Dolbelydr, Trefnant

Set in a timeless and quiet valley, this 16th-century gentry house has many of its original features, including a first floor solar open to the roof beams. We have taken the house back to its original form, to a building its owner, Henry Salesbury, would recognise if we travelled back in time to the 1580s. “Meadow of the Rays of the Sun” is one translation of the name Dolbelydr, which rings especially true as you gaze at the sunlight slanting across the ground from the mullioned windows down this tranquil valley. There is an open plan kitchen and dining area in front of a huge inglenook fireplace.

Dolbelydr was the family manor of humanist and physician Henry Salesbury. In 1593, Salesbury published his Grammatica Britannica, written in this fine stone house. Welsh scholars such as Salesbury rose to the challenge of Henry VIII’s regime, who was imposing English as the language of government. By putting a classical discipline on the grammar of this ancient language, Salesbury’s work gives Dolbelydr some claim to be the birthplace of modern Welsh.

You can stay here via the Landmark Trust.