My first of the year, shame I didn't notice the the little water droplet until I was at home viewing the video 
Gwylfa Hiraethog (the watch tower of Hirathog) was the shooting lodge of the first Viscount Devonport, Hudson Ewbanke Kearley, whose main estate was Wittington House in Buckinghamshire. The lodge stands in a remote moorland location 496m above sea level and in the late nineteenth century was claimed to be the highest inhabited house in Wales, with some of the finest views of the British Isles.
The history of the lodge goes back to the early 1890’s, with the first phase a wooden chalet, imported in prefabricated sections from Norway. Three Norwegians are reported to have come over to erect it, and it is said to have been screwed into the rock. In 1908, at the same time that Viscount Devonport’s main home in Buckinghamshire was remodelled and enlarged, the wooden chalet was incorporated into a new stone built lodge, from the balcony of which, Lloyd George famously addressed a large crowd. This was subsequently enlarged in 1913 by the architect Sir Edwin Cooper and photographs show an imposing Jacobean style mansion, comprising a three gabled front with cross wings, long mullioned windows and a stone flagged roof. It was built from local stone with Gwespyr stone dressings, and was cement faced.
Viscount Devonport put the Gwylfa Hiraethog estate up for sale 1925. The sales catalogue describes the lodge as a shooting box and residence comprising 11 principal bedrooms, two secondary bedrooms together with servant’s quarters. Following the sale of the estate, the lodge became the home of the estate gamekeepers and was finally abandoned in the 1960s
Gwylfa Hiraethog (the watch tower of Hirathog) was the shooting lodge of the first Viscount Devonport, Hudson Ewbanke Kearley, whose main estate was Wittington House in Buckinghamshire. The lodge stands in a remote moorland location 496m above sea level and in the late nineteenth century was claimed to be the highest inhabited house in Wales, with some of the finest views of the British Isles.
The history of the lodge goes back to the early 1890’s, with the first phase a wooden chalet, imported in prefabricated sections from Norway. Three Norwegians are reported to have come over to erect it, and it is said to have been screwed into the rock. In 1908, at the same time that Viscount Devonport’s main home in Buckinghamshire was remodelled and enlarged, the wooden chalet was incorporated into a new stone built lodge, from the balcony of which, Lloyd George famously addressed a large crowd. This was subsequently enlarged in 1913 by the architect Sir Edwin Cooper and photographs show an imposing Jacobean style mansion, comprising a three gabled front with cross wings, long mullioned windows and a stone flagged roof. It was built from local stone with Gwespyr stone dressings, and was cement faced.
Viscount Devonport put the Gwylfa Hiraethog estate up for sale 1925. The sales catalogue describes the lodge as a shooting box and residence comprising 11 principal bedrooms, two secondary bedrooms together with servant’s quarters. Following the sale of the estate, the lodge became the home of the estate gamekeepers and was finally abandoned in the 1960s
