Penralltgoch

Penralltgoch, Llan Ffestiniog, Merioneth, North Wales, 1945–1950

Russell and his wife Peter had looked to buy a property in Wales when they sold Telegraph House in 1937. They did not find something suitable there,1 settling instead at Amberley House in Kidlington near Oxford. Russell had been born in Monmouthshire, South East Wales, and lived there for the first four years of his life at Ravenscroft.

On 10 October 1945, Peter wrote to Elizabeth Crawshay-Williams, who lived in Wales, about her excitement about moving there. “My favourite occupation is playing with houses, and I have done so many only to move and leave someone else to enjoy them that I can imagine no greater delight than having a place to alter and make perfect over a period of years.” Because of her poor health she could not undertake major renovations. In the same letter she wondered about a school house suggested by Elizabeth. “The school house—I really don’t know about this. It sounds just [like] what we want, if it could be enlarged, but there is the problem of permits ... could it be camped in for a summer …?” On 15 October, since Grosvenor Lodge had been sold, Peter suggested that the process might be sped up by using an agent. On 8 November she told Elizabeth it would be nice to have “a residence complete with conservatories and such. Of course the cheaper the better.” On 23 November upon returning from Wales, Peter wrote: “Bertie says that I keep pointing out the drawbacks of the cottage … but I really think he will like it.” On 11 December she wrote: “We have got the cottage! I have sent off a deposit to-day … We can’t of course start work on it until the purchase is completed.” She asked if a room would be available at the local inn, the Pengwern Arms from 3 to 8 January. On 15 January 1946, Russell wrote to his friend Gamel Brenan that “we have bought a derelict cottage in Wales, & hope ultimately to retire from the hubbub. I want to write a system of philosophy & an autobiography, & then die.” The “derelict cottage” was in fact the school house.

On 6 February 1946, Russell wrote to Gamel that “Peter has been sent to a nursing home in London & wants me to be with her during the time I can spare in London … She attempted suicide & very nearly succeeded, & threatens to make further attempts unless I succeed in comforting her.” On 17 February Russell wrote to Rupert Crawshay-Williams that Peter would be leaving for Wales tomorrow and would stay at the Pengwern Arms. “She has been very ill indeed & now needs a complete rest from household, parental, & wifely cares.” On 25 April Russell told his daughter Kate that Peter was in Wales “to get the work done on our house.”

Russell told Kate on 25 June 1947 that Peter would be in North Wales in July furnishing the cottage. It had taken over a year to make the structure habitable. Rupert Crawshay-Williams wrote: “During most of the year 1946 the Russells were doing up and adding on to the house. It stood 200 yards down the hill from Ffestiniog with one of the finest views in the whole of North Wales, looking across a deep valley to the Moelwyn mountains on the right and westward down the valley to Portmeirion and the sea. It had been the village school in the grounds of the ‘big house’. (The big house had been occupied during the war years by A.S. Neill’s Summerhill School) ... The school-master’s living quarters were attached to the village school itself … There were delays—especially it seemed when the Russells were not there to make a fuss” (Russell Remembered, p. 16). After several pauses in the work Russell visited. “Inside the house the architect and the builder were waiting. Russell walked in, said good-morning, and—immediately, without any other preliminaries, without any working up of steam—he boiled over into a furious denunciation of everything that the builder and the architect had done and not done. His face got red, his voice rose an octave, he banged the builder’s flimsy table … Elizabeth and I were … stunned.” Once outside Russell passed it off as theatre to make a point. It worked. “Unobtainable wood, non-existent metal, and missing labour appeared like magic, and the Russells were soon installed” (Russell Remembered, pp. 18–19). Although the cottage was purchased in late 1945, Russell’s first known letter from this location was not written until 9 August 1947 to his publishers, Allen & Unwin.

The cottage was named Penralltgoch.2 The Cadw Listed Buildings report notes it was built in 1829 as the village school. It is described as follows: “Exterior: L-shaped school building of rubble construction under a slate roof. The primary block runs parallel with the road and has a date plaque; the later cross-wing is at right-angles with the road and is single-storeyed above a raised basement. Modern 3-light windows.” The location was .5 km west of the village “on a slightly raised terrace on the steep roadside.” It was first listed on 24 April 1951 with the reference number 4691 and amended on 1 February 1996. This information was transferred to the British Listed Buildings report with the additions of photographs and a map. There is a poor quality image of Russell at the cottage below. It was taken by a photo agency, c1950, and later sold in 2007.
 

