Week 1 7th April: Hafod by Jennie Macve
Hafod has been described as the finest example in Europe of a landscape designed purely in the style of the Picturesque. A remote manor house and poor estate occupying a valley on the western side of the Cambrian Mountains, it was inherited in 1780 by Thomas Johnes. He set about interpreting the genius of the place and making it accessible to visitors. It became an essential destination on a tour of Wales, and the subject of numerous sketches and rhapsodic descriptions by late 18th century tourists.
The estate changed hands several times in the following two hundred years, but although private owners and the Forestry Commission increased the extent of plantations, little was done to change the underlying structure. Its remoteness helped to protect it from development or unsympathetic use. During the conservation project, begun in 1991, the landscape features have been revealed and some ten miles of walks restored, taking visitors to meadows, old woodlands, gardens, waterfalls, caves, and wonderful views.
.....Jennie Macve has a degree in Geography from Oxford and, after moving to Aberystwyth in the late 1970s, became interested in garden and landscape history. She has been involved with the Hafod project since its outset, firstly as a volunteer. With the formation of the Hafod Trust in 1994, she became its Secretary and later its part-time administrator and research officer. She was a major contributor to its successful application to the Heritage Lottery Fund in 1998. She is the author of the guidebook, The Hafod Landscape, published in 2004 and has written or edited other publications on Hafod and local history.
Working with Debois Landscape Survey Group, she has carried out archive and field research at historic landscapes in Devon , Hampshire and Hertforshire. Although now retired, she remains a trustee of the Hafod Trust and also of Welsh Historic Gardens Trust. She has recently moved to south Shropshire.