Thrale history

Bach-y-Craig, Denbighshire, Wales

Tree: UK Thrale family

Notes:

Hester Lynch Thrale née Salusbury inherited the Welsh Bach y graig estate in 1773. It comprised a wood, a farm or two, a dilapidated Church and a few cottages.

Bach y graig House

1567 construction

Bach y graig House was the earliest brick house in Wales, built in 1567 by Sir Richard Clough. It was a pyramidal building six stories high, eccentric, ugly and inconvenient. Above a large hall a number of little rooms clustered under the turret or cupola. The painted glass windows included the arms of the knights of the Holy Sepulchre, with a heart, including …


… his own and his wife Catherine’s initials; and beneath, ‘Cor unum, via una;’ the arms of Elystan Glodrudd; and those of Sir Thomas Gresham, and of several kingdoms with which these munificent merchants traded. There are, besides, some broken wheels, with a sword, the usual emblems of St. Catherine.

Bach-y-Craig House in 1776 by S. Hooper.

1774 Hester's visit

With husband Henry Thrale, she visited in July 1774 accompanied by Samuel Johnson. She found a dilapidated and unoccupied house. The floorboards were stolen, the windows broken and boarded up. The picture of The children of Israel bitten by serpents still present.

Later Hester’s second husband Gabriel Piozzi - was seen as a quiet, civil and amiable man and landlord - repaired Bach y graig House…

At a monstrous expense because his little wife was vain of it.

1817 partial demolition

The main house was demolished in 1817 but its other buildings still stand as a farm and guest house.

Bach y graig Wood

1778 verses

On 7 March 1778 Hester Lynch Thrale wrote in Thraliana …

It is having a good Assurance to write Verses of my own out just by Mr Johnson’s; but they are only an Epigram translated from one of Salmasius and called de luco amœno.—I was thinking they would do well to write on a Pillar in my own Wood at Bachygraig.

So thick the Shade, so cool the Stream’
Here safe might Mars & Venus play;


For neither tell-Tale Titan’s beam
Nor Vulcan’s Fire could find their way.

Location : Latitude: 53.23902851371357, Longitude: -3.3752918243408203