Russell at Penralltgoch
 

Neighbours, in addition to Rupert and Elizabeth Crawshay-Williams, were Arthur and Mamaine Koestler. They lived “in a converted farm-house about two miles from Ffestiniog” (Russell Remembered, p. 20). Will Durant recollected visiting Russell in Ffestiniog on 24 July 1948—he and his wife Ariel were staying temporarily in Corwen, about 40 miles distant. We “found him smoking his pipe in rare content, in a room whose walls were almost completely covered with neatly shelved books; here was a library that must be the gleanings of many generations.” They had tea and Russell reminded them of his age, then seventy-six (A Dual Autobiography, p. 273).

Constance (Colette) Malleson was moving back to Britain from Sweden in 1948. She first wanted to live in Scotland but was persuaded to look in North Wales. Russell wrote to her on 29 June extending an invitation from himself and Peter. On 28 August he sent directions: “Our cottage is a quarter of a mile from Festiniog, towards Port Madoc;3 the inn, the Pengwern Arms, is at the end of the village.” In a telegram from Sweden to her friend Phyllis Urch, Colette wrote that she planned on arriving in Wales on the 10^th of September, “two days before Peter returns from London.” She wrote to Phyllis again on 12 September. She and Russell had been looking for cottages for her to buy. As for Russell’s cottage: “[It] does her very great credit; it is most delightful; very well planned and furnished in excellent taste although, like their Oxford house, lacking colour. In one of the many windows … there’s a magnificent urn brought from Iceland by Wittgenstein.” Peter had not yet arrived and they spent the 11^th together, “utter perfection.” In an undated letter which must have been written on the 10^th, Colette notes that “Conrad4 departed today for one night and day. BR and I dined alone and had whole evening to ourselves at cottage” before Russell walked her back to the Inn. The following day they planned on “going through manuscript of rough draft of his autobiography he will start work on in January.” In the end buying a ruined sheep-farm was the only possibility for Colette; it was located on the moorland road to Bala. On 24 October she wrote to Phyllis from Sweden about her plans for the farm, Bryn Llech.

It was during this visit that Colette must have taken the snapshots below because there are haystacks in the field across the road in the image on the left. It is very small, 5 cm by 4.5 cm. The image on the right is slightly larger, 8 by 5.5 cm.
 

Penralltgoch photographed by Colette
 

The next year Colette visited the cottage in February and March of 1949. She was joined by her friend Sybil Dorothy (Lavinia) Mallows and a young Finnish architectural student, Olli Vahtera.5 On 12 February Colette was disappointed because Lavinia had not stayed for a full week but had left the previous day—they had not seen one another in ten years. Mallows was the daughter of the architect C.E. Mallows and lived in Biddenham, Bedford. She appears in In the North—they met in a cargo boat in the North Sea and shared at cottage in Sweden (pp. 32, 41). The reason for her early departure is not known but Colette and Lavinia remained friends. The two had travelled up together from London. After she left Colette woke up the next morning and “made tea and lit fire in BR’s study and have my tea tray upstairs in bed in Peter’s bedroom … I am not using the big long living room at all: BR’s study is exactly small enough for me and to keep nicely warm.” Frances was the name of the maid: “The sweet Frances has 2 of my vices: strong tea & cigs—which endeared her to me immediately.” Upon arrival Colette and Lavinia had stayed at the Pengwern Arms and walked over to the cottage the next morning, getting the key from Frances. They then went to the farmhouse, Bryn Llech, that Colette was buying—it was not habitable and Colette describes in great detail all the problems, including the rats. Olli was coming to fix it up. She was putting him up at the cyclists hostel because of the rats (letter to Phyllis Urch, 12 February). On 20 February Russell wrote that Frances had given her notice. “It may mean our giving up the cottage.” On 4 March she sent a postcard to Phyllis, noting that she and Olli had taken the bus into Portmadoc in order to get Russell some books and acquire coal and paraffin. On 6 March she wrote to Phyllis that she was preparing the cottage for Russell’s arrival. “I’ve organised a good supply of logs close by the kitchen door … which is more practical than going … to unlock them from the cellar which is on the public highway under Conrad’s room.” Olli was pressed into service—the garden had to be made tidy, a kitchen door repaired and silverware polished (email from Marja Lampi, 2 April 2024, from the Vahtera Family Memoir).

