After last years wonderful April break at Pontbrenmydyr cottage, a National Trust property near Aberaeron, we knew we would have to find somewhere pretty special to top that experience of cottagey loveliness .... I think we managed very well.
This year we are having a weekend away in Treleddyd Fawr cottage a very well known and much talked about Welsh cottage in St David's, Pembrokeshire. I first heard about this cottage many years ago when I used to read a blog that spoke from a cat's perspective written by the wonderfully talented artist and writer Jackie Morris. In the blog she wrote of her cats and the cats of Treleddyd Fawr and their owner Mr Glyn Griffiths, it captured my imagination like no other blog I have read has ever done and took me dreaming to Welsh cottages when I lived in Oxfordshire, in southern England. How fate moves in mysterious ways and I ended up in a cottage of my own on a Welsh hillside, but one that has nowhere near the age of the one we will be staying in.
More about this photograph HERE.
When Mr Griffiths died in 2013 he bequeathed his cottage to the National Trust, and when they realised what a gem this little workmans cottage was they accepted with delight and work commenced. The work finished last year and it is now available to rent as a holiday home, so that future generations can see a simple but much loved Welsh cottage and experience living in it for themselves.
Photograph by Jackie Morris
When Gly Griffiths died Jackie Morris wrote a beautiful and very moving tribute to him for the local paper, it appears in full in her blog post 'Last Words' .... a lovely read and it includes some lovely photographs of Mr Griffiths, his cats and his cottage. Griff Rhys Jones visited the cottage for a BBC2 programme about the cottage. Two short clips of this are HERE.
Of course these days the cottage has lost its romantic, almost derelict air and is fully renovated and ready for use, to say we are looking forward to our three night stay is a bit of an understatement. Unfortunately we won't be taking a cat with us ... but we will be taking a certain very well behaved little Pug who will no doubt give the cottage a brief reminder of it's previous four legged inhabitants.
Sue xx
