All About Crafty Dog Towers – Our Country House & Estate in Swanseashire

We started to post short stories on FB about the (imaginary) staff that worked on the (also imaginary) country estate around Crafty Dog Towers. It all began with Mr Grout, the Head Gardener and his lazy Gardener’s Lad, Pendulous Sedge, or Pendle for short. His name came from a grass that a friend was talking about on FaceBook and it seemd the fit perfectly!

If we had garden’s staff, we had to have staff at The Towers too, including Cook (a mysterious half-Welsh/half-French ex-member of the French Foreign Legion catering corps), a butler called Higgins, Mrs Grainger the Housekeeper, and other ancillary staff.

The Towers had to have a back-story, its own place in Swanseashire history, with local customs (the Christmas Tree, pudding, and staff vs family football match in the Great Hall), and even the tales of the ghosts who walk the halls, or in one case, the recycling bins behind the visitors car park.

What history? Why, the jams and chutney mines on which local fortunes were made, and of the wild west of the Amman Valley with its outlaws and vagabonds. The very hills around the house are home to herds of escaped and now feral llamas, brought in a triangular trade from South America in the 1860’s (well, if Australia can have camels, why can’t Swanseashire have llamas?).

Check out the Tales from Crafty Dog Gardens Blog if you want a laugh at this peculiar spin on local Welsh history. And browse the other Blogs too – the children’s stories and foodie posts. Go on – have a laugh!