Colette purchased this postcard of the Pengwern Arms which appears below and wrote the date of 14–15 February 1949 on it. Information about the hotel has been covered over with white tape. Also written on the card in very faint pencil is a word in Finnish, Hopeapeili, which was a weekly women’s magazine published between 1936 and 1971. Presumably she published articles there.
 

Pengwern Arms
 

She also purchased the postcard below of the Ffestiniog Valley. On a separate piece of paper she wrote: “View from BR’s cottage to the sea at Port Madoc” although the sea is not visible in this card.
 

Ffestiniog Valley
 

On Tuesday [8 March] Colette wrote to her Yorkshire friend, Carrie Webster: “The maidservant and the char have both walked off and so I am running this 6 room house for BR who arrives tomorrow and I have everything to do … everything has to go like clockwork while he works on a new book6 … I suppose a batter would not travel? Otherwise I’d ask you to send one of yours. BR adores batter7 and I cannot remember [the] way to do it.” Russell arrived in Ffestiniog on 11 March and left on the 17th. That day Colette wrote to Phyllis about how difficult the week had been. Peter and Russell fought on the telephone—she was determined to give the cottage up because of the servant problems. She wanted to let the cottage and live in London full-time. Colette also wrote to Russell—the letter was sent to Aix-en-Provence, his destination. She took comfort “from being surrounded by all your dear Bury Street 8 belongings; and happy in being able to look after them … Cottage and garden both feel empty without you.” 

On the same day, 17 March 1949, that Russell left the cottage, Peter poured out her frustrations to Elizabeth complaining about Colette still being in her cottage. “Bertie, you know, is so vague and doesn’t understand how one can love a house so much.” On 8 April Colette wrote to Russell: “This cottage will be quite ready for you directly Easter is over. Its key will be waiting for you at Dorset House.” Her friend Phyllis with her husband Tom came to visit at Easter, staying in lodgings. Easter Sunday was on 17 April. I assume Colette stayed on because she had planned to be there working on the farmhouse and had nowhere else to go. On 26 April Russell wrote to Kate from Wales that he and Peter had agreed to separate. “For at least the next 2 months I shall be here and she will be in London.”9 That same day he wrote to Colette, thanking her for the improvements she had made to the cottage. On 23 May Colette wrote to her friend Carrie Webster: “BR was leaving Wales evidently for good. Therefore my farm was no use to me whatsoever … I was lucky to get out of it, as it would have been a white elephant without BR as neighbour.” In addition, it “could never be made civilised enough to house B.”

Colette spent the summer in Sweden. From there she wrote to Russell on 4 July: “I can imagine you in the familiar Ffestiniog surrounds …. your 4 ½ minutes boiled egg10 in the dining room for breakfast … the post’s arrival; your afternoon pot of Lapsang [tea].” On 9 July he let her know that Frances had returned to give him dinner and he was working on his autobiography. In the autumn she returned to England, staying both with Carrie Webster in Hull, Yorkshire, and also in London. She had found a cottage for herself in the village of Lavenham, Suffolk in October11 but by then she and Russell were nearing the breaking point of their relationship. She continued to summer in Sweden into the mid-1960s.

Colette described the Ffestiniog cottage in two articles, the first of which was possibly published in Sweden.12 The articles were gathered with a third one, describing Russell’s daily life at the cottage, and were published decades later as “Three Portraits of Bertrand Russell at Home” in Russell. The third article, “Spring in Llan Festiniog” is reprinted as an Appendix at the end of this article. It was written a decade after Colette’s 1949 visit.13 In the first article she mentions “very prim looking bay trees” as well as Conrad sprawling on the floor with his two spaniels. She noted that Russell’s “vitality and physical stamina is extraordinary: in all weather and at all seasons he is out—hatless—walking the hills.” The content of the middle article, “Bertrand Russell’s Working Life” was sent to Olli Vahtera on 6 December 1950 by Colette who urged him to write something about Russell. He did publish an article14 in 1953 (see Sources) using Colette’s material as well as his own observations. His work at Colette’s farm was to include building a sauna—this never came to fruition to his disappointment. He did meet Russell and packed two large travel chests of letters for him—letters that were to be used in his Autobiography. He remembered seeing a portrait of Lord John Russell on the dining room wall. He drove Russell to Bala15 in a small car and the two of them were struck by the incredible number of sheep on the steep hills. He observed that Russell liked to talk and smoke—Olli brought him matches from Finland at Colette’s request. Colette reworked this daily life material in a typescript titled “Bertrand Russell at Home” written before May 1952. It is not known if it was published at that time.

