(Disclaimer:
Joking aside, I fully understand the risks/dangers involved in these
adventures and do so in the full knowledge of what could happen. I don't
encourage or condone and I accept no responsibility for anyone else
following in my footsteps. Under UK law, trespass without force is a
civil offence. I never break into a
place, I never photograph a place that is currently occupied, I never take any
items and I never cause any damage, as such no criminal offences have
been committed in the making of this blog. I will not disclose location. I leave the building as I find it and
only enter to take photographs for my own pleasure and to document the
building.
Some might say that poking around a big dilapidated mansion in the middle of the night is pretty dangerous, but in this case it was actually the journey itself that nearly Diana'd me out of this world, when the guy driving lost control of the vehicle and decided to see if the car could drive just as fast if it was upside-down. Spoiler alert: It didn't.
I was just sat in the back texting a friend, completely oblivious. At first I was even leaning in to the swerving, you know? I thought he was having fun on the big empty road!
And then suddenly the car started rolling, the side windows smashed
around my head, and I was slammed against both sides of the car because I stupidly wasn't wearing a seatbelt. Car crashes do weird things to time perception too. A whole two seconds passed but in those two seconds my
mind could have written a novel.
The car eventually came to a halt, and the two in the front turned to see if I was okay, because I was the only person who hadn't been screaming. I'm fairly certain silence in the face of a terrifying life-threatening event is a trait I've carried forward from childhood trauma, but that's another story. I only bring it up because I don't want my silence to come across as some pretense of badassery. You could have drowned a rabbit in my pants.
I was convinced my face must be bleeding because the car windows had just exploded around me, but no, I just had a grazed knee. In fact, all three of us were miraculously okay.
The AA guy came along in his truck to dispose of the vehicle. He took one look at the wreck, and one look at us, just standing by the side of the road, shaken but scratchless, and couldn't believe his eyes. He kept saying how he'd seen people die in less horrific crashes. Guess we got lucky.
Some people have said that I'm clearly here for some higher purpose. I don't really believe in that sort of thing, but logically speaking, if this is the case, then as long as I don't pursue a higher purpose then I should technically be indestructible. So let's go sneak into an abandoned mansion!
Regretfully, the mansion seems to have been abadoned mid-renovation. I mean, I've seen pictures of this place from the 1990s, and very little has changed. It looked like a construction site then, and it looks like one now but with extra decay. It's fascinating, but it makes the place rather unphotogenic. Perhaps if it wasn't for the history I wouldn't even be writing a blog on it at all. Nevertheless, here we are in the main etrance hall, along with half of the houses furniture.
The building was constructed by a chap named Robert Vaughan in the late 1700s, and I'm sure a few of the urbexers, with their regurgitated Wikipedia write-ups, would be content to leave it there. However I'm not satisfied by copy and paste. I want to know it all. What colour were Robert Vaughans favourite pair of socks? What was his favourite sex position? That sort of thing. Alas, these things elude me, for now. But I found out that this wasn't the first house to stand here, and Robert Vaughan was far from the first in his family to call this place home.
Some sources say that the families history here dates back to the time of Hywel Sele, a Welsh chieftain from the 1400s who was murdered and hidden in a tree. Other sources name Hywel Sele's great-great grandfather Ynyr as the sprouting root of the estate. And no, I have no idea how to pronounce Ynyr. It looks like the noise I make when I'm straining on the toilet, but I'm sure when spoken in the actual Welsh language it probably doesn't.
Quick disclaimer though- with this many centuries to work with, I'm giving a seriously abridged version of events, and I can't guarantee that it's factual, because not even my sources can.
The furniture is all presumably placed here to store it while work commences in other parts of the house, but now there's a thick layer of dust on all of it.
As you can probably guess from a place with this much history, it's not without its ghost stories and old myths. There's an old Iron Age fort on the land, with a Welsh name
that literally translates to the Hill of Sacrifice, with a cliff from
which human sacrifices were tossed to their splattery doom by ancient
tribes. There's also a lake nearby that is said to be a gateway to the
underworld or the faerie realm. Local legend says it was inhabited by a
monster that was killed by a shepherd and then buried in a place
with a Welsh name that translates to Grave of the Serpent.
Some
of the cheesier ghost stories say that every year some demonic entity
emerges from the lake, and says something silly like "the hour has come, but not the man,"
before dragging whoevers watching into the lake, never to be seen
again... Yeah, I think someone was up all night reading Creepy Pastas
when they thought of this.
