Pembrokeshire Llama Sanctuary is run by Matt Yorke & Aleksandria Mykhailova and is based in Rhydwilym, a numinous wooded valley concealed just south of the Preseli mountains. The land we and the llamas live on is known as Glanrhydwilym (‘the bank of Wilym’s ford’). We dwell in a former manse, built in the middle of the 19th century and linked historically to the venerable Rhydwilym Baptist Chapel which lies  further down the valley. Rhydwilym was the first Baptist chapel in West Wales and remains the oldest active Baptist chapel in the world. One of the two main Pembrokeshire rivers – the Black Cleddau – rushes along the shores of the chapel.

Matt moved to Glanrhydwilym in January 2016 to be closer to family and with the aim of living a quieter more healthy existence – and of course to pursue a long held dream to live with llamas. We do not recall how or why this desire came about – but in 2015 we concluded that it was time to carve out a new destiny after Matt lost all vision in one eye for half the year, experiencing severe head pains to the point of being completely incapacitated. Fortunately Matt recovered some of his sight later in the year – but with the symptoms being so heavily linked with an uncureable condition that could potentially remanifest at any point in the future, the situation inevitably led to a question that everyone must ask themselves sooner or later:

If you are going to do one thing with your life before it is too late – so that you can look back on your life with absolutely no regrets – one thing that you really want to do above all else – one aim that will make you happy regardless of the cost or likely impossibility of being able to achieve it – what would it be?

The answer of course is to live with llamas.

The house at Glanrhydwilym was built in the 1800s. However, the ruins of the original house – built much earlier in time – can still be found on the land.

The land itself has been harnessed for many purposes over the years – growing organic vegetables, as a forest garden, growing Christmas trees, bio-dynamic farming, and keeping goats and cows (the cows lived in the kitchen during the early 80s). It is presently the home to sixteen llamas, our Toulouse geese (Gustava and Gertrude), Fintan our Maremma livestock guardian dog, thirty+ chickens, two turkeys, a rescued squirrel, a family of hedgehogs, and a whole pride of feral cats that we adopted upon taking up residence (or perhaps they adopted us – they were here first after all). We are surrounded by many species of native trees – ash, oak, hazel, holly, beech, blackthorn and hawthorn. The prolific sycamore also makes an inevitable appearance.

In addition to the ‘outside’ animals, we also have a few indoor rescues – Bowser the horsfield tortoise, Chopsy the African grey parrot. The attic is home to swathes of bats - mainly Pipistrelle but also some rarer species - and they can be observed acrobatically dropping from the eaves of the house every evening in the Spring and Summer. We frequently retire to bed at night to find our bathroom and bedroom already occupied by some of these amazing creatures – it is not uncommon to find the bats snoozing in the curtains, flying around the landing, or occasionally clutching to the back of our jumpers. In one of the chimneys lives a nest of honey bees.

On a more personal level, we are busy restoring the house and land at Glanrhydwilym and see this as a life long  project. We are continuing to restore the fencing on the land, much of which needs upgrading. We are also continuing to perform upgrades to Glanrhydwilym’s outbuildings and have several ambitious terraforming projects in mind for the future.

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Matt & Aleks

Rhydwilym (and specifically the venerable chapel within) is the subject of the Llandysilio bard Ernest Llwyd Williams’ book Rhamant Rhydwilym (in English: the Romance of Rhydwilym). Chapel Rhydwilym is the oldest active baptist chapel in the world and has historically strong links with the land we tend, Glanrhydwilym.

The chapel was founded by rebel minister William Jones, purportedly a prisoner at Carmarthen gaol for preaching the gospel. It was here that he was allegedly converted to Baptism by inmates. Once free, his clandestine group set about establishing a foothold for Baptism in West Wales, despite the threat of persecution from harsh penal laws and local opposition from Independents and Quakers.

‘Jones and his people were deeply expert in all the apparatus of conscientious resistance: secret meetings, stealthy movements across country, marriages before elders without clerical authority, arranging burying-places for the members, and refusing to disclose their clandestine retreat...’

‘The gospel preached and practised by William Jones was not easy and attractive, but austere and uncompromising: baptising in winter, baptising old women...’

In these circumstances, it would seem a considerable achievement to establish such a remote centre for worship - literally in the middle of nowhere - with presumably no good roads on which to travel.

Riding on horseback or on foot for miles, for hours... Down steep valley sides and potentially through dense woods and thickets. All in secret, by people so uncompromisingly dedicated to a cause despite the potential implications and geographic hardship.

Words that come to mind to describe such people: stubborn, persistent, insubordinate, puritanical, mad. Words that could quite reasonably still be applied to the current population of the valley.