contemporary British society. They sent for Sarah's servant, Mary Caryll, who lived with and worked for them for the rest of her life. Mary died first and they were buried in the same plot and share the same grave marker.

Originally a five-roomed stone cottage, over the years, the ladies enlarged the house to include many Gothic features. Welsh oak panelling, pointed arches, stained glass windows, and an extensive library, in which they received their many guests, the ladies went on to hire a gardener, a footman and two maids. It led to significant debt, and they had to rely on the generosity of friends.

And what friends they had. Ostracised at first by their respective families, the ladies and their unconventional lifestyle gradually became accepted, and their home was visited by many famous people including Robert Southey, William Wordsworth, Caroline Lamb, Shelley, Byron, Wordsworth, Sir Walter Scott, the Duke of Wellington and the industrialist Josiah Wedgwood. Now if ever you could assemble a dinner part table from history ………….. evenings must have been fun, learned and entertaining to say the least.

The ladies continued to expand and improve the gardens, adding many Gothic features such as a "ruined" archway, rustic bridges over rushing torrents and a temple that included a font removed from the ruined Valle Crucis Abbey. In ornate greenhouses they grew exotic fruit, and attached poetic notices to trees.

The ladies became known throughout Britain. Queen Charlotte wanted to see their cottage and persuaded King George III to grant them a pension. Eventually their families came to tolerate them.

Rumours that they were in a sexual relationship floated around during and after their lives. In 1791, a magazine described them and implied that they were in a sexual relationship. The ladies were appalled by this idea, and objected to the magazine's characterisation to the point of consulting Edmund Burke over the possibility of suing the magazine for libel.

There is nothing in their extensive correspondence or diaries that indicates a sexual relationship. Some consider Butler's and Ponsonby's relationship to be a Boston marriage, or a romantic relationship between two women who chose to live together and have "marriage-like relationships". Others conclude that the two had a non-sexual romantic friendship.

After their deaths in 1829 and 1831, the property passed through various hands and saw a number of changes. General John Yorke added the black and white features on the exterior and filled the interior with oddities from around the world. In 1932 the house was acquired by Llangollen Urban District Council and it is now a museum.

The car park here is small, taking at most two Moho’s.  Park in the town and walk up is my advice! It is a nice stroll.

 

The drive up to Wern Isaf is slightly spine tingling! Steep, the first section ends with an unusual right-angled steep bend on a narrow bridge. The road just ends there against a wall and the two turnings left and right form T junctions with it. Add in a secondary school disgorging teenagers all across the road and worse still some on bikes careering down the hill; and I’m feeling stressed. I know what teenagers can be like! Be warned huge coaches also try to come down. God knows how they do it. If you meet one of those you are well and truly stuffed. There is nowhere to go other than back down the hill and bends in reverse.

The farm is thus a welcome relief after those initial stressful encounters further down the road. Rolling hills with the castle above, countryside views of a working farm. Pitches are well spaced and the HS ones have all services alongside. The welcome from Claire is warm good-humoured and genuine.

We arrive at 3.30 ish and spend the remainder of the afternoon cleaning Bryony, opening all her windows and hatches, letting the air blow through. We also do some much needed laundry.

Expenditure: £20 diesel top up; £54 for two nights at Wern Isaf Farm