Page 11 of the 1952 Pencerrig estate sale describing the Pleasure Grounds, Walled Kitchen Garden and garden buildings, and the Gardener’s House, ‘Penrhos’.  
Two photos of Mandy Carrel in the Walled Kitchen Garden in 1963. 
A photo of Penrhos included in the 1952 Pencerrig estate sales particulars.

Ffordd-las Farm: 1952 Pencerrig estate sales particulars and photo.  
Norwich Union Insurance certificate issued to A.P. Carrel on 1 August 1966 re the first tractor bought for the farm.

Cwmbach church and school seen from the Mount field overlooking the old Pencerrig drive in 1989.  Another photo of the church in 2015 with the new bypass road behind it.

Pencerrig Home Farm:  page 12 of the 28 September 1952 Pencerrig Estate sale detailing the Home Farm and all the properties under Lot 1

Photos of Pencerrig Home Farm: the first taken in 1970 before the cowshed was converted into a bungalow and the second is an aerial view taken in 1980.  The last two photos taken in 1981 with the newly renovated Cider House on the right.

In 1958, having managed two busy pubs in Builth Wells for 10 years, my parents, Phil and Margaret Carrel, bought Pencerrig, which they converted into a hotel and Pony Trekking Centre.  The 20 acres of grounds purchased with the house included the ‘Pleasure Grounds’, described in the original 1952 estate sale, several fields and the delightful woodland glade to the South of the house.  This is where I grew up from the age of two and over the next two decades I had the great privilege to live in several other properties which had originally formed part of that impressive estate.

In 1962, as an addition to Pencerrig, my father bought the Walled Kitchen Garden containing the ‘heated Glasshouses, Potting House, Bothy and Seed Room’, etc. described in the 1952 estate sale particulars (page 11).  This property was about a 7 minute walk from Pencerrig up through the woodland glade, which we renamed ‘The Shrubbery’.  It was easy to imagine the estate gardeners in Clara Thomas’s time wheeling their barrows of fresh vegetables and fruit down to Pencerrig’s kitchen daily. The Shrubbery must have been a favourite place of Pencerrig’s former owners, the Evan-Thomas’s, because half way along its path, close to the footbridge over the stream, there were two small graves of cherished canine companions, one marked by a small headstone engraved with the name ‘PRUE’ and the other a simple wooden cross bearing the name ‘REX’; every spring these quiet resting places were covered with a carpet of snowdrops.

The original purpose of purchasing the Kitchen Garden was to supply the hotel with fresh vegetables, very much as it had before the estate was divided up and sold.  Both my parents enjoyed gardening but their time was taken up with the hotel so they hired Tom Morgan from the nearby village of Cwmbach Llechryd who had been one of the estate’s gardeners before retiring.  Although it had been neglected for a number of years, it didn’t take long to get tomatoes and cucumbers growing in the greenhouses and long rows of carrots, beans, spinach, broccoli, etc, in the beds. In the summer of 1963 my older brother, Nigel (15), my younger sister, Mandy (5) and I (7) moved into the Bothy with our Mother - it was a retreat for Mum between shifts at the hotel and magical place for us kids!  This was the first time we had seen grapes growing and I still  remember them trailing under the glass roof of the vinery, black and delicious!  Mandy and I enjoyed riding our tricycles around the neatly edged box hedge paths, playing Hide and Seek with Nigel, or exploring the greenhouses and sheds which were filled with fascinating old garden tools and numerous Victorian clay pots.  We also discovered the joys of eating peas from their pods or fresh strawberries which emerged temptingly from their beds of straw on the ground - the way in which fruit and vegetables grew was a revelation to us that summer!  My father sold the property in 1965/66.

Pencerrig’s original Gardener’s House, Penrhos, on Club Lane, was purchased in 1968 by my older sister, June, and her husband, Doug Mason (a Chartered Surveyor with Woosnam & Tyler in Builth Wells).  Penrhos was a lovely house and, again, just a short walk across the field from Pencerrig so we saw one another on an almost daily basis. They lived there until February 1983 when the family moved to Devon.

In 1965/66 my father bought the neighbouring Fforddlas-las farm in Cwmbach, another former Pencerrig estate property. Primarily for the additional land but my brother, Nigel, had expressed an interest in farming so Mandy and I moved there with our parents temporarily to help him get started.  Since the 1952 estate sale, most of the mature timber had been felled and almost nothing had been done to improve the farm so my brother worked tirelessly to turn it into a productive modern farm during the 12 years he lived there. We still retained the hotel and for two years my parents divided their time between both businesses.  

Cwmbach Llechryd is about a mile from Pencerrig along the old driveway to the West of the house and this was the route we used frequently to and from the farm when on foot.  The village in 1966 consisted of approximately 20 properties, including the primary school, church and rectory donated by Clara Thomas in the mid 1800s.  Mandy and I had to leave our primary school in Llanelwedd to attend the two classroom school in Cwmbach, just a short walk from Ffordd-las.  Unlike Llanelwedd school, there was no school bus so children had to walk up to 2 miles along the main Builth to Rhayader road in all weathers.  We had the novelty of having friends in the village to play with daily and spent many happy hours building dens or wading in the Pencerrig brook trying to catch crayfish and bullyheads.  However, life on the farm itself was less enjoyable.  The business took its toll on my parents’ health and marriage and in 1969 they separated.  My father remained at the farm while Mandy and I returned to live at Pencerrig with our mother who continued to run the hotel in partnership with my oldest brother, Geoffrey, until they sold it in February 1978.

In 1970 my father sold his share of Ffordd-las to Nigel and his new wife and he then bought the buildings known as Pencerrig Home Farm together with a few acres of land.  Dad had the cowshed converted into a three bedroom bungalow and lived there until he sold it to my sister, June, and her husband, Doug, in November 1978 who in turn rented it out to Mandy and me - I continued to live there until 1983.

Having grown up and lived in Pencerrig for 20 years, it was strange adjusting to the fact it was no longer my home.  After our departure in 1978, I witnessed the heartbreaking changes which took place, particularly following the major fire which destroyed the hotel’s roof and second floor in 1981.  

During my five years at the Home Farm, June and Doug renovated The Cider House as a holiday let and I was on hand to help out whenever needed.  They sold both the Home Farm and the Cider House in 1983 and at that point my association with the Pencerrig estate finally came to an end, but the wonderful memories have lived on.