How could ordinary people come to own the great estates of Wales, like Nanteos and its 30,000 acres? Did they inherit it? Buy it? Marry it? Gain it by lending on a mortgage? Surely not steal it! And what did they do with their estate when they had it? Govern a country?
Create a beautiful mansion for it? Remake the landscape to beautify it? Use it to mine lead and silver? Shoot pheasants and hunt otters? Get into Parliament? Draw extraordinary cartoons? Collect works of art and support Iceland's history and culture? Cherish what some though might be the Holy Grail?
Step forward the Powells of Nanteos, and the Jones family before them, who did all that and more until the forces of Nonconformity, democracy, taxation and war swept them away to join the flotsam and jetsam of history.
Follow estate historian Gerald Morgan as he joins others who have investigated the remarkable paper-trail these families created for Nanteos through the centuries, all preserved at the National Library of Wales and the Ceredigion Archives.
