As soon as I walked through the door I could see that this was no ordinary house - the whole of the hallway and the walls up the staircase were covered in decorative carvings featuring a host of patterns, figures and animals, and even in the downstairs rooms it looked there were carvings on almost every surface. In each room there were information sheets and printed extracts from the ladies' diaries, and the ones I looked at made very fascinating reading.
I'd just taken a photo of the 'blue' room when the woman collecting entrance tickets outside the front door shouted in a stern voice "No photos allowed in the house!" Now this was news to me - she hadn't mentioned it when I first went in, the lady at the counter where I paid my entrance fee had never said anything, and there were no notices anywhere saying photos weren't allowed, so how was I supposed to know?Anyway, there's more than one way to skin a cat as the saying goes - I just turned the camera to night shot, took as many photos as I could without the flash and she was none the wiser!
The upper staircase and landing were almost as ornate as down below, and right at the top I found the sweetest little attic bedroom; it was quite sparsely furnished and had apparently belonged to the ladies' housekeeper. One of the larger rooms had been set up as an exhibition room with many of the ladies' possessions on display, and all round the walls were information panels telling the ladies' story.
Although there had been no-one else in the house when I first went in several people had arrived afterwards, the place was getting a bit crowded and it was becoming impossible to read the information panels properly, so having taken most of the photos I wanted I made my way back outside to wander round the gardens. There was a different woman on the door by then and even though my camera was hanging round my neck in full view she didn't challenge me so it looked like my sneaky shots were safe.
While I was looking round the gardens the sun decided to put in an appearance but unfortunately it was very brief and the sky stayed grey. With one final shot taken from the edge of the main lawn, from where I could see Castell Dinas Bran in the distance on the hill top, I returned to the van and drove back to the camp site. It seemed to have been quite a long day but it had been an interesting one in many ways; I'd found Plas Newydd and the story of the Ladies of Llangollen quite fascinating and I'd got some good photos with and without flash so I was more than happy.
