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Wales Online
11-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Wales Online
Mansion in one of the most iconic locations in Wales could now be yours
Certain locations are immediately identifiable to many as unique Welsh sites, rich in history, literature, culture or breathtaking views. Cliff House offers all of these as well as the chance to move-in and add your own personal style to the spaces - if you can concentrate for long enough with the mesmerising view constantly there and constantly changing to distract you. This magnificent Georgian mansion is situated next to Dylan Thomas' renowned Laugharne boathouse and writing shed, sharing the same captivating, panoramic view across the River Tâf estuary before it merges into Carmarthen Bay. According to the Coflein website, Cliff House is believed to be where Kingsley Amis penned 'The Old Devils' in 1986. This additional piece of literary history further enhances the cultural significance of this waterside town and of this particularly unique home. For more property stories sent to your inbox twice a week sign up to the property newsletter here Laugharne is a Welsh town celebrated for its array of charming properties that are a joy to explore as you meander through the small, winding lanes. It boasts its own castle, characterful accommodations, and a range of eateries offering the finest local cuisine, from cosy cafes to fish and chips, from gourmet dining to excellent pub food. It's undeniable that Thomas must have been inspired by the extraordinary and captivating water views stretching out from this incredible property. His writing shed is tucked into the hillside just above the main house, which commands a panoramic view of three estuaries. While owning the boathouse might be a pipe dream, Cliff House offers its own slice of paradise in this renowned location. Nestled behind towering gates and lush hedges, this white-washed mansion, spread across four floors, is a sight to behold as it peeks out from the surrounding greenery. This grand family residence occupies a private plot of just under half an acre, offering a haven of breathtaking views and spacious living. The sprawling mansion provides approximately 5,000 square feet of accommodation. Secluded behind private gates, a garden with landscaped terraces presents numerous spots for you to sit back and soak in the vast landscape that unfolds before your eyes - a truly remarkable sight and arguably one of the best waterside views and locations in Wales. The property features tranquil and secluded patches of lawn encircled by mature trees and shrubs, providing a natural retreat for outdoor relaxation. Alternatively, you could enjoy the spacious ground floor terrace or step out from any of the river-facing rooms on the first floor onto the balcony that spans the width of the house. Arriving by car is straightforward with ample parking space and a ground-floor garage. However, arriving by boat is undoubtedly more thrilling. It's said that Dylan Thomas first arrived in the town by disembarking from a ferry directly below, and this mode of transport remains feasible as the property comes with its own mooring. The mansion's ground floor primarily houses the garage and a laundry room. With appropriate planning and a generous budget, this space could be transformed into additional accommodation for multi-generational living or a holiday let, complementing the existing flat on the top floor. The first floor is where the views truly captivate you from its elevated position above the garden terrace. This level hosts a sitting room, dining room, kitchen and breakfast sunroom - all of which enjoy stunning views across the water. Ascending to the second floor, the main bedroom offers direct water views right from the pillows, with an ensuite and dressing room enhancing its appeal as a special space. This floor also features two more double bedrooms, a bathroom equipped with a multi-jet spa bath, and a useful storage room. The top floor currently serves as a self-contained two-bedroom apartment, complete with its own reception area, sitting room, kitchen diner, and bathroom - a perfect abode for the lucky grandparents or younger family member who gets to call this space home. Cliff House is for sale with Country Living Group with a guide price of £1.25m, call 01437 616101 to find out more. For more property stories join our Amazing Welsh Homes Facebook group here.
