I fell in love with Nanteos as a child. It was open to the public, rather like a National Trust property, and the first sight of the great house, rising from well-kept lawns and beautiful in the midday sun, was unforgettable.
It is a perfect, pocket-sized mansion and the approach is a masterclass in anticipation - turn off the main road and go down through woods. At the Italianate Lodge, the road narrows further; trees crowd around the drive. Suddenly a lake appears below you, there is even an island! Then there is the mansion in a sun-drenched hollow, lawns leading to the Paith valley opening up gently before it.
The true magic of this Grade I listed property is as much in its scale as its level of preservation. It has everything a country house should have: fine public rooms and major bedroom suites; stables; walled garden; service wing; kennels; lodge; lake; specimen trees, yet there is an intimacy of scale that allows you to imagine a family, the Powell Family, living there.
I’ve met people lucky enough to have been married at Nanteos who said they felt as if they were the owners, in a time out of time, for that special occasion.
Built during the reign of George II, the house and its family have a fascinating history. I was first introduced to this by the book ‘Nanteos A Welsh House and its Families’, edited by Gerald Morgan. The house and growing estate was in the hands of the same family from the 1750s to the 1950s, when the last Mrs Powell died. It has known grief (not least in the death of the last direct male heir in the final days of the Great War), and notoriety. In the 18th Century, Squires of Nanteos found themselves facing ruin and taking on The Crown in the costly Cardiganshire Lead Wars.
Perhaps the best known of all Nanteos’ owners was George Ernest John Powell (Squire from 1878–1882) a fascinating figure and the subject of my third Nanteos novel. Supposedly a devotee of the Marquis de Sade, he had the dubious honour of being notorious even whilst he was alive. Friend of Swinburne; the Pre-Raphaelites; accomplished musician and scholar, George Powell was an important patron of the arts and emerging artists and of Icelandic independence. It was he who initially brought the Nanteos Cup to public notice.
Numerous programmes have been made at and about Nanteos. In 2014, the mysterious Nanteos Cup, (thought by some to be the Grail), was stolen from the last, distant Powell relation to own the mansion. She had long since sold the estate and moved away, but the theft caused a stir and was the focus of a Crimewatch UK investigation. Eventually the artefact was handed in to police, allegedly in a lay-by somewhere in south Wales. Fortunately it is now safe in The National Library of Wales.
Nanteos is said to be one of the most haunted houses in Wales. In a 2008 episode of ‘Ghost Hunters International’ the team came to debunk some of the many claims made by staff and guests of possible paranormal activity, but the team was left with several they were unable to explain, concluding there was something very strange at work in the house.
When I first determined to write the story of the life of the real Elizabeth Powell, ‘Y Ladi Wen’, (the famous Nanteos ghost), the poor house was virtually a building site. I was lucky to be allowed to wander through the ravaged shell, where many original features popped like gems. It was a risky undertaking for me as an author – no guarantee that, after spending years writing, the property would be transformed into the fine hotel it was to become. However, thanks to the vision, financial commitment and determination of Shane Lipscombe of the Saxoncourt Group, when ‘The Shadow of Nanteos’ was published in 2015, the house had been magnificently restored. The novel was a best seller in Wales and I was invited to read, sign and promote it across the UK and North America.
The second Nanteos novel, ‘Nanteos: The Dipping Pool’ was written largely at the mansion itself. We had six months of building work at our home and it was impossible to stay in the virtual reality of the 18th Century with hammer drills, chainsaws and, worst of all, chirpy chat radio blasting out. I would turn up at Nanteos in the morning and work all day in one of the empty bedrooms or public rooms. It was a perfect situation for me, actually inhabiting the house I was writing about. It was published in autumn 2020. At first it too was the best selling novel in Wales but, by Christmas that year, every bookshop in the UK had been closed down and would remain closed for the next five months. No live marketing or publicity was allowed.
A weekend of lavish celebrations had been planned for the book launch with 80 guests, Champagne and canapes; Thibault Courtoisier, winner of Bake Off the Professionals joining Chef Patron Nigel Jones and his team to create a sell-out taster experience on the Saturday night, and a French Connection afternoon tea by Thibault. By the time restrictions had whittled the launch down to 30 people from the local area only, wearing masks, seated on separate tables and only allowed up to go to the loo, with no alcohol to be served and me introducing the new novel from behind a screen, we pulled the plug. Utterly devastating for me, of course, Nanteos stepped up again. Shane had come over from Taiwan to attend the launch, and decided to stay on alone in the mansion, all through that terrible second lockdown. We hatched a plan for publicity and I would turn up every week – in a different outfit, with a different theme, and we’d film around the mansion. These videos were a steep learning curve for me, used to a live audience, but they do capture the magic of an eerie, empty Nanteos. Still available on YouTube, they explore topics such as hunting in Georgian times, the Powell women, wicked squires, a Georgian Christmas and All Hallows Eve.
Eventually the hotel opened up again but, like so many businesses, having had a terrible battering.
Interest in the mansion’s history continued to build, with two great new books published since lockdown alone. One, by Janet Joel, ‘Nanteos Life on a Welsh Country Estate’, and ‘The Nanteos Grail The Evolution of a Holy Relic’ by Ian Pegler, John Matthews and Fred Stedman Jones.
Christmas 2024 saw the lovely mansion at its best: ringing with live music from local folk band Twmpath Aberystwyth; drenched in the smell of baked pies and hot wine; filled with people.
As manager Claire Stott and her team begin their difficult job, we hope for another far-sighted custodian to come forward and keep this lovely, haunting old house at the heart of Rhydyfelin. No flats, please; no housing estate, I beg you – please may someone come forward with deep pockets; someone who respects history; someone with a vision to keep Nanteos alive and those handsome doors forever open.