There's
another story, about the ghost of a young groom who occasionally
screams on the driveway after he was trampled to death by the horse, and
occasionally a spectral woman and her ghost dog are seen, after her
lover (sometimes husband) murdered her, and the dog. Someone allegedly
once followed the ghost to a bridge, where it vanished, and then later on
the dead body of the woman and her dog were discovered there.
And
straight away, we have a blunder. If you are going to tell a ghost
story, make the events verifyable. I haven't found any official records
of any bodies being found under any bridges.
If we want to go right back to the very beginning, the first house was built here in the 11th Century, or the year 1100 depending on the source. It's an easy thing to muddle up, let's be honest, but even though the 11th Century is technically the 1000s, not the 1100s, we're not dealing with a massive discrepency. The guy who had it built, Cadwgan ap Bleddyn, was born in 1051 and he died in 1111, so the house was built somewhere around then.
Cadwgan isn't just some nobody. His father, Bleddyn, was the Prince of Powys and an ally of Harold against the Norman invasion of 1066. And for a nice bit of continuity with other places I've mentioned on this blog, Cadwgan was also the Great Uncle of Owain Brogyntyn, whose former fort has been featured on the blog before.
Nineteen generations later, Robert Vaughan would describe Cadwgans hall as the stateliest home in Wales at the time. Presumably he saw pictures of it, because he sure wasn't around to see it himself.
But pretty homes aside, as is often the case in these stories of medieval Welsh rulers, Cadwgans life is full of drama. He was a pretty crucial figure in the resistance against Norman conquest, but his real enemies were sat around the dining room table with him. I guess the seriously abridged version is that there was a scuffle over territories, some
of Cadwgans children murdered each other, and when Cadwgans brother Iorwerth was killed in 1111, Cadwgan briefly became ruler of Powys before being murdered by his own nephew. There's also a fantastic tale of Cadwgans son kidnapping a woman and fleeing to Ireland too, but that's another story!
Following his death, Cadwgans home was occupied by his son Madog, and it was passed down through subsequent generations. The "Ynyr Hen" mentioned as the source root of the estate is actually Madogs grandson, and he had a son called Ynyr Fychan. In Welsh, in the time before surnames, "Hen" and "Fychan" mean Older and Younger, and were used to differentiate between fathers and sons with the same name.
Following his death, Cadwgans home was occupied by his son Madog, and it was passed down through subsequent generations. The "Ynyr Hen" mentioned as the source root of the estate is actually Madogs grandson, and he had a son called Ynyr Fychan. In Welsh, in the time before surnames, "Hen" and "Fychan" mean Older and Younger, and were used to differentiate between fathers and sons with the same name.
Ynyr Fychan was actually a notable fellow because he helped to capture a rebel called Madog ap Llywelyn, who led one of the biggest revolts against English rule in Welsh history, and definitely not the last.
And just to give the family tree a circle, Ynyr Fychans son Meurig married Owain Brogyntyns great-great-great granddaughter. However with that many generations it's hardly the stuff of scandal. It does, however, add the Brogyntyn bloodline to the family of this estate.
Inside the house, everything seems to just be stacked up with little logic or reason. As a result it was quite a challenge to navigate around. The renovations apparently stopped in 2002, so all this has been stored here like this for nearly two decades.
There are loads of fireplace fixtures dotted around.
So Meurigs grandson was Hywel Sele, the biggest name associated with this estate, best known for being murdered and hidden in a tree. He was incredibly loyal to King Henry IV. However, Hywel Sele had married Mali, whose brother was married to the neice of Owain Glyndwr, often anglified to Owen Glendower, a modification he would no doubt have loathed.
Owain Glyndwr was another who rebelled against the English rule in Wales. His anger towards the English apparently stemmed from the 1390s, when he had a squabble with his neighbour, Baron Grey, who stole some of his land. Owain Glyndwr wrote to the English parliament for help, but was ignored.
There was a bunch of other stuff too. Apparently Baron Grey threatened to burn some of Owain Glyndwrs property so he wrote an angry letter bragging about stealing Baron Greys horses, and then by the 1400s this had evolved into full-on war with England.
What an awesome bloke! Have you ever declared war on an entire country just because your neighbour is a cunt? No, because you're a wuss. But Owain Glyndwr wasn't messing around. He even went a step further in 1402 and kidnapped Baron Grey, and held him hostage for a full year.
