Plas Newydd
In 1780, Lady Eleanor Butler and Miss Sarah Ponsonby captured the imagination of Regency society when they ran away and set up home together in the rolling Welsh countryside. Over the years they converted their unassuming stone cottage into a gothic fantasy, filled with elaborate oak carving and projecting stained glass, and surrounded by beautiful ornamental gardens and a woodland dell. The unconventional pair received many notable visitors such as The Duke of Wellington, William Wordsworth, ‘Gentleman Jack’ Anne Lister, Sir Walter Scott, Josiah Wedgewood and poet Anna Seward, who famously described the enchanting house as the “Fairy Palace of the Vale”.
