History of Plas Aberceri in West Wales
Plas Aberceri is a large Georgian house built in 1825 at the junction of the Teifi and Ceri rivers by Robert Moseley Thomas, a lawyer who, on setting off to Calcutta, let it at a peppercorn rent to his brother, a local surgeon, for his lifetime.
Plas Aberceri in the distance on the right circa 1840
For a short time thereafter until the time of sale in 1873 however it was occupied as his main house by one of Wales' best known eccentrics, Ford Hughes (who changed his name from Ford Davies) who collected vacant country houses like others collect stamps. He was the saviour of many of the impoverished local gentry but eventually settled in a little house in Carmarthen where he lived all alone. After that he was never seen again in the day but occasionally hired a pony and cart at night and drove through the dark to visit one or other of his country houses to stay only a few minutes before setting back to his Carmarthen house to get home before dawn. Sadly he was ultimately admitted helplessly ill to the workhouse sanatorium.
The next owner was David Davies, a surgeon of Bristol, who bought the house at auction in 1873 (When the particulars on our cover were used), lived here and then left it to his daughter Sarah Heaven, who had married another lawyer. She sold it and the house was then occupied by William and Rachel Webb from 1924, then their son John a doctor, who gave it to his son, another John, also a doctor. He sold it to Christopher and Micky Mason-Watts in 1992, and we bought the property from him in 1998.
