The Ladies of Llangollen

Eleanor Butler''s family wanted her enter a convent. Sarah Ponsonby was fending off the unwanted attentions of her guardian. All that both women wanted was to live together and devote their lives to each other, and in 1778 they ran away from their aristocratic homes in Ireland to settle in Llangollen, Wales, to devote themselves to ''delicious seclusion'' and ''romantic friendship''. Their chosen path was not an easy one: their families disowned them, and, accustomed to a comfortable life, they were soon in debt. This did not stop them transforming Plas Newydd, the little cottage they chose, into the Gothic residence of their dreams, complete with well-stocked library and extensive gardens, while dabbling in genteel farming, and carrying out a rigorous programme of correspondence and self-improvement. Their determination to live private lives away from the glare of society was compromised by their growing celebrity, and prominent members of the intelligentsia and the literary and polit