LLANCAIACH FAWR – INFO. Dare you enter the haunted house?  At Llancaiach Fawr lots of history is revealed!  Go for a ghostly tour! (spooky!)  Visit the barn which contains tables, chairs, and a drinks bar.  There is also a gift shop, café, and a small museum.  Enter the house, to find out if I am telling the truth!

The Entrance Porch.  You are given a pass before you enter. This needs to be stamped with Edward Prichard’s personal seal before you step foot in Llancaiach Fawr. You must have it stamped or you are not allowed to enter his house, and, probably not allowed to enter his gardens.  Once you have entered the porch, a servant shall tell you a little about what everyday life was like in Stuart times. They tell you what they eat, what they did in their spare time, and when they finish telling you all that, they tell you not to run because of the uneven floors.

The Kitchen.  In the kitchen you will find lots of different foods laid out on the table. See if you can spot the pumpkin, raisins, brown sugar and potatoes? The kitchen was where they prepared meals.  They eat things that we wouldn’t eat! Like cat pie, or crow pie where they pull the crow out of the pie, and eat it. Oh, and they use the claws to pick at things in their teeth. Ew!  You will see a huge fireplace. It is very big, and has a hole in the wood covering the top. That is because the kitchen boy wasn’t looking and the flames grew and burnt off half of the child’s face. (Oops!)  There is an extremely small window in the corner of the room which lets in a lot of light.

The Servants Hall.  The Servants hall is a place where the servants eat. There are three tables, the high table, medium table, and the low table.  The plates are made of wood with a hole in the corner for salt. These are called tronches. The cups are made from a bull’s horn. Servants ate with spoons made from wood and bone.  The lower servants ate with ‘Gods spoons!’ – their hands.

The Great Hall.  The Great Hall is where they have ‘debates’. Also, the king (Charles I ) had once before dined in there.  On the table, they displayed things they used as punishments. They sent people to jail, they made them wear helmets decorated with spikes and a piece of metal that came down over your face, into your mouth, and held down your tongue so you couldn’t speak.(Nasty!)  On occasions it may also have served as a court room where minor cases would have been heard. This was also the room where the colour of the original limewash was not white. Possibly this was a way of showing how important this room was.

The Parlour.  The Parlour is the family room for the Prichards who lived at Llanciach Fawr, and is where they ate their meals.The walls were panelled so you could open some of them to store secret things in! The magnificent panelling was first made in the 1620s. It is still mostly the original oak it was made with when it was first built.

Mr Prichard’s bedroom.  This is where he slept. Whenever he went to bed, he always fell asleep in a sitting up position. I don’t know why, but you can find out for your self when you go there, can’t you?  He had a four poster bed, just like all the other bedrooms. The bed was very low to the floor. Also the bed was very short, so perhaps that’s why he wouldn’t be able to lie down in the nights.

Mrs Prichard’s bedroom.  Mrs Prichard was quite a fat woman. Maybe because each lady in those days had to give birth to a child every year. That is why a cradle lay next to her bed. Above the cradle hung a sweet smelling ball, that is said to keep away the devil, or something silly like that.

Mr Prichard’s study.  This is the last room we visited. In the corner, there was a little desk where he sat to do his work. There is also a little door where they keep birds to send letters to other folk, such as his brother in law.  There are steps leading down to his kitchen in case he got a bit hungry. Next to the stairs, he kept things such as armour and weapons for when he went to battle.