I received two emails from the current owner, The Rev’d Canon Nathan Jarvis, in September 2022.16 He had read Colette’s articles and commented on them. “It was a dilapidated old wreck when we bought it … During our renovations, we realized that we’ve inherited his bookcases in the library, so have had these restored … It is uncanny how little the house has changed, although the rather elegant sounding bay trees are now two huge ones which were, unfortunately, left to grow unhindered. As a result, they have had to be hacked back rather severely. It’s also odd, as so many of the rooms in the house are furnished in a similar way. Our colour choices are the same in some instances, and dogs and children still roll around the floor of the library in front of the large Welsh stone fireplace … I am sat in Conrad’s room, which is now our small sitting room. I can imagine it covered in colourful maps.”

Irving Lavin (1927–2019), the art historian who was just beginning his career, came to visit in 1949. Russell’s letter of 24 May noted that he would “be delighted to see you on Tuesday … There is only one train, leaving Paddington 11.10 (change at Ruabon).” Another visitor in 1949 was the renowned photographer Yousuf Karsh who was there on 13 July. He took several portraits. Russell chose one for his own use. The remainder of the images survive in Karsh’s archives in Ottawa.17 One of them appears in Karsh: The Art of the Portrait, published in 1989 by the National Gallery of Canada. The images depict Russell holding a book by Daniel Defoe, The System of Magic (1728), which is still in his library (RL 205), lighting his pipe and holding his reading glasses. In one of the images he is sitting at a table with the family crest. This crest matches the one carved on the back of a chair at Pembroke Lodge that I photographed in 2012. A bookcase is visible in some of the images.

There is some legal correspondence from L.P. Tylor of Coward, Chance representing Russell to H.P. Gisborne of Lewis & Lewis and Gisborne & Co., representing Peter. Although Russell had purchased the property, the title was in Peter’s name. He was allowed to continue living in the cottage despite their marital difficulties and had to pay rent beginning in October 1949. Peter was allowed to occupy their Dorset House flat. Of course drama ensued. On 9 November 1949 Tylor informed Gisborne that “Lady Russell sent two telegrams to Lord Russell yesterday. One was to the effect that unless she received money by noon, she would sell a pendant given to her by Lord Russell and that Conrad preferred dinner to jewellery. The second telegram read ‘please send November rent or leave cottage for other tenant who will pay.’ I know that Lady Russell refuses to agree to a formal Deed of Separation, but it is obviously an implied term of the arrangements that Lord Russell will not be molested in this quite outrageous fashion. Ffestiniog is a small village and it must be harmful to all concerned that scandal of this kind should be broadcast to all and sundry. I may add that proximately £900 in respect of royalties were paid to Lady Russell from Allen and Unwin on 3^rd November.” It was Tylor who sent Gisborne the rent for December, £16.13.4d.