Check out this piano! It's certainly seen better days.
The piano keys have the letters written on it, which indicates that someone once used this to teach someone how to play. It's a shame that it's just sitting here serving no purpose.
Owain
Glyndwrs link to this story is subject to multiple accounts. Some say
he was getting too friendly with Hywel Sele's wife, and the two hated
each other for that reason. But somehow they ended up going on a hunt on Hywels land together. The abbot of Kymmer allegedly liked them
both and invited them both to hang out and become buddies. But for some reason, Hywel decided to turn his arrows on Owain, who retaliated like anybody would when they recently declared war on an entire country, and struck him down without hesitation. Fearing that murdering Hywel would ignite civil war
in Wales, Owain decided to hide his body in a massive hollow oak tree that
had been struck by lightning years ago.
And then in 1402 he burned down Hywels house.
And that's one historic discrepency right there! If killing Hywel was
something so catastrophic that he needed to cover it up, why then do something as extravagant as
burn down his house?
The
version of the story that makes sense to me is that Owain sought Hywel
out for help in his war against the English, but Hywel sided with Henry
IV instead, and his murder and house burning down was all retaliation
for what Owain percieved to be betrayal. I've also seen a version of the story that says that while Owain burned the house down, he got some other guys to take care of the murder. Who knows?
Even prior to body being discovered, the
oak tree itself became a focal point of many a ghost story, what with the lightning making it look so ominous, and
therefore the tale has been prone to alterations for dramatic effect.
For example, some say that Hywel cursed Owain with his dying breathe,
and that Owain was plagued by night terrors and haunted by Hywel until
he died a decade later. This doesn't really tie in with history though.
Owain was busy fighting a war with the English, and probably had bigger
things on his mind than some guy he hid in a tree. This is a guy who
declared war on England because his neighbour was a dick. It's not like
killing people is going to keep him up at night, ya know?
His
war went very well, too. At least, at first. He had thousands of followers. Welsh people dropped out of English universities to come and fight alongside him, and even the French backed him up. But as you can probably
guess by the fact that Wales is not an independent country, he
eventually lost. To his credit, he was never captured, nor was his
location ever betrayed by those who helped him go on the run. He passed
on into a sort of myth, with those loyal to him claiming that he'd
return someday and unite them all against England.
Interestingly, at least to me, his sister Isabel is a direct
ancestor of the Harlechs of Brogyntyn by some eighteen generations, and
the folks who owned the Cyclops Cavern by about fourteen generations,
with the fork in the road being Isabels Great-Great-Great Grandsons.
After twelve generations the lineage also marries into the Bulkeley family too. Everythings connected! Thats what I love about these rich Welsh folks and their stately homes.
Some
say that Hywel was found in the tree a decade later, as Owain confessed
to what he did to it before he died, but since nobody knows when Owain died, this is a flimsy story. The more common account is that
Hywels body was found forty years later, whereas some even say that it
wasn't discovered until the tree collapsed in the 1800s.
Either way, Hywel ended up in the tree, and then many years later, they found him.
Hywel
had a son, who had been only two years old when his father was murdered and hidden in a tree. He was too young to inherit the land,
not that Owain Glyndwr left him much to inherit, what with the house being burned down. Consequentially there's very little documentation of the family at this
point. Hywel's son was first listed as the owner of the land in 1420, and documentation of the local courts show that he was
frequently the victim of having his livestock stolen. It's not known how he died,
but since his wife died around the same time, it's commonly believed
that they had a disease.
And then all I know about Hywels grandson, Dafydd, is that he splashed out six shillings for the construction of the local church.
Dafydds grandson Hugh got the estate in 1580, and had the house rebuilt. Of course given that this is the first account of the house being rebuilt since its destruction in 1402, I think there was probably another house here during that period. They weren't all living in a field.
Hugh was an interesting character, very prominent in his community, and a member of parliament. He managed to pull some strings to get his son Griffith into parliament too in 1593. Some say that he was a great guy. In fact no less than eleven bards gave him some very extravagant eulogies upon his death in 1623, insisting that he was the dogs bollocks. However he was fined £1,500 for chopping down and selling thousands of trees between 1588 and 1594, none of which were on his land. He refused to pay the fine and ended up in jail. Many of his fans insist that he was set up.
