“Darling of my Heart” The Ladies of Llangollen

“Darling of my Heart” The Ladies of Llangollen

For 50 years, Sarah Ponsonby and Eleanor Butler shared a home ~and a bed~ in their domestic idyll, Plas Newydd in Wales.

It was a fantastically brave choice in the 18th century, blazing the trail for many women who came after them.

On the night of 30th March 1778, in County Kilkenny in Ireland, a beautiful aristocratic woman put on men’s clothing, picked up a pistol and her little dog, and climbed out of the window.
This woman was 23 year old Sarah Ponsonby.

Sarah then met up with the woman she knew as her “beloved” – Lady Eleanor Butler.

Lady Eleanor Butler was 39, and also dressed in men’s clothes.
The couple had a plan to catch the boat to England.

Before they could get very far, they were caught.
Two months later they persuaded their reluctant families to let them leave with Sarah’s faithful maidservant, Mary Carryl.

They would start a new life together in the wilds of north Wales, building a domestic idyll in a farmhouse they renamed Plas Newydd – new hall.

These were the Ladies of Llangollen.
The irresistible tale of their passionate, 50-year “romantic friendship” and the elaborate, beautiful home and garden they constructed, made them famous in their own lifetimes.

Llangollen, is a picturesque small town in rural north Wales.
The Ladies’ charming black and white farmhouse sits on the hilltop.

Here, the Ladies built their own little slice of Heaven, a uptopia where they could be together.

Over time, the Ladies also attracted sincere admiration, although their domestic bliss and devotion to each other, meant different things to different people.

Eleanor’s extensive diaries of their life together, records peaceful idyllic days of reading, walking, gardening, and are suffused with love and quiet contentment:

“A day of peace and delight”

“A day of delicious retirement”

“Reading – writing and sharing a delicious day.”

The diary is also full of passionate endearments.
“Beloved” is used so often it’s sometimes abbreviated to B, or with “my sweet love” or “the darling of my heart”.

After 50 years of a seemingly charmed life, the couple were even buried together.
Their grave is marked by a three-sided monument in St Collen’s churchyard, at the bottom of the hill.

Eleanor died in 1829, aged 90, while Sarah two years later in 1831.

The monument says – “she did not survive long, her beloved companion”