For 50 years, Sarah Ponsonby and Eleanor Butler shared a home – and a bed – in Wales. It was a fantastically brave choice in the 18th century, offering a roadmap for the women who followed them
n the night of 30 March 1778, in County Kilkenny, Ireland, a beautiful aristocratic orphan, Sarah Ponsonby, 23, put on men’s clothing, picked up a pistol and her little dog, Frisk, and climbed out of the window. She was living in the house of a relative, Sir William Fownes, and had repelled his unwelcome advances. That night, she met up with the woman she knew as her “beloved”, Lady Eleanor Butler, 39 , with a plan to catch the boat to England.
on 1 February, was inspired to get it back into circulation after a visit to Plâs Newydd: “I was surprised the book was out of print. It felt like a cultural injustice.” Chase, they say, “deserves to be read alongside other classic queer texts of the early 20th century, such as Orlando and The Well of Loneliness. Politically, it also felt vital to do my part – as Gordon did hers – in rejuvenating one of the greatest queer love stories of all time.
On a winter afternoon, Plâs Newydd is chilly, still and intimate , weak sun filtering through the jumble of stained glass collaged by the Ladies. I take in their china, Eleanor’s tiny buckled shoes, a bag Sarah embroidered and their initials carved on a beam. There’s a picture of Mary Carryl, the vital third element in the household, and another of the Ladies’ cat, Tatters.It’s odd that such a quiet, domestic space generated such fascination in their lifetimes.
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