Coach Trip to the Past

It's a pity it was such a wet and dismal day - it would have been lovely to stroll around the 17thC formal garden at the home of the fourth richest man in Wales (and the richest in Glamorgan). Colonel Pritchard and his wife Mary Mansell owned two thirds of Glamorgan between them, and they lived at Llancaiach Fawr, a fortified manor house which has been restored to its appearance in 1645, when King Charles came to visit.
The guides, all in period costume and speaking period English, are superb. We saw the music master, head groom, under dairymaid and the Colonel's agent and surveyor, but there are other guides who play different parts as well. The Colonel's agent particularly impressed me - having discovered our party were from Hay-on-Wye, he said that it was probably best that we were away from home, as the Scottish Covenanters had been seen marching on Hereford! And having seen the music master demonstrate, I now have a desire to attempt to play the psaltery!
From the head groom, we learned of the usefulness of pigeons in sending messages from besieged houses, and why so many manor houses built new, wider staircases around 1620 (the big staircase in this manor house was built in 1628).* We also discovered how the news of fashions in London travelled around the country - with the drovers, who also carried all sorts of news, and were welcome everywhere as they were known to be of good character.
This was a house with 11 staircases, some of them blocked up when they went out of use, and a great luxury - indoor privies, in a latrine tower which dropped the effluent into a stream that runs below the house.
We saw the bedroom of the lady of the house, where she would entertain her "chat-mates" with music and gossip, and the master's bedroom, where he would conduct late night business (presumably having just wined and dined his associates in the grand hall and withdrawing room beyond). One of our party embarrassed the guide by asking where the master and the lady got together to make babies, if they had separate bedrooms! (It may have been revenge for him suggesting that women had smaller brains earlier!)



The Master Bedroom

They have a website at www.llancaiachfawr.co.uk

*the answer being - women's fashions! Skirts for fashionable ladies became too wide to fit easily up the narrow medieval staircases that had been in use up till then!