Hengwrt

Hengwrt is famous in Welsh literary history as the former home of one of the most important collections of Welsh manuscripts, the Hengwrt–Peniarth Manuscripts (often known more simply as the Peniarth Manuscripts), now held in the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth. The collection was originally assembled by the collector and antiquarian Robert Vaughan, who lived at Hengwrt during the 17th century. They included treasures such as the White Book of Rhydderch, Black Book of Carmarthen, Book of Taliesin and the Book of Aneirin, along with the Brut y Tywysogion. The collection includes an important early copy of Chaucer also known as the "Hengwrt Chaucer" or, misleadingly, the "Hengwrt Manuscript".^[4]

These manuscripts remained in the Hengwrt library for 300 years, although several others in the collection (including the Hendregadredd Manuscript and the lost Hengwrt 33 or Hanesyn Hên) disappeared in the late 18th century.^[5] Edward Lhuyd is recorded as having seen the antiquarian books there in 1696. A number of 18th- and early 19th-century antiquarians visited the mansion to see and copy manuscripts, including Evan Evans, William Owen Pughe and Iolo Morganwg. The collection was inherited by William Watkin Edward Wynne of Peniarth Mansion in 1859, to where it was removed. In 1904 Sir John Williams purchased the collection from the Wynne family, subsequently donating it to the new National Library when it was established in 1907.^[4]

The room in the National Library in which some of the manuscripts are displayed is named "Hengwrt", after the mansion.^[6]

In the 18th century Hengwrt was the home of the diarist Elizabeth Baker, who was employed as a secretary to Hugh Vaughan, Robert Vaughan's great-great grandson.^[7]

In the late 19th century it was the home of sculptor Mary Lloyd and her partner, the journalist and social reformer Frances Power Cobbe.^[8]

• "Hengwrt Chaucer" on the National Library of Wales website

52°45′07″N 3°53′59″W / 52.752039°N 003.899727°W / 52.752039; -003.899727