The Dinefwr estate is managed by National Trust, and it includes the ruins of a castle and a house, Newton House. I visited the estate when I was in Wales at the end of March. Newton House is a Jacobean-styled house from the 1600s, although there has been a house at this location earlier. In the 1970s, the owners of the house died and it fell into ruin when squatters in the 1970s made a mess of the architecture and stole furniture and structural elements of the house. The deer park at the estate, which surrounds the house, were landscaped by Capability Brown in the late 1770s. The house became managed by the National Trust in the late-1980s.
I went to check out the house after a walk up to the ruins of the castle which is about a 25-minute walk away. I did not realise at the time that the house is rumoured to be haunted and one of the most haunted buildings in Wales. I didn't see any ghosts.
The house is surrounded by open meadows of the deer park. The front of the house has a large porch, which opens into a small reception hall. There are a few rooms open in the house with a couple of them portraying the house as if it were lived in and additional rooms open with exhibitions.
The Romans had actually had a fort at the location where Newton House is, and there are finds relating to earlier occupations before the Romans.
One of the rooms presented is the dining hall.
There is also a living room.
This continues to a back room where visitors can step out of the back of the house to view the French-style garden and the deer park.
In the 1960s, the family who owned the house struggled to keep up the maintenance. To help pay for the maintenance of the house, they hosted jazz and art festivals. A room contains exhibitions about this. There is artwork and programmes and photographs of this time in the house's history.
I had a wander upstairs to see a couple of the rooms and to look outside the window over the garden.
Additional rooms in the lower ground floor contained the living and working area for the servants with various closets acting as storage spaces, butler's room, the kitching, and the preparation rooms and a dining room for the servants.
The location of the house was important for the cattle that grazed here, and those Welsh families that owned cattle were respected and powerful. The breeds are now heritage breeds and are still kept here.
The house has been used in filming too.
On the way out of the house, I noticed an amazing toy village set up amongst the remains of a very old tree and next to a living very old tree.
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