On the other hand, his son Griffith was a bit more unquestionably unlawful, detaining a key person during his fathers trial and consequentially being challenged to a duel. He also sued someone for destroying his fences, only to be accused in 1606 of building his fences across other peoples land. What the hell is going on? Their ancestor was killed for not joining in on a war with England, and they're here bickering about fences.
All these lawsuits cost a bomb, and soon they were borrowing money just to keep their home running. Griffith predeceased his father in 1609.
These pictures are particularly interesting, all historic and showing scenes from the local area. The frames look new though, which is odd.
In regards to family lineage, things got a bit Rhyl-ish after Hugh and Griffith. Griffith's child married Griffiths sisters child. But that's about as incestious as the family got.
Their grandson, Hugh, was the
last Welsh stately home owner to employ a Welsh bard, and he was a colonel
in the North Wales Militia. He also became a member of parliament in 1694,
but he was barely ever there, missing many a meeting, including the
ones that were about him when he was charged of abusing his power in a
property lawsuit, back when politicians actually faced consequences for
their corruption. It's said that his frequent absences were actually due
to his other antics, which involved lead mines. He took over the estate
in 1689, but he had no male heir, only four daughters. And then one day
while traveling to parliament in 1701, he endured some pretty heavy
rain and snowfall, only to get a pretty brutal fever that took his life
in a matter of days. He was only 31.
His
eldest daughters, Janet and Catherine, were twins, so I'm not sure how
it was decided that Janet should inherit the house, but she did, and
then she married a Vaughan.
Interestingly,
Welsh people didn't use surnames back then. At least, not in the same
way we do today. The common suffix to a name was "ap" meaning "Son of."
So by using this obsolete naming structure, my hypothetical crotchfruit would be named "Syphilis ap Chris." His friends
will shorten Syphilis to Phil though, so don't worry.
In
Tudor times the English government got a bit confused by the Welsh
naming system, so encouraged them to take on actual surnames. A lot of
surnames in Wales originated as abbreviations of what was already common
practice. For example "Pugh" derives from "ap Hugh" and "Prys" derived from "ap Rhys." In this case,
"Vaughan" actually derived from "Fychan."
Janets
son was Hugh Vaughan, and when it came to finances he was an absolute
car crash of a human being. He was to money what Kate McCann is to
children- he lost it really easily and nobody knew where it went. He ended up hopelessly in debt, and
hounded by bailifs for most of his life. His lawyer and genius secretary
managed to salvage some of it, but since he didn't have any offspring,
it was his brother Robert who became the big cheese upon his death in
1783. Robert became a baron, a title recommended for him by none other
than Lord Bulkeley, whose own ruinous stately home I recently blogged about. Robert Vaughans son and grandson were both called Robert, so just like those damn Bulkeleys, it's about to get repetitive.
There's some leftover tools from the renovation. This thing is awesome, albeit a pretty dangerous thing to just leave lying around, and probably rusty beyond the point of usefulness.
I'm not sure why theres a sign advertising Cox's architectural salvage yard, given that we're nowhere near it, but I guess it's plausible that the last owners were doing business with them during the renovation.
This particular mansion, the latest to stand here, was constructed in 1790, although some sources say 1788 and others say 1794. It was the project of the second Robert Vaughan, in an ambitious, and successful attempt to restore some dignity to the estates reputation after his uncle Hugh obliterated it. Allegedly this house still has some brickwork from the two predecessors too, but I'm not sure where that is. It sure is fascinating though.
Robert married Anna Maria, a 15-generation descendant of Isabel, Owain Gwyndwrs sister. I absolutely love tracing all these lines of descent. One wonders if they were even aware at the time.
This Robert Vaughan sat in the house of commons from 1792 until 1836. He was so popular that he actually got re-elected 13 times. Princess Victoria wasn't as impressed though, because she declined his invite to come and visit. It was her loss though, because these Robert Vaughans knew how to throw a smashing party! In 1824 Roberts son, Robert III, turned 21, and to celebrate they threw a massive party and also had an entire kitchen wing constructed on the mansion, because every young man wants his own kitchen wing when he's about to inherit his ancestral home. Bells rang in churches as far as Llansaintffraid, Llanfyllin and Meifod, and Robert generously fed the poorer people of these villages with his finest ox and also plenty of beer. The people of Meifod recieved fifty gallons of ale, and it's estimated that about 300 families celebrated.
