Henry VIII had much to answer for, and for some who live west of the Welsh Marches, not the least of his errors was the imposition of English as the language of government. Yet Welsh scholars rose to the challenge of the Tudor regimes, among them humanist and physician Henry Salesbury. Dolbelydr was the family manor and in 1593, Salesbury published his Grammatica Britannica, written in this fine stone house in the pastoral valley of the River Elwy. By imposing a classical discipline on the grammar of this ancient language, his work gives Dolbelydr some claim to be the birthplace of modern Welsh.

The house was built in 1579; when we found it, it had endured a gradual slide from its gentry status, into decades of neglect which had left it finally floorless and roofless. Yet some rare primary features remained, including fine timber mullioned windows. We found the newel post from the original spiral staircase reused in a later one and careful analysis of the building allowed us to reinstate not only this staircase but also the plank and muntin screen in their original positions.

On the basis of such survivals, we have taken the house back to its original form, to a building Henry Salesbury would recognise, with first floor solar open to the roof beams..You too cook and eat communally in the hall, before retiring for civilised conversation to the chamber above, just as the Salesburys would have done. One translation of Dolbelydr is ‘Meadow of the Rays of the Sun’; when the sunlight slants across the valley floor, it is easy for the centuries to fall away, as you gaze through mullioned windows down this tranquil valley, shared only with the sheep and the deer, and the sound of the Elwy.

View our history sheet for this Landmark.

Sleeps: 6