Llangollen - Plas Newydd

Llangollen can thank two capricious ladies for the curious Plas Newydd, a black and white half-timbered house on Butler Hill. Inspired by the ideas coming from Europe of a new sensibility and emotional awareness, Eleanor Butler and her companion Sarah Ponsonby, 16 years older, broke with convention and fled from their family home to England, coming through Wales.

The sight of the Dee valley so bewitched the two women that they decided to remain in the "most beautiful country in the world". They occupied a cottage on the edge of the village and lived there together for 50 years, turning the garden into a veritable gem. Between 1789 and 1814 they gave their very simple dwelling its "Gothic" look. The "most famous virgins in Europe", as Prince Pückler respectfully named the two eccentric "Ladies of Llangollen", received many famous people of the period, including the Duke of Gloucester, the Lakeland poet William Wordsworth, Sir Walter Scott and the actress Sarah Siddons.