And who can blame them? Robert III sounds like an absolute saint! The guy turns 21 and buys all the rounds of drinks for three whole towns, none of which he actually lives in. What a dude. That must have been one heck of a party.
At this house, one hundred people attended a dinner, and partied until 1am. The menu boasted beef weighing
165lbs cut from carcass of a white ox. Its horns and feet were
made into candelabra and in a slightly more ominous and morbid twist, the candlesticks at the party were cut from the
remains of the haunted oak, after it collapsed in 1813. There's food for thought here. If we believe the version of events that say Hywel Sele's body wasn't
discovered until the moment that the tree collapse, then it would have been the Robert Vaughans who found him. It would have been quite spectacular, but surely it takes a true eccentric genius to say "Nevermind the body. Lets make candlesticks out of the tree."
Its worth noting that even
with the story of Hywel Sele's murder being centuries ago, the tree was
still being referred to as an object of superstituous dread among the
peasantry in publications printed as late as 1832, so the Vaughans absolutely knew the legend behind the oak when they made the candlesticks, and given that the Victorian era saw a massive boom in occult interests, it wouldn't surprise me if they had some additional intent behind making candlesticks out of it.
An 1841 census shows Robert III and his wife sharing this house with five male servants and eleven female servants, but it's also said that he actually didn't spend a lot of time here, apparently having some kind of beef with his mother that made him stay away.
He's been described as sweet and innocent, and superior to Snowdon in size and bulk, a facetious comment made my someone close to him due to him being a bit of a fatty. While his time as a member of parliament was similarly riddled with poor attendance, he dedicated much of his time to benefiting his community, even having his towns jail and court room constructed. He also had many whimsical cottages built across his estate, including one shaped like a bottle of ink. Allegedly he also had a number of clocks placed on the estate, deliberately set forward by the exact number of minutes it would take to walk to the house from that point, so that his guests were never late for dinner. It's little quirks like that that make me like the guy. He sounds awesome.
In regards to the house, it's time to head upstairs where things are a little more photogenic...
The stairs are easily my favourite part of the building, retaining their look of refinery, even amid the bombsite of the failed renovation.
We have a couple more baths upstairs.
The upstairs portions of this house were much less cluttered and as a result, more photogenic. It's possible to truly appreciate the building when there's less stuff in the way.
Robert
III died in 1859, and the house was inherited by his cousin Thomas, the son of one
of his mothers siblings. Historically this
seems like a sad acquisition, breaking the chain of 20 generations
dating back to the 1100s. However when Thomas died in 1874, the house
was owned by a Vaughan again, who was born in 1829. His name was John. I've got some contradictory information regarding his linegage though. While some sources say that Robert III had no children, others mention that John was his child. But I find it odd that the inheritance of the hall didn't pass directly to him. Maybe Robert III's mother was pulling the strings a bit.
John was similarly popular with the locals. He contributed to the community by having a school built, and giving a 10% rent rebate to tennants on his land. He also set about building farm houses and repairing new ones, and as of 1889 he and his wife had 27 staff, so they clearly helped employment too.
A newspaper article from 1887 makes mention of another coming of age party, this time for Johns son, another Robert. There was apparently a marching band and a massive lunch, but nothing quite as extravagant as his ancestors. The party was meant to symbolise his taking over of the estate but for some reason his mother had a last minute change of mind and decided that upon her death, Roberts younger brother could have it. There's a rather nice story concerning this Robert, where he happened to
spot a woman carrying a heavy load from one village to another just
over three miles away. He decided to help her, but only told her who he
was after he had done the deed, apparently making her day that a rich
dude from a mansion would take time to help the common folk. As well as
being kind and generous, he was also a goat enthusiast. He kept goats
and he encouraged everyone else in the neighbourhood to keep goats too,
just so that there would always be a milk supply for the sick and the
poor.
He died in 1941 at the age of 75. His widow recieved over a hundred letters offering condolences.
Photos from 1999 show these pillars in the old archway in front of the stairs. I'm not sure why someone lugged them up the stairs. It's not as if anyone is worried about cluttering up the downstairs portion of the building.
This doorway here used to be the entrance to a tower block that no longer stands. It was removed during some renovations in the 1970s.
I'm a little displeased by these wooden frames on the walls because it looks like the renovations were planning on covering up the fireplaces, and archaic as they are in this era of radiators, I think they give some character to an ancient mansion like this.
