Ffeil NLW MS 6432E - Eleanor Charlotte Butler & Sarah Ponsonby: Letter

Lady Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby, better-known as the 'Ladies of Llangollen', were both members of Irish aristocratic families. Having quickly established a relationship following their meeting in 1768, the women escaped the scandalised animosity of their home circle by setting up home at Plasnewydd, a Gothic-style house situated near Llangollen, Denbighshire. For the next fifty years, they lived a secluded and often penurious existence, while nevertheless receiving such notable visitors as the landowner, traveller and writer Anne Lister and the poets Robert Southey, William Wordsworth and Percy Shelley. Lady Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby are both buried in the grounds of St Collen's Church, Llangollen, while Plasnewydd is now a museum dedicated to their lives.

Hester Lynch Piozzi (1741-1821) inherited the Bachegraig estate of the Salusbury family on the death of her mother, Hester Maria, in 1773. The estate comprised a wood, a few farms, a dilapidated church and a few cottages, along with Bachegraig House. Hester and her husband, Gabriele Piozzi (d. 1809) built a new house on the estate called Brynbella, taking up residence in 1795. Bachegraig was the earliest example of a brick house in Wales, erected by Sir Richard Clough in 1567 at the foot of Tremeirchion Hill.

Hester was the daughter of John Salusbury (1710-1762) of Bachegraig, Governor of Nova Scotia and Hester Maria (d. 1773), a descendant of the Salusbury family of Lleweni. Hester married firstly, Henry Thrale (d. 1781), a London brewer. In 1784, she married secondly, Gabriele Piozzi, an Italian music master. In January 1798 Hester and Gabriele adopted the five year old son of Gabriele's brother, Giovanne Battiste. The boy became known as John Piozzi (d. 1858). Hester was part of a literary circle, and was a friend and correspondent of Dr Samuel Johnson.

The Brynbella estate passed to John on his marriage to Harriet Maria Pemberton of Condover Hall, Shropshire. Hester thereafter resided at Bath. Sir John was knighted in 1817 and became known as Sir John Salusbury Piozzi Salusbury.