#plasnewydd — Public Fediverse posts

Scéalta Grá na hÉireann – The Ladies of Llangollen

I just watched a nice documentary programme on the Irish language channel TG4 in the series Scéalta Grá na h’Éireann (Ireland’s Greatest Loves). This one was about Lady Eleanor Charlotte Butler and the Honourable Sarah Ponsonby, often called The Ladies of Llangollen. The programme is available on the TG4 Player, actually, and it is possible I think to watch the whole thing anywhere in the world for free here. There’s also a little trailer on Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTkId6MfYcc

There’s an entire wikipedia page devoted to the Ladies of Llangollen, so there’s no need to reproduce it all here. However, for the sake of you who haven’t heard of them, they were. They were of Anglo-Irish extraction, both born in Ireland, and had been brought up just a few miles away from each other. They met in 1768 and immediately hit it off. They ran off together to avoid being forced into unwanted marriages, and moved to Wales in order to set up home  at Plas Newydd, near Llangollen in Denbighshire, in 1780.

They lived together for the best part of 50 years in Plas Newydd, in relative seclusion, devoting their time to private studies of literature and languages and improving their estate, comprehensively redesigning the house in a Gothic style, and adding a superb garden. They did not actively socialise and town-dwellers of Llangollen seem to have regarded them as eccentrics, simply referring to them as “The Ladies”.

Gradually, their life attracted the interest of the outside world. Their house became a haven for all manner of visitors, mostly writers such as Wordsworth, Robert Southey, Shelley, Byron and Scott, but also the military leader Duke of Wellington and industrialist Josiah Wedgwood; aristocratic novelist Caroline Lamb, who was born a Ponsonby, came to visit too. Even travellers from continental Europe had heard of the couple and came to visit them, for instance Prince Hermann von Pückler-Muskau, the German nobleman and landscape designer who wrote admiringly about them.

The story of the “romantic friendship” between these two ladies is both charming and moving, but it’s also fascinating to learn how their lifestyle was accepted and even celebrated by wider society. One might have thought their relationship would have been regarded as scandalous by their contemporaries, rather than being widely admired as it turned out to be. One is tempted to assume that their  “marriage” had a sexual dimension, which it may well have done, but it could have been a platonic, yet still romantic, friendship. As far as I’m concerned, that doesn’t really matter;  what I find inspiring about them is that they dared to be different.

Anyway, here is the beautiful sonnet that William Wordsworth wrote after meeting the Ladies of Llangollen in 1824, although I believe the Ladies took exception to the description of their magnificent house as a “low-roofed cot”!

 A stream, to mingle with your favourite Dee,
 Along the vale of meditation flows;
 So styled by those fierce Britons, pleased to see
 In Nature's face the expression of repose;
 Or haply there some pious hermit chose
 To live and die, the peace of heaven his aim;
 To whom the wild sequestered region owes
 At this late day, its sanctifying name.
 Glyn Cafaillgaroch, in the Cambrian tongue,
 In ours, the Vale of Friendship, let 'this' spot
 Be named; where, faithful to a low-roofed Cot,
 On Deva's banks, ye have abode so long;
 Sisters in love, a love allowed to climb,
 Even on this earth, above the reach of Time!

We have booked tickets to see #Madfabulous at our local cinema this afternoon.

I have read some good things about it and we are looking forward to seeing some of our favourite bits of #YnysMôn in the big screen.

As well as #PlasNewydd, you also get to see some bits of the hidden gardens of #PlasCadnant to boot.

And, in the immortal words of Oscar Wilde, be yourself, everyone else is taken. 😁

Plas Newydd, Llangollen, Denbighshire, c.1930s - Frith's Postcard

https://www.ebid.net/uk/for-sale/plas-newydd-llangollen-denbighshire-c-1930s-frith-s-postcard-243178876.htm

#PlasNewydd #Llangollen

Only just clocked that this application for a huge digital billboard on the junction of Albany Road & Newport Road in #Roath / #Plasnewydd was REFUSED following our objection. Well done, all! 🥳 @[email protected] #AdvertisingShitsInYourHead #Cardiff #Caerdydd

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:cxgnegzueqqn2yrhwv5snsdy/post/3m5rb5on3gs2y

🚨 PLANNING ALERT! 🚨 Proposed new ad board near the junction of Newport Road & Albany Road in #Roath #Plasnewydd #Adamsdown. It would be MASSIVE - see guide below, as tall as three people. Object here: www.cardiffidoxcloud.wales/publicaccess... #Cardiff #Caerdydd #AdvertisingShitsInYourHead

BBC News: How embarrassing ancestor went from 'bit of a giggle' to icon.

#HenryCyrilPaget #PlasNewydd #Anglesey #Wales #YnysMôn #Cymru #lgbt

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2jjnky5leo

It has taken me 10 drawing pins, a tack hammer, a screwdriver & a pair of pliers to put up my panorama poster of the Plas Newydd mural. The drawing pins kept bending/breaking (& I can't find one that went on the floor), & I haven't got enough push in my thumbs, so needed the hammer; had to use a screwdriver to lever one out that was in the wrong place; and the pliers to remove one that broke off the head leaving the pin in the door. But!
#PlasNewydd #mural #RexWhistler

I always enjoy exploring the Rex Whistler mural at #NationalTrust #plasnewydd, on Anglesey, particularly viewing the imaginary lighthouses. One featured on the cover of Hague and Christie's classic Lighthouses book.

Read about the mural at https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/wales/plas-newydd-house-and-garden/rex-whistlers-mural-at-plas-newydd

Now the hot weather is coming to an end, I don't need to retreat to mossy dells, but it's always a pleasure to do so.

#Mosstodon #PlasNewydd #Llangollen #LGBTQHistory

Flying home from a wonderful, marvelous holiday in #Wales. Sharing some photos. First, #PlasNewydd #Anglesey #MenaiStraits #YrWyddfa ( #Snowdon )

Guys, a #Welsh #CollectionsCare job!

Collections Assistant / Cynorthwyydd Casgliadau

📍 Plas Newydd, #Anglesey
💷 £9.90 per hour
📆 30 hours per week until 29/2/24
⏰ Closes 29/1/23
🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 Must have an understanding of Welsh language

#PlasNewydd #NationalTrust #Wales #jobs #NationalTrustCymru #conservation #HeritageJobs

Full details here: https://careers.nationaltrust.org.uk/OA_HTML/a/?_ga=2.9017525.1617313061.1674121444-2144246156.1669049076#/vacancy-detail/132142