Roberts younger brother was General Major John Vaughan, who was something of a war legend. He had numerous medals for his service in South Africa during the Boer War, and was described as hard as nails, absolutely without fear, completely honest and punctilious in his code of ethics. He participated in the Nile Expedition in 1898, a British mission to relieve a major who was helping Egyptians evacuate from Sudan. John was also present at the battle of Omdurman during the Anglo-Egyptian conquest of Sudan, which he said in his autobiography was the most spectacular battle he'd ever seen. He was injured in 1902, but is said to have kept fighting until he fainted.
He also fought in world war one, while his mansion was used as a hospital for soldiers. His mother died in 1917 and he returned from the army in 1920 as man of the house.
He described this home as the best Georgian house he'd ever seen, but unprofitable because the farms were too small. However he is said to have found his hobbies of hunting and horse riding much more fulfilling than war, at least until he fell off a horse and died in 1956.
He had a butler named Sylvanus, who absolutely worshiped him. Sylvanus worked on
the estate as early as 1917, but became the butler at some point in the
1930s.
John oversaw some alterations to the house in the 1930s, constructed by Sir Clough Williams-Ellis, the same guy who created Portmeiron, a truly awesome and impressive place, and the set of the old 1960s TV show, The Prisoner. In 1936 John also went to Germany and had the pleasure of meeting Heinrich Himmler, later describing him as the shiftiest man he'd ever met. Quite sadly, John described the German populace as being pretty thankful for the war to be over, and were looking forward to ensuing peace. I guess everyone was due for some serious disapointment on that front. John ended up getting drunk in Hamburg, where he met a German soldier who put out the idea that the British and German military should team up to dominate the world together.
John wrote in his autobiography that the thing that brought the downfall of Germany was their desire to dominate, and that he hoped a similar fate awaited the Russians.
John was briefly a zone commander for the home guard during world war 2, during which he opened the doors of his mansion to a girls school that had evacuated from Kent during the blitz. It was also during the war that poor Sylvanus cycled to town to collect the newspaper for his master, only to crash into a tree and end up in a coma for a few days, after which he was said to never be quite the same. However quotes from him post-coma are still quite intelligent so whatever brain damage he presumably suffered didn't seem to effect him too badly.
In 1949, Queen Elizabeth, then a Princess, and her cousin Prince Philip came to the mansion for a meal. The table seating arrangement is one of the many minor details that can be found online, and among the other guests were David Ormsby-Gore and his wife Sylvia, who lived at the Brogyntyn estate. Clearly they were buddies, and it's just another link that I absolutely love.
There's a pile of wooden peices up here, evidently some furniture that has yet to be assembled, and probably never will now that the wood is rotten.
It was time to go to the top floor, which awarded me a full view of the awesome staircase.
Check it out. It's gorgeous.
There's not a lot on the top floor, except for chairs. Lots and lots of chairs.
There's a few framed pictures up here too.
There's a piece of the stairway railing here.
Once John died, his cousin Charles inherited the house. I'm not sure how he fits into the family tree, only that he was a cousin on his mothers side, and apparently he had to change his surname to Vaughan as one of the conditions of his inheritance.
Charles was born in 1905 and was a commanding officer of the 2nd Parachute brigade. He fought in the second world war and played a major part in the liberation of Athens in 1944, before retiring from the military in 1949.
He had four daughters, and to celebrate his eldest, Susans, 21st birthday in 1957, they planted a new oak tree on the site of the haunted old one. Who knows, maybe someday another body will be stashed in the new tree and the cycle will begin again!
The birthday celebrations involved the house being open to the public, with entry fees going towards the maintenance of the local church, the same church their ancestor Daydd had once helped fund the construction of centuries ago. Interestingly the list of rooms open to the public mentions all the rooms you'd expect in a home, as well as a library and a "Frans Hals room." Frans Hals was a dutch painter, so presumasbly Charles was such a fan of his work that he had an entire room dedicated to him.
On Susans birthday, Charles made mention of looking forward to her inheriting the hall, so it sure is strange that he decided to sell it in 1965. With the sale, an 850-year legacy came to an end. That's a long time for one family to occupy the same spot.
However when it was snapped up by retired American barister Edward Morrison and his artist wife Barbara, it was said to be quite derelict and in need of urgent repair, so it's possible that the Vaughans just couldn't keep up with the cost of the upkeep. The halls pavilion wings were in such a poor state that they had to be flat-out demolished. However the cellar still runs underneath where they once were.
