Welsh Journals

Stouthall Sixty Years Ago by C. E. VULLIAMY STOUTHALL, IN THE PARISH OF REYNOLDSTON, was the massive though not inelegant home of the Lucases in the eighteenth century; later, it became the property of Colonel Wood, and it is now, after many vicissitudes (not all of them particularly happy) a convalescent home under the control of the Glantawe Hospitals Management Committee. Between the years 1889 and 1904 my father used occasionally to rent this delightful mansion, and it was here, in the pleasant leisure of summer days, that I spent the happiest hours of my life. Perhaps I should explain that I had the unquestionable advantage of being an only child. My schooldays had abruptly come to an end in 1896 (when I was ten years old) as the result of a serious illness, and it was then considered, rightly or wrongly, that I was physically incapable of enduring the stresses of an orthodox education. This did not seem to worry my parents at all: impecunious clergymen were always available as tutors, and it was hoped- though no discerning eye could ever have encouraged the idea- that I would turn to good account some talent or aptitude that