Boston Globe
17-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Geoff Nicholson, author of darkly comic novels, dies at 71
His Facebook profile once had a list of "liked" books whose first two titles were "Gravity's Rainbow" and "The Big Sleep," a thumbnail distillation of his own oeuvre of highbrow plundering of lowbrow culture. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Mr. Nicholson was a verbal jokester, whether in ambitious fiction or in more prosaic writing. For the 'About' page of his website, he annotated his own Wikipedia entry. In response to Wikipedia's assertion that his work was 'compared favorably' to that of Kingsley and Martin Amis, Will Self and Zadie Smith, Mr. Nicholson wrote, 'I don't recall anybody ever comparing me to Kingsley Amis, but I suppose they might have.' Advertisement One person who did compare him to Kingsley Amis, the midcentury British satirist, was The New York Times critic Michiko Kakutani, writing a 1997 review of Mr. Nicholson's best-known novel, 'Bleeding London.' "As he has done in the past," Kakutani wrote, "Mr. Nicholson nimbly weaves his eccentric characters' overlapping lives into a wacky, black-humored farce, a farce that combines the clever high jinks of an Alec Guinness Ealing comedy with the satirical wit of Kingsley Amis." In "Bleeding London," which was on the shortlist for the Whitbread Award, three protagonists are variously obsessed with mapping the city. (The novel inspired hundreds of photographers in 2014 to snap 58,000 pictures of London streets for an exhibition at City Hall.) Maps were a recurring theme of Mr. Nicholson's. In his novel 'The City Under the Skin' (2014), a kind of cartographic thriller, women are abducted and their backs tattooed with crude maps, before being freed into an unnamed dystopian city. One character is a clerk in a map store. Advertisement Mr. Nicholson accumulated maps for much of his life. He told The Los Angeles Times: 'I'm a bit of a serial obsessive in that I get deeply interested in things for a short time. And as a novelist, I'm always thinking, 'Is there a book in this?' " The protagonist of his novel "Hunters and Gatherers" (1994) is a bartender who is working on a book about oddball collectors and their heaps of stuff. 'Collecting is an act of appropriation,' the character observes, in what could be a vision statement for Mr. Nicholson. 'The world is arbitrary and disconnected. By starting a collection you start to make connections. You decide what matters and what's valuable. You make a neat world.' In the Times, Kakutani wrote, "Indeed, his own novel stands as a charming little testament to the ordering impulses of art." Other obsessions of Mr. Nicholson included VW bugs, which featured prominently in two novels, 'Still Life With Volkswagens' (1996) and 'Gravity's Volkswagen' (2009), and sexual fetishes. He was the author of 'Footsucker' (1995), a murder mystery starring an unapologetic foot fetishist, and 'Sex Collectors' (2006), a nonfiction work about connoisseurs and accumulators of pornography. Emily Nussbaum wrote in a Times review: "He's such an appealing writer that you want him to succeed. Sadly, Nicholson's chosen territory turns out to be surprisingly unsexy." Mr. Nicholson was married for a time to Dian Hanson, a former model who edited a fetishist magazine, Leg Show. After living together in New York, the couple moved to Los Angeles when Hanson became the editor of sex-themed books for the luxury art publisher Taschen. Mr. Nicholson reveled in the 1960s kitsch of his home in a geodesic dome in the Hollywood Hills. Advertisement Geoffrey Joseph Nicholson was born March 4, 1953, in Sheffield, England, in the industrial Midlands east of Manchester. He was the only child of Geoffrey and Violet Nicholson. His father was a carpenter. He studied English at Gonville & Caius College at the University of Cambridge and drama at Essex University. He published early stories in a literary magazine, Ambit, whose prose editor was J.G. Ballard, the author of dystopian science fiction novels. Mr. Nicholson succeeded Ballard in the role. In all, from 1987 to 2023, Mr. Nicholson published 17 novels and 10 works of nonfiction. He could be touchy about his prolificacy, which was sometimes mentioned by reviewers. "I've published 20 books in 22 years (some quite short), and I'd say that's not excessive, given that I don't have a day job," he wrote in an essay in the Times in 2009 about the fact that reviewers frequently mentioned his output. "But accurate or not, 'prolific' definitely didn't feel like an unalloyed compliment." An early marriage, to Tessa Robinson, ended in divorce, as did his marriage to Hanson. Gannon is his only survivor. She was one of the photographers on the 'Bleeding London' project, and Mr. Nicholson and she became a couple in 2018 when he moved back to England after his second divorce, to the village of Manningtree in Essex. In his later years, Mr. Nicholson's obsessions simmered down, from fetishism to strolling. He wrote memoir travelogues, for which he preferred ambulating locally to wilderness trekking. 'The Lost Art of Walking' (2008) was inspired by his habit of solving plot twists in his novels on long walks. In 'Walking in Ruins' (2013), the abandoned sites he explores include the faded environs of his youth in Sheffield. Advertisement In his final book, 'Walking on Thin Air: A Life's Journey in 99 Steps' (2023), Mr. Nicholson wrote: 'I go to places. I walk when I'm there, I look around, I write about what I see and feel. It's not the only thing I do with my life, but it's probably the best part.' The book was steeped in the knowledge that his life was likely to be shortened by cancer, though naturally he treated his circumstances more with gallows humor than with spiritual introspection. "Nicholson's writing career has been varied, admirable and courageous," Tom Zoellner wrote reviewing the memoir for The Los Angeles Review of Books. "He stops to notice uncommercial and even bizarre subjects, shunning well-traveled roads. He goes where he likes. He gets out often. Nobody can imitate him." This article originally appeared in
