Queer Heritage · Llangollen, Denbighshire
Plas Newydd (the Ladies of Llangollen)
Two upper-class Irish women who eloped in 1778 to set up home together, scandalising and enthralling Georgian society; their Gothic cottage drew Wordsworth, Byron, Wellington and Walter Scott, and Queen Charlotte won them a royal pension. A cornerstone of British queer heritage — Anne Lister herself visited.
More stories at this spot
- Anne Lister's 1822 visit and speculation
Sources
Nearby on the map
The 'Lourdes of Wales' — a holy well whose origin legend is a tale of thwarted lust; pilgrims still bathe in the star-shaped basin for healing and intercession.
Documented historyBohemian & LibertinePortmeirion (Noël Coward writes Blithe Spirit)Penrhyndeudraeth, Gwynedd · WalesClough Williams-Ellis's Italianate folly-village on a Welsh estuary — a place built purely for pleasure — where Noël Coward, taking rooms in 1941, wrote 'Blithe Spirit' in five days. The village's flamboyant unreality has drawn the theatrical, the artistic and the amorous ever since.
Documented historyFolk Rite & FertilityKilpeck Church sheela-na-gigKilpeck, Herefordshire · EnglandEngland's most famous sheela-na-gig — a grinning female figure frankly displaying her vulva — carved on the corbel of a perfect Norman church. Warning against lust, fertility charm, or apotropaic guardian? Scholars still argue; the carving outlasts every theory.
Documented + folkloreSpotted an error, or hold a better source? Write to marquis@marquisdemayfair.com — corrections are made, never defended. Our methodology.