Any holiday to Wales has the potential to be special - the long stretches of coast, the lush green countryside, history along every winding road - but how about being able to rest your head in a house that has its own steam train platform, or wake in an apartment tucked inside medieval city walls overlooking the sea?
The Landmark Trust started its charity work in Wales in 1965 to rescue important buildings that would otherwise be lost, often restoring them from a perilous state.
It rents out more than 200 properties, mostly in the UK, and this includes 17 in Wales that range from a coastal fort to a house that can lay claim to being the birthplace of the modern Welsh language.
These are by no means traditional holiday cottages - none have a TV, radio or even wifi. In the oldest properties, stairs can be narrow and beams low, and some of the most remote sites involve a walk through farmland or forestry while carrying your bags and supplies.
Sound like the perfect getaway after a relentless, stressful year? Then here’s nine of our favourites to book.
Coed y Bleiddiau - near Blaenau Ffestiniog, Gwynedd
In the middle of Snowdonia National Park, Coed y Bleiddiau is a small railway cottage on the restored Ffestiniog Railway line. It was built in 1863 for railway superintendent T Henry Hovenden, who somehow fitted his wife and seven children inside. It has two bedrooms, including one in the roof, and comfortably sleeps four.
It still has its own platform, which is a “private halt”, meaning if you see the train coming and raise your arm it will stop for you right outside your front door. If you time it right, you might even be able to arrive here by steam train, because otherwise it’s at least a 20-minute walk over an unmade footpath from the car parking.
Coed y Bleiddiau means 'Wood of the Wolves', and it’s said the last wolf in Wales was killed nearby.
Sleeps 4
4 nights from £386
Clytha Castle - near Abergavenny, Monmouthshire
This romantic Gothic retreat overlooking the Usk Valley was built as a memorial by William Jones after the death of his wife, and the inscription 'was undertaken for the purpose of relieving a mind afflicted by the loss of a most excellent wife' found on a tablet inside. His handwritten account book, logging the craftsmens' wages and building materials, serves as a testament to the efforts he went to.
The Landmark Trust rescued it in the 1970s after it had been empty for around 30 years, and it needed extensive internal and external repairs. There are three bedrooms, including two reached by a narrow spiral stone staircase in the tower.
Sleeps 6
4 nights from £702
West Blockhouse - Dale, Pembrokeshire
The view here is spectacular as you are perched on the edge of the Pembrokeshire coast in part of the Victorian fortifications of Milford Haven. Completed in 1857, this site had accommodation for 34 soldiers and one officer, and was used until after the Second World War. Inside, the rooms on the first floor are lined with thick pine and have coal fires, giving it the feel of an officers’ club, but it’s outside where you’ll want to be.
The site is reached down a short but steep path lined with wildflowers before you cross a drawbridge to enter. Landmark Trust says you can climb on the roof to enjoy the spectacle of a big ship feeling her way into the mouth of the Haven below you, but there’s also a sheltered south-facing beach a few hundred yards away for the family to play on.
Sleeps 8
4 nights from £480
Ty Capel - Rhiwddolion near Betws-y-Coed
Rhiwddolion (pronounced ‘Rutholeon’) is a remote hamlet at the head of a valley above Betws-y-Coed. It stood on the Roman road that ran from Merioneth to the Conwy valley, called Sarn Helen after the mother of Emperor Constantine. The Landmark Trust rescued two cottages and this chapel when the local quarries closed, and you can stay in any of the three.
Ty Capel sits beside the stream that flows down the valley and also served as a schoolroom in the days of the slate quarry, when there was a community of 150 people. There is a steep staircase up to the sleeping gallery above the wood-panelled room, with adjacent kitchen and bathroom.
This is an incredibly tranquil spot with only the sound of sheep for company, but its remoteness means you’ll need to carry your luggage down a forestry track for about 10 minutes as there is no vehicle access.
Sleeps 3 (single beds)
4 nights from £184
Monkton Old Hall - Monkton, Pembrokeshire
This medieval building dates from about 1400 when it was probably the guest house of a small priory outside the walls of Pembroke. It has proved a very difficult building to date, and its chequered career since the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539 has only added to the difficulties when trying to unlock the history of this Landmark. It has been in a ruinous state twice and reduced in size twice.
With its open fireplace, enclosed garden and unrivalled views of Pembroke Castle (birthplace of Henry VII), it offers a family getaway within an hour’s drive of the cafes and restaurants in St David's and under 30 minutes to Tenby and Saundersfoot, and the beautiful Pembrokeshire coastline.
Sleeps 7
4 nights from £487
Dolbelydr - Trefnant, Denbighshire
This 16th-century gentry house has a fascinating place in Welsh history. Its owner, humanist and physician Henry Salesbury, wrote his Grammatica Britannica here. It was published in 1593 - giving Dolbelydr some claim to being the birthplace of the modern Welsh language at a time when Henry VIII's regime was imposing English as the language of government.
This fine stone house has many of its original features, including a first floor solar open to the roof beams. "Meadow of the Rays of the Sun" is one translation of the name Dolbelydr, which rings true as you gaze at the sunlight slanting across the ground from the mullioned windows down this tranquil valley.
Sleeps 6
4 nights from £386
Bath Tower - Caernarfon, Gwynedd
It’s not often you get to stay within a medieval town wall, and this tower has the bonus of overlooking the Menai Strait towards Anglesey.
One of eight towers built in the late 13th century by Edward I, Bath Tower was part of a public bath house built in 1823 to attract tourists to the town.
Entered from either along a narrow alley in the street behind or from the sea wall itself, the tower had been empty for a long time when the Landmark Trust bought it. It has thick curved rough-hewn sandstone walls and the living-room has two great windows looking along the outside of the town wall in one direction, and across the Strait in the other. It sleeps five in two bedrooms, but if there are only two of you, you can sleep in seclusion at the top of the tower, with just the sky and the battlements across the terrace for company.
Sleeps 5
4 nights from £308
Church Cottage - Llandygwydd, Cardiganshire
Church Cottage was the very first Landmark building acquired by the charity’s founder Sir John Smith in 1965. Built in the late 1850s, it housed a caretaker and sexton for the nearby St Tygwydd's Church. While the church was demolished in 2000, the cottage lives on as a beacon to the importance of the conservation work Sir John started.
Llandygwydd is a quiet village about half a mile from the main road and surrounded by woods and small farms. You’re only 10 minutes from Cardigan Bay and the beautiful Cenarth Falls are nearby. One person who stayed said they brought their dinghy and sailed in the Cardigan Estuary on most days.
Sleeps 4
4 nights from £231
Tower Hill - St Davids, Pembrokeshire
After all of the historic buildings above, Tower Hill is a little different in that it’s a relative new build. The two cottages that stood here in 1965 were considered too ruinous to be saved so were demolished and a cosy three-bedroomed dwelling built instead.
But don’t let that you put off, because this site is truly special and the reason the Landmark Trust got involved. It looks over the wall to St Davids Cathedral, which has welcomed pilgrims since 1123. Pope Calixtus said “two pilgrimages to St David’s are worth one to Rome,” so you can feel extra virtuous as you sit in the square eating ice cream from Gianni’s.
This is the UK’s smallest city but has a population of barely 2,000, and you will be nestled right in the centre during your stay. The wide beaches and wild surf of the Atlantic coast is only about a mile away in most directions.
Sleeps 6
4 nights from £398
