Written by Jochen Foeller from Germany

"Many years ago, to be exact in 1985, I was on holiday in Wales in Talybont, a small place near Barmouth. One day I visited with my Welsh friends (Prof. Wat Thomas who studied and taught at the University of Aberystwyth) a place: "Nantoes", because my friends wanted to show me a great Welsh mansion.

When we came there we found out that the house had been sold and just some weeks ago nearly all the furniture except some pieces had been taken away. Nevertheless we could go through the rooms and a nice elderly lady told us the story of the house and guided us through the different rooms and explained everything to us, even the furniture that used to be in the rooms, but that of course we couldn't see anymore.

You needed a lot of imagination, but in the end I could feel the life how it must have been in the house. What struck me and touched me most was the tour through the cellar. Here the lady showed us iron rings on the walls, where many years ago the owners used to chain slaves whom they "stored" here on their transport from Africa to America. (I couldn't find that story anywhere else). We also saw the wonderful kitchen and learned about the "Holy Grail" and that Richard Wagner composed parts of his "Parzival" here in the music-room.

The story of "Nanteos" remained in my thoughts all the time and some years ago I tried to transform my thoughts about the feelings the different people in the house must have had during that time into pictures using the photos I had taken in the house. It is a series of 5 pictures and some of them are quite successful on international photographic competition. I invite you to look at them on my website www.foeller.eu*.

Of course I heard (from I think well informed sources) that most - or nearly all - of those stories are the product of imagination of different persons, so the story about the slave trade. But than I found a voice (on your homepage under "comment" by Eddie Reynolds that claims the opposite.) Nevertheless that wonderful Nanteos Mansion will always remain a house steeped in legends (at least for me)."

Written by Jochen Foeller from Germany

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