Ladies of Llangollen
The "Ladies of Llangollen", Eleanor Butler (1739–1829) and Sarah Ponsonby (1755–1831), were two upper-class Irish women who lived together as a couple.
[1] The pair moved to a Gothic house in Llangollen, North Wales, in 1780 after leaving Ireland to escape the social pressures of conventional marriages.
[6] They moved to Wales and then sent for Sarah's servant, Mary Caryll, who lived with and worked for them for the rest of her life.
[8][9] Putting their plan into motion, they undertook a picturesque tour of the Welsh countryside, eventually settling in North Wales.
[10] They proceeded to live according to their self-devised system, though they could rely on only a modest income from intolerant relatives, and eventually a civil list pension.
They "improved" Plas Newydd in the Gothic style with Welsh oak panelling, pointed arches, stained glass windows, and an extensive library, in which they received their many guests.
[6] They devoted their time to hosting a range of friends and curious visitors, extensive correspondence, private studies of literature and languages, and improving their estate.
[1] Their house became a haven for visitors travelling between Dublin and London, including writers such as Anna Seward,[9] Robert Southey,[8] William Wordsworth,[8] Percy Shelley,[8] Lord Byron[8] and Sir Walter Scott,[8] but also the military leader the Duke of Wellington[8] and the industrialist Josiah Wedgwood;[8] aristocratic novelist Lady Caroline Lamb,[8] who was born a Ponsonby, came to visit too.
Anne Lister from Yorkshire visited the couple, and was possibly inspired by their relationship to informally marry her own lover.
[11] Even travellers from continental Europe had heard of the couple and came to visit them, for instance Prince Hermann von Pückler-Muskau, the German nobleman and landscape designer, wrote admiringly about them.
[8] In sharp contrast to the writings of their contemporary Anne Lister, there is nothing in their extensive correspondence or diaries that indicates a sexual relationship.