Russell wrote his last known communication from the cottage, a postcard to C.K. Bliss in Australia on 27 April 1950. Russell wanted to keep Penralltgoch. In a long chatty letter of 15 July 1950 Rupert Crawshay-Williams told Russell, who was lecturing in Australia, that he was “trying to find out what the situation is about Penrallt Goch, and as far as I can penetrate the evasive statements of the agents, it sounds as if an offer (or perhaps offers) have been sent to Peter already … I shall have to offer £3,250 if I make an offer at all … Elizabeth and I are inclined to think that up to £3,500 … is not too bad an investment anyway … in view of the fact that this is £500 less than your upper limit and also in the view of the fact that I must act if I am not to lose the house (I am sorry, I forgot you did not know that the price Peter is officially demanding is £3,750) I propose to make an offer of £3,250 on Monday and then be prepared to go up progressively.” On 26 July Russell wrote to Rupert that he had telegraphed “Buy Pentralltgoch if possible.” In his letter he notes: “It doesn’t much matter what it costs, if I can raise the money, as I can take it out of what I pay Peter … Tylor, of Coward, Chance, has power of attorney for me & can pay what is necessary & arrange mortgage etc.” On 5 August Rupert wrote to Russell setting out “the very disappointing news that Peter has sold Penrallt Goch to somebody who is supposed to be a friend of hers … I really thought than an offer of £3,425, which I made, would be accepted … But Peter then began making enquiries as to who it was that was buying. I was doing it through a man whose name was (perhaps too anonymously) William Williams, and it seemed to become clear that he actually would have to buy the house (rather than simply be a nominee) and then re-sell to you … then two days ago we suddenly heard from the agent that he had … already sold the house to this Cambridge man … I at once increased the offer to £3,750 (Peter’s original price) … the agent had telephoned Peter … and she had said that she wishes it sold, even at a lower offer to the Cambridge man … on the spot we offered [the agent] £4,000 and this was simply refused outright.” Russell’s son John and daughter-in-law Susan were visiting Wales and expressed their interest in living in the area. John even rang the agent putting in an offer but was told the cottage had been sold. Rupert was “very sorry and angry not to have been able to get the house for you.”

On 11 August Russell wrote to Elizabeth Crawshay-Williams. He had not yet received the bad news in Australia. “I am most grateful to Rupert for the trouble he is taking about Penralltgoch … It doesn’t matter much what it costs, as I can take the interest off what I pay Peter. But I must raise £2,000 of the purchase price by loan or mortgage.” On 14 August he had received the news. He had been worried about war18 “but now that world war does not seem immediately imminent I am not altogether sorry. There will be time to look for something else, & I am glad not to have to deal with Peter.” He expressed his gratitude for all that Rupert had done.

According to the current owner of the home, it was sold to Lady Cynthia Poston (1918–2017), a research historian and plants woman, who was married to Michael Poston (1899–1981), an economic historian at the University of Cambridge. There are two portraits of her taken in 1938 at the National Portrait Gallery.19 The house was last listed for sale in 2020 with a guide price of £450,000.

On 17 August 1950 Peter replied to a query from H.T. Pritchard, Builder & Contractor in Minffordd about instructions Russell had left with D.M. Morris, a timber merchant in Port Madoc. Pritchard “was responsible to her regarding the larch trees at Penralltgoch and no one else … Messrs. Morris and if necessary you will hear from my lawyer on his return from his holidays.” By then Russell was lecturing in Australia, the house had been sold and Russell would not return to it. Rupert Crawshay-Williams last wrote to Russell about the house on 2 February 1952: “The solicitors who acted for you, via us, over Penrallt Goch have at last sent a bill, which I enclose.” The bill has not survived.

Although Russell had to leave Wales in 1950, it was not the last time he would live there. He returned in 1955 with his fourth wife, Edith, to rent the nearby and much larger Plas Penrhyn in Penrhyndeudraeth.

David Hodgson photographed the cottage in 1971 for the book Bertrand Russell in Pictures and His Own Words published in 1972. He photographed all three Russell Welsh houses: Ravenscroft, Penralltgoch, and Plas Penrhyn on a trip with his co-author Christopher Farley (letter to Edith, 24 September 1971).
 

Penralltgoch photographed by David Hodgson
 

Other images of the house, a map and the floor plan can be found in Additional Images.

© Sheila Turcon, 2024

Appendix

Spring in Llan Ffestiniog: Post-War Home of Earl Russell, O.M.
I thought it as perfect a cottage as I had ever seen, even in the glorious surroundings of North Wales; but it is true that my visit happened on a day of most rare spring sunshine, with a great wind blowing in from the sea.

I had motored across the mountain road from Bala Lake, and I found Lord Russell’s cottage without the slightest difficulty: it stands almost on the brow of the long hill winding up from the coast. It had been used—until the last war—as the village schoolhouse. Its main feature, therefore, is the long “schoolroom”, which has been converted into a combined library and living room.

The outside of the cottage is of rough Welsh stone, rising from a wide, flagged terrace upon which stand a row of stiffly clipped trees. The background is Moelwyn Mountain. The view from the cottage windows is of the whole beautiful Vale of Ffestiniog, with its waterfalls and its rivers flowing to the sea.

