About Me

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Hi! I'm Eunice and I live in Bolton, Lancashire, with my two dogs Sophie and Sugar and an assortment of cats - well it used to be Sophie and Sugar, now it's Sophie and Poppie. I first began camping back in 1997 when my then partner took me to Anglesey for my birthday weekend. We slept in the back of the car - a hatchback - using the cushions off the settee at home as a mattress, and cooked and brewed up on a single burner camping stove. The site was good, the views were great, the weather fantastic and I was completely hooked. Following that weekend we got a two-man tent and some proper accessories and returned to Anglesey two weeks later, then over time we progressed to a three-man tent followed by an old trailer tent, then a new trailer tent, a campervan and finally a caravan. When my partner decided that the grass was greener on the other side of the street - literally - in April 2009 and I suddenly found myself alone after fifteen years, I decided there was no way I was going to give up camping and caravanning if I could cope on my own. This blog is the story of my travels, trials and tribulations since becoming a solo camper - I hope you like it

Sunday April 16th 2017 - Part 3 - Plas Newydd, Llangollen

The third place on my day's itinerary was Plas Newydd in Llangollen, a historic black-and-white timber-framed house which was once home to the 'Ladies of Llangollen'. There was no car park there but I managed to get a space at the roadside just outside the gates, and after paying my entrance fee at the counter in the tea room I made my way round the gardens to the house itself. 

 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.



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6 comments:

  1. nashvillecats227 April 2017 at 06:18

    Such a wonderful insight of days gone by, such a pleasure these places as I well know. Thanks for these awesome pics wonderful to look at on a dreary Thursday morning.

    Yvonne.

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  2. Tigermouse27 April 2017 at 07:15

    It's a really unusual old house Yvonne, the wood carvings are amazing and you could spend hours studying them. I'm glad I was able to get the photos even though I wasn't supposed to do, at least I came away with something to show for my time spent in there :)

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  3. Eileen H27 April 2017 at 07:58

    That certainly is a very interesting house, I always like to see the hired help quarters somehow, an insight into how the servants were treated in days gone by. It's quite amusing to read about the drunken gardener too.
    I admire you for carrying on taking your photographs, not sure I would have been so bold. They might be coming after you when they find them on the internet :)

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    Replies
    1. Tigermouse27 April 2017 at 10:17

      I think the housekeeper was treated more as a friend than a servant but her room was still very simply furnished compared to the other bedrooms. I loved the little cat sitting by the fireplace :)

      I'm sure I'm not the only one to have taken photos in there - with these new-fangled phones it's easy enough to do it without anyone knowing, and there's nothing anywhere to say that anything is copyright.

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  4. Anabel Marsh27 April 2017 at 09:07

    Interesting, we have a book on the Ladies of Llangollen in the Women's Library, but I didn't know you could still visit their house. I never understand photography policies - they seem to vary so much. I also don't like attendants who shout at people. We had an incident once and I read another on a different blog recently. There are much nicer ways of handling things.

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  5. Tigermouse27 April 2017 at 10:25

    I can understand not being able to use flash as it could eventually fade any wallpaper and fabrics but to look round a place and not be able to take any photos at all seems pointless - unless of course they want people to buy the official guidebook for whatever price they charge :(

    In contrast the guy on the door at the castle couldn't have been nicer, he said I could take photos of anything I wanted but asked me not to use flash, which was fair enough and I was happy with that.

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