About the Venue: Gregynog Hall

Gregynog is the University of Wales Residential and Day Conference Centre situated six miles north of Newtown in Mid Wales. It is surrounded by the beautiful Montgomeryshire countryside and Gregynog Hall is set in fabulously landscaped gardens that provide extensive grounds for peace and relaxation.

• For more information see the Gregynog Hall website
• Directions and maps are available

Gregynog is a large country house, the first in the UK to be built using concrete  - disguised to look like a half-timbered hall! – in the nineteenth century. The house is about a hundred and fifty years old, though parts of an older house have been incorporated, and there has been a hall on the site since at least the 12th century. It stands in beautiful grounds and is the conference centre for the University of Wales. The name Gregynog may derive from either 'grug' (Welsh for heather) or the personal name 'Grugyn' with 'og' added as a place name ending.

From the 15th century onwards Gregynog was the seat of the Blayney family (Blaenau in Welsh) until Arthur Blayney died in 1795, a bachelor. There are many references to it in the poetry of the period, it seems to have been particularly noteworthy for its hospitality.  In the 19th century the house belonged to the Hanbury Tracys, later the Sudeleys. In the 1840s Henry Hanbury Tracy pulled the old house down and rebuilt it in its present form, later adding the fake concrete 'half-timbering'. He was a pioneer in the use of concrete as a building material.(He built the concrete cottages, farmhouses and the school in Tregynon.)

The carved parlour known as the Blayney Room, dated 1636, was retained when the house was rebuilt. The carved heraldic shields include one bearing three spear-heads, said to be the arms of Caradog Fraichfras (Caradog Strong Arm), a Knight of the Round Table! This beautiful room is used for refreshments so you will be able to inspect it closely.

When the Sudeleys lost money in the Newtown flannel industry they sold the Gregynog estate in 1894 to Lord Joicey but in 1914  the estate (18,000 acres) was broken up and sold, mainly to tenants of the farms and cottages.

Gwen and Margaret Davies, the wealthy grand-daughters of David Davies of Llandinam, bought the hall itself, and lived there from 1924; they turned it into an important centre for music, the arts and fine printing, decorating it with their priceless collection of paintings by Renoir, Monet, Cezanne and many others. These are now in the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff though many pictures, some fine prints and sculptures remain at Gregynog. In the 1930s music festivals were held at Gregynog. Famous visitors and performers include Sir Adrian Boult, Walford Davies and Gustav Holst, George Bernard Shaw and Joyce Grenfell. Conferences on Welsh political and economic problems were also held.

The Gregynog Press started up in the early 1920s and became one of the leading printers and publishers of fine books in Britain. Books are still published at the press, using traditional methods.

When the Davies sisters died, in 1951 and 1963, Gregynog was  bequeathed to the University of Wales. Courses, conferences and concerts have been held here since 1964.