Grove House
Elizabeth Woods owned this 1741 Georgian house. Her daughter Lydia was the second wife of
John Wollstonecraft (1736-1803).
John, a bully and a drunkard, was the father of Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) who is regarded as one of the founding feminist
philosophers, and therefore grandfather to Mary's daughter, Frankenstein author, Mary Shelley (1797-1851). Mary Wollstonecraft (pic below)
lived in Laugharne briefly in 1776, but we're not certain where. There are also stories that Mary Shelley visited Laugharne, and we'd
love it if that could be proved.
After Mary Wollstonecraft's death John and his new wife Lydia farmed outside Laugharne. On his demise Lydia moved into Grove House.
When Elizabeth died, the bedchamber above the kitchen was left to her daughter Lydia for life, no matter who lived in the rest of the house.
Apropos of nothing, John's first cousin's wife, Britannia, died in Newgate prison in 1840 awaiting 7 years transportation for stealing silk.
It later became a pub called the White Hart - the landlord in 1844 was Thomas Evans - and then a barber's shop.
The passageway on the left, once used to access stables at the rear, is a bat roost.
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