Nantgwyllt House

Nantgwyllt House was demolished and now lies under Caban Coch Reservoir.
The original house of the Powell family was of grey stone, long and low and with a semi-circular window in its pediment. The walls were of immense thickness and inside was a broad staircase of massive oak. During the winter the house was bitterly cold and damp due to the wooded slope to its south shutting out the sunshine.
Nantgwyllt House is believed to have been built after the land was purchased by the Howell’s in 1579. Howell Powell acquired Nantgwyllt in 1624. Thomas Lewis married Howell’s daughter Elizabeth.
A new mansion was built at some stage and the original house may have been incorporated in to the mansion. The house was once owned by the late Thomas Lewis Lloyd Esquire.
The famous poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and his wife Harriet stay here in 1812 and feel in love with the place, he tried hard to lease the house but failed to do so.
Herbert Vaughan wrote that Shelly left a memento to himself at Nantgwyllt, with a diamond ring he inscribed his name and the date into a glass window pane. The glass pane was removed by Miss Gertude Lewis Lloyd, who kept it in her room at Llwyn Madog. I wonder if the pane of glass still survives today.
Emmeline Lewis Lloyd second daughter to Thomas Lloyd Lewis was born 18/11/1827, she was one of the first women to climb in the Alps.
Nantgwyllt House served as accommodation for some of the senior engineers during the construction of the dams and was still standing in 1903. Sadly, the mansion was demolished sometime before the completion of the dams.
When the water level of Caban Coch Reservoir drop low enough during prolonged dry spells the garden walls are exposed along with a couple of stone bridges and footprints of Nantgwyllt House and other buildings.
Map Ref SN915 627

Remains of Nantgwyllt House in view in the photos above, the pile of stones just above the water. The old track way and the lower bridge coming into view. 27/08/2022

Nantgwyllt Garden Walls

Map Ref SN

Remains of Nantgwyllt garden walls in 1936
Photo credit Ann Lloyd, Rhayader

Nantgwyllt Shearing, 1900
Photo credit Syd Meredith

Page hits: 4580