The inside of the cottage seemed to me as perfect as its outside and its surroundings. One entered through a welcoming door of glass behind which a pastel, greyish-blue woven curtain hung. The small entrance lobby gave, on the “schoolroom” side, into the dining room which connects directly with the long, shiningly modern kitchen, all-electric, and with windows facing up a wooded hill, up the steep garden, and into the surrounding orchard—lavishly starred with daffodils.

We went, first, down a long narrow passage, passing Lord Russell’s study on our way into the living room, which has views back and front: up to the steep hillside at the back, and down across the valley at the front.

The main feature of the living room is the immense Welsh granite fireplace, generously stacked with local logs (although there is also central heating—electric). All the many windows were curtained in thickly woven stuff the colour of ripe corn. A large green sofa faced the open fire, and two roomy armchairs flanked it. A tall, parchment-shaded lamp, stood behind each armchair. Book shelves, built on top of cupboards, ran the whole length of the room, and also across both its ends: to the right of the fireplace, the shelves housed many treasures from the renowned Doves Press. The room was a perfect one in which to read either by day or by night.

The floor was covered in that attractive coarse Norfolk matting which reminds one of the reeds cut from the Broads. The walls—all white, in common with the whole cottage interior—had only one picture: a large engraving of a Duchess of Bedford ancestress. It hung, in a heavy giltwood frame, above the fireplace. The tall and graceful Duchess is depicted leaning lightly against a garlanded column, while at her feet a charming little negro boy plays.

A wide desk, together with some rustic three-legged stools, and a solid Victorian table carved with the monogram of Viscount Amberley (Lord Russell’s father), were the only other bits of hardwood furniture. A third, upholstered armchair, was set invitingly before the blazing fire.
I sat in it and, gazing around, was at once attracted by two very distinctive bowls: a large metal one—probably from Peking; and a most exquisite, dark blue and white china one—from Persia. The latter, very much smaller than the former, was mounted on a delicate Oriental stand. A polished leather box, which had been used by a former Lord Russell, fitted exactly into a window ledge. On the ledge opposite, a dark pottery bowl was filled with growing tulips just coming into full flower and making a brave splash of scarlet.

In Lord Russell’s small study (next door) the shelves held mostly “work books”: one whole wall of them from floor to roof. A Victorian desk, set into the window recess, took up most of the space and left room for one armchair and a couple of severely upright ones. But the austerity of this small study was delightfully contradicted by a bunch of family photographs, together with others of famous and erudite men. A fascinating collection of small ivory figurines and chessmen inhabited the ledge above the fireplace. The study curtains hung in rich folds of faded maroon silk which, in its youth, might have been magenta. By far the largest and most striking picture in the room was of a great seagull with wings outspread in full flight against a background of stormy greyish blue. A lovely thing—admirably set off by its exceedingly dark frame.

Amongst those portraits hanging above Lord Russell’s desk there was (as one would expect) a head of Leibniz—on whose work Lord Russell is the greatest living authority. There was also a signed portrait of the famous Cantor, mathematical genius—now, alas, dead.

Except for the Duchess of Bedford in the living room, all the other Russell ancestors were strictly confined to the walls of the dining room: Lord William Russell, the family hero; and, above the fireplace, between old silver candlesticks, an enlarged head and shoulders of “Grandmother Stanley” (Lady Stanley of Alderley), of whom it has been written—quoting from Hamlet—that she had “an Eye like Mars, to threaten and command”.

This formidable Lady Stanley of Alderley had been born a Dillon. (The first Viscount Dillon had been created a Banneret in 1599.) Her commanding eye was inherited by her daughter—Rosalind, Countess of Carlisle—born 1845, died 1921—of whom a delightful biography was recently published (December 1958) by her daughter, Lady Henley.20 Another of Lady Stanley of Alderley’s daughters was the fascinating Kate, Lord Russell’s mother, who died when he was a very small child. Her portrait, also, was to be seen hanging in the Ffestiniog study: a gentle, gra­cious lady who, nevertheless, was of a sufficiently serious and intellectual turn of mind to have dubbed the late Mrs. Sidney Webb as a social butterfly. The portrait of Kate Amberley is an exquisite thing, her bent head seen more or less in profile, the delicate lines of the picture rather faint on the slightly faded, pale grey paper.21

Although I was only a stray visitor passing through Ffestiniog, I was nevertheless allowed a glimpse of the upstairs rooms: all of them small, two of them square. The other, with window looking down the valley, was narrow but larger, and had rush green velvet curtains and bedspread, old mahogany and oak furniture and—how surprisingly!—a spinet. On the white walls there hung a few magnificent prints of the great trees of California—where, for a time (between 1938 and 1944) Lord Russell occupied the Chair of Philosophy in the University of California.22 One was also reminded, by a bright-coloured print hanging above the stairs outside the upstairs rooms (it was of a Chinese monster, dragon or such) that, between 1920 and 1921, Lord Russell had also occupied the Chair of Philosophy in the Government University of Peking.

