Notes on FOXHALL NEWYDD, Henllan, Denbighshire 2011

After fourteen years since my last visit I had wondered what to find at Foxhall. I knew it was unlikely that since empty for literally centuries that most of its high walls would remain. And thus it proved. Only standing beside these walls does one have a sense of their height. And once inside the overgrown ruins the same can also be said as one cranes the neck to spy wooden lintels bending under the strain and fireplaces that perhaps never hosted any fires.

Much of the ivy that covered the stone has been cut away -apparently at the request of Cadw - and fourteen years later it quickly becomes apparent that Foxhall is a house of many large windows - with the left hand bay entirely opened up intending on giving fantastic panoramic views. Many of the stone mullion windows remain - some mysteriously half filled with stone and many also now collapsing under the yearly strain of the Welsh winters.

Trees with abundant fruit lay along its front walls and the sheep gently graze. It could be said that normal service resumes at Foxhall - and if it was ever lived in, which seems unlikely, then Foxhall has most likely spent its entire long life in this fashion; merely a monument watching over the country life of this part of Denbighshire.