Our History
Dôl-Haidd Isaf is one of the oldest recorded settlements in the Teifi Valley. Although the earliest precise mention found so far records a marriage in 1550, it is certain that the house dates from at least one hundred years earlier, and may be much older even than that.
It is not easy to trace exact family history as old Welsh genealogies do not bother to record the names of daughters and their husbands but the marriage of 1550 mentioned earlier was between Maud Harvard, daughter of John Harvard of Dôlhaidd, and a certain Hywel ap John Lloyd.
The Havard family came to Wales shortly after the Norman Conquest of England in 1066. The name is derived from the name of the town of Le Havre, and Harvard is still a common name in Normandy and in this area today. The Havards arrived in Brecon as followers of Sir Bernard de Newmarch , and they were quickly established as local lords. They were given estates and houses by Newmarch and they were one of the most important families in Breconshire.
Early in the 15th Century Owain Glyndwr attempted to liberate Wales from English rule and punished the treason of the families that sided with the English by burning their houses, and among the houses burned in Brecon was the house of the Harvard family.
Very little documentation exists of this period but the nearby present day farm Cryngae, is also described as being owned by the Harvards and from the fifteenth century Dôlhaidd is also recorded as belonging to the same family. It is said that there were four generations of Havards at Dôlhaidd before the marriage of Maud, so the Havards arrival was somewhere around 1420 - 1430.
With passing time, Dôlhaidd, (Dôl-Haidd Isaf) reached its richest period and a son of the family started the building of Dôl-Haidd uchaf (Dôl-Haidd Mansion) in the seventeenth century just across the field from Dôlhaidd.
This other second house became wealthy at the end of the nineteenth century when Dôlhaidd had been in long decline. It is probably in the nineteenth century that Dôlhaidd was relegated to the position of a tenanted farm.
In 1921 DôlHaidd was bought by its sitting tenants and again changed ownership in 1969 when the property was split between the farm and the buildings. The new owners were only interested in the fishing and allowed the buildings to deteriorate even further.
After another family purchased Dôlhaidd and attempted to renovate the buildings, Dôlhaidd and the surrounding 35 acres were bought by Brian and Pat Scull, the present owners, thereby putting the land back into the ownership of Dôl-Haidd Isaf Farm.
So, the final chapter finishes with the conversion of the house and its four cottages all renovated to a high standard, offering self-catering holiday accommodation with its own private salmon, trout and sea trout fishing on the famous River Teifi.