Constance Malleson

Sources

Rupert Crawshay-Williams, Russell Remembered. London: Oxford U.P., 1970.
Will and Ariel Durant, A Dual Autobiography. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1977.
Christopher Farley and David Hodgson, comps, The Life of Bertrand Russell in Pictures and His Own Words. Nottingham: Spokesman Books, 1972.
Constance Malleson, In the North. London: Gollanz, 1946.
Constance Malleson, “Three Portraits of Bertrand Russell at Home,” Russell 32 (Winter 2012–13): 162–69.
Olli Vahtera, “Bertrand Russell: Aamusta Iltaan” [From Morning to Evening]”, Suomen Kuvalehti [Finnish Magazine], 28 November 1953: 32. Translated by Marja Lampi. Hh53.02.

Archival correspondence: Peter Russell, Constance Malleson, Katharine Tait, Gamel Brenan, Rupert and Elizabeth Crawshay-Williams, Phyllis Urch, Carrie Webster, H.T. Pritchard, Louis Tylor, Irving Lavin.
Archival Document: “Bertrand Russell at Home”, typescript, [1952], Constance Malleson, Box 6.73, F-2.
Emails: The Rev’d Canon Nathan Jarvis.

Internet sources

Listed Buildings:
https://britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/300004691-penralltgoch-ffestiniog
A link to the Cadw website is not provided because of difficulties in loading it.

Pengwern Arms
https://www.ypengwern.co.uk/
 

• 1They had lived in Wales in 1933 at the Deudraeth Castle Hotel, Portmerion
• 2Russell and Peter spelled their home’s name “Penralltgoch”. The Crawshay-Williams spelled it “Penrallt Goch” as does the 2022 owner, Nathan Jarvis. Goch translates into English as red.
• 3This town has been spelled Porthmadog since 1974.
• 4At Easter in 1949 Colette wrote to Phyllis from Sweden, offering an assessment of Conrad, noting “his robustious vitality and enthusiasm are very infectious.”
• 5My thanks to Marja Lampi who identified Vahtera (1926–2014); his last name is never mentioned in archival correspondence.
• 6Probably Unpopular Essays which was published in September 1950.
• 7Presumably the batter for a Yorkshire pudding.
• 8His flat in Russell Chambers.
• 9The details of his messy divorce from Peter, including Colette’s involvement, is covered by his biographers.
• 10In “Bertrand Russell’s Working Day” the egg took only 3 ½ minutes.
• 11Letter to Carrie Webster, 26 October 1949.
• 12The typescript for the first article is titled “Hemma Hos.” Colette told her friend Phyllis in a 1948 letter that she had “just written something about BR’s cottage for a Finnish paper.” It is possible that this article appeared in both countries.
• 13The last paragraph about Russell’s move to Plas Penrhyn has been deleted. The footnotes were supplied by Russell’s editor, Kenneth Blackwell.
• 14The existence of this article only became known to me in 2024 through Marja Lampi.
• 15Colette’s farmhouse was located on the road to Bala
• 16My thanks to Tony Simpson who located the 2020 listing on Zoopla and has spoken with Jarvis.
• 17Copies of these images are held in Rec. Acq. 1042.
• 18The Korean War had begun on 25 June 1950
• 19Poston’s first wife was Eileen Power who accompanied the Russells home from China in 1921.
• 20Dorothy Henley, Rosalind Howard, Countess of Carlisle (London: Hogarth P., 1958). Russell contributed “Lady Carlisle’s Ancestry, pp. 13–23.
• 21Probably the drawing by George Howard, September 1864, in The Amberley Papers, ed. B. and P. Russell (London: Hogarth P., 1937), 1: 307 opp.
• 22Russell was at UCLA in 1938–40.