Extraordinary individuals who turned a dull turnpike town into a beacon of fashionability, Sarah Ponsonby and Eleanor Butler were superstar celebrities of their time (‘Darling of my heart’: the irresistible love story of the Ladies of Llangollen, 31 January). Symbiotically, both the ladies and their adopted Llangollen grew and flourished, a relationship which my husband and I tried to probe in a short film that we made a few years ago. The ladies became go-to VIPs for local events: they sailed inaugurally across the Pontcysyllte aqueduct in 1805. Their presence in Llangollen attracted numerous “society” stalwarts, followed and emulated in turn by increasing numbers of tourists. Whether it was the sheer quirky nature of two outcast aristocratic women living intimately or a genius grasp of networking that put them and their town on the map is up for debate. What they achieved, however, was fame – even notoriety – and, unintentionally, a template for centuries of blissful and monogamous same-sex partnerships.
It is a curious and fitting postscript to the celebrated ladies and their home that another couple, Charlotte Andrew and Amelia Lolley, occupied Plas Newydd after the deaths of Sarah and Eleanor. Charlotte and Amelia were known by the “original” ladies who, it is said, mocked them unkindly as the Lolleys and the Trolleys. A neglected and overgrown gravestone marking the burial place of Charlotte and Amelia can be found in the lovely burial ground at Llantysilio parish church.
Philip Harland
Waverton, Cheshire
• I visited Plas Newydd last year and it is gloriously cosy inside, with a lingering atmosphere of fellowship and books. I wish that ghastly black-and-white frontage could be restored to the muted tones that Lady Eleanor and Miss Ponsonby knew. They were a tourist attraction that got out of hand.
I am publishing an edition of William Bingley’s Guide to North Wales of 1804 in March, in which he says: “About a quarter of a mile south of Llangollen is Plas Newydd, the charming retreat of Lady Eleanor Butler and Miss Ponsonby, which, however, has of late years been probably too much intruded upon by the curiosity of the multitudes of tourists who every summer visit Llangollen.”
Monica Kendall
Bontddu, Gwynedd
• Mary Gordon’s imagined meeting with the ladies of Llangollen happened partly at the instigation of Carl Jung, with whom she was staying when she dreamed of Valle Crucis abbey, which she had visited as a child. According to Glasgow-born and Booker prize-shortlisted writer Elizabeth Mavor’s 1973 book The Ladies of Llangollen: A Study in Romantic Friendship, Jung insisted she revisit the abbey in search of an explanation for her dream. Mavor offers a rather sceptical account of Dr Gordon’s ostensible meeting with the spectres of Lady Eleanor and Ms Ponsonby, and describes Chase of the Wild Goose as “a strangely moving piece of work though abounding in wild embellishments”. “It appears,” opines Mavor, “that the Doctor herself either could or would not make up her mind about the propriety or otherwise of the friendship.” Mary Gordon did, however, sponsor a memorial plaque to the ladies by the artist Violet Mathews (she posed as Lady Eleanor, while the artist portrayed herself as Ms Ponsonby), still in Llangollen church, to help “keep their memory clean and fresh”.
Dr John Sears
Edinburgh
