I first came across these rather beautiful characters some many years ago, after leaving one place and travelling on my way to another. I love that - you know, coming across the unexpected quite by accident - forcing you to swerve from your ordinary. And it's fair to say these grotesques, lining the road facing wall of Rhos Uchaf Hall are quite extraordinary. I knew what I was looking for, this time away, and with the last bit of badda bing of summer on my back, I travelled up to Llanfynydd to reacquaint myself with the grotesques of Rhos Uchaf Hall.
Rhos Uchaf Hall is fascinating in itself - owned by the wonderfully named Claude PIerrepoint Hunter, son of the founder of Hunter Seeds of Chester. Claude used the grounds of the Hall for seed experiments and made a name for himself in creating Hunterised airfields, grass runaways of exceptional quality - including that of the Great West Aerodrome - now known as London Heathrow Airport.
Though parts of Rhos Uchaf Hall have 17th century origins, much of the current building is said to have been the bricks of a chapel and school in Saltney. The grotesques were the work of a farm bailiff, and are copies of gargoyles on Notre Dame Cathedral.
Built into the wall is a well, of sorts, but better still is the quite beautiful memorial to those men of Llanfynydd that fell during World War One. Splendid and desperately moving.
