Llangollen

My friend Lambeth will be passing through Llangollen, in Wales, today on his way to Ireland. Llangollen was the home of "the Ladies," two women in late 18th-/early 19th-century Britain who eloped together to avoid unwanted marriage and forced confinement in a convent, abandonning their titled and wealthy families to build a life together for more than 50 years. Seen as an oddity and curiosity in Regency society, they were visited by many notables of the time (including the Duke of Wellington, Shelley, Byron, Wordsworth, Wedgwood) and were quite legendary. Their home is now a museum.

It's a very clear case of lesbianism in history, which is frequently hard to prove or document. I'm reading an entertaining novel about them, called The Ladies by Doris Grumbach, which is why my friend Lambeth offered to stop in their town. But the house, known as Plas Newyyd, in the pictures on Wikipedia is much more elaborate than I'd imagined. Mama and I will have to check it out if we get to Wales again (and maybe, if we'd known about it last time, we'd have skipped Tintern Abbey . . . maybe).