The Vaughans weren't quite done with their association though. In 1966 a distant cousin of the Vaughans came over from America to see his ancestral home. His name was Herbert and he was a professor of music at Stamford Uni in California. He contacted Charles, who informed him that he'd sold the house. However he arranged for Herbert to have contact with the Morrisons anyway. Having a tour of the ancestral home, and learning all about his family history, Herbert then decided to perform a recital at the local church to raise funds for its repairs.
Once the Morisons renovations of this house were complete, they sold it in 1979, after which it became a hotel. The interior was then altered to make more bedrooms.
That sofa there looks delightfully ancient.
There's a newspaper here dating from 2007 which is interesting since the recent renovations were said to have been abandoned in 2002. Who brought this here?
Also up here is loads of wood.
The house was purchased again in 1991 by a man named Dafydd and his wife Julie. One of them (sources arent clear which, but lets be honest, it could be both) claims to be descended from Owain Glyndwr, an interesting claim that would be way more impressive if everyone else mentioned in this blog wasn't also related to him somehow. Even the Queen has a line of descent from Owain Glyndwr!
Dafydd and Julie wanted to make the mansion into a Bed & Breakfast, and announced it open in 1995, before selling it that very same year. At some point it was a country club and also had some of its land become a caravan park, but has ultimately failed so far to live up to the splendor of its previous golden age. Nor has it had any long term owners. People seem to come here with aspirations and then just leave.
Currently the building suffers from dry rot, and one of the former owners is said to have carried out "unauthorised internal demolitions." By the 21st Century it was said to be nothing but a shell, with numerous items stolen. Even the deer in the deer park were said to have escaped.
There are bats roosting here, which is probably whats caused the delay, since they aren't allowed to be disturbed, but maybe there's more to it than that.
In 2015, the local authority issued a formal section 215 notice to clean up derelict caravans on the site, and in 2018 the cost of restoration was said to be about £500,000 but lead was stolen from the roof in 2020, so now it's all exposed to the elements, and it's now on the radar of the lazy pin-swapping sub-genre of the UK urbex crowd, which means it will probably go up in flames by Christmas, because they'll trade their own daughter to a complete stranger if it means they can find a location with minimal effort.
Hmm... I wonder if Kate and Gerry McCann are urbexers...
Anyway, the future is uncertain and pretty bleak, but that doesn't mean it's without potential. There is hope that someone somewhere pulls some money out of their ass and does something about its decline, or at least hires some security.
One final place remains, and that's the cellar...
I love cellars. This one in particular is the only part of the building that isn't tainted by the renovations. In fact these cellars are all that remains of the pavilion wings that were demolished in the 1970s. I saw an urbexer on Youtube once describe going into a cellar as a "rite of passage" for any urban explorer, but I don't see it as any real challenge. If anything you have to fight me me to keep me out of the cellars!
This place is gorgeous!
There's an old display cabinet down here.
The cellars doors were really awesome too, looking particularly ominous with their barred square windows. They look like medieval jail cell doors rather than cellar doors in a wealthy estate. It's a shame they aren't attached.
The doors have just been stashed in the corner... but the best part of the cellar was the bats.
Just look at these cute little things! They're just hanging out, totally aware that we're here and just chilling out anyway, because they know if we touch them they'll just give us rabies. It's so adorable.
There's also a noose down here, but I'm fairly certain that's just the leftover edgy garbage of someone trying to make some clickbait on some social media platform.
I don't care for it really. A location like this, with centuries of history, doesn't need anything like this to make it cool.
There's also this thing wasting away in the garden.
But that's all I've got for this place. In conclusion I absolutely love it. It's crazy that this much history happened within these walls. The Queen herself and Prince Philip sat down to eat here. That's mindblowing. As far as urbex spots go, it's not challenging, and will maybe appeal to history lovers, but not so much to people who love their time capsules. Partial renovations aren't visually interesting. Structurally the building is pretty safe.
However my next blog post will be absolutely gorgeous. It's this big abandoned theatre and it's an actual challenge to get into, so I'm really looking forward to it. Then I'm doing some kind of youth club that I also really enjoyed. In the meantime, follow me on Instagram,Vero, Reddit, Twitter and I still post rooftopping photos on Facebook sometimes so I guess you can follow me on that hellscape too.
Thanks for reading!
