Rare Welsh collection on display in London

Norena Shopland

This autumn, the William Morris Gallery in London presents Earthly Paradise: Radical Living in the UK, a “major touring exhibition that explores the people and places that have helped shape art and activism across Britain over the last 200 years”.

Through objects, painting, drawing, photography, sound and archival material, Earthly Paradise highlights individuals and communities that defied contemporary conventions and the homes they created to explore their new visions of society.

The exhibition considers the role that money and class have played in providing access to these spaces and the freedom to challenge social norms.

It traces the roles activist groups and those excluded from and overlooked by mainstream society have played in imagining new ways of living and seeing the world.

Earthly Paradise is part of Art Fund’s £5.36 million ‘Going Places’ programme, a series of exhibitions touring the UK, created by museums working together to share their collections.

Spanning two centuries, the exhibition “spotlights the homes of many important British artists and thinkers, including William Morris’s Red House; Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant’s modernist home, Charleston; Cedric Morris’s Benton End; Derek Jarman’s Prospect Cottage; and Dial House, the self-sustaining anarcho-pacifist open house founded in 1967 by Penny Rimbaud and Gee Vaucher, members of the influential anarchist punk band Crass.”

Also featured are the Ladies of Llangollen.

Eleanor Butler (1739–1829) and Sarah Ponsonby (1755–1831) eloped from Ireland and lived together as a same-sex couple for more than 50 years at their home at Plas Newydd.

In association with Tŷ Pawb, Wrexham, a collection of archives and artefacts assembled by Norena Shopland featuring the Ladies will be joining Earthly Paradise.

Some items relating to both the Ladies and their home are extremely rare, and the range chosen for display will illustrate how sought-after these representations of arguably the most famous historic female same-sex couple were by the public.

However, they were not bought because the Ladies were people we might today regard as lesbians, but because they were promoted as a ‘perfect friendship’.

‘In Arcadia’

This ideal of rejecting all the stresses and strains of everyday living was, and is, very attractive, and the Ladies were sold through this ‘in Arcadia’ imagery that most people could only dream of. It was a false premise, but a highly commercial one.

Jo Marsh of Tŷ Pawb said: “It’s been a joy to connect with Norena in the development of this exhibition. We’re so grateful for her generosity in sharing knowledge and her collection of objects relating to the Ladies.

“Particularly for Tŷ Pawb, in Wrexham, the Ladies of Llangollen represent a cornerstone of the exhibition, setting the scene for centuries of radical creative lifestyles to come.”

Lisa Power, historian and queer activist, said she was “looking forward immensely to seeing this exhibition and to reading Norena’s new biography of the Ladies. She excels at turning legends into real lives.”

Following its presentation at William Morris Gallery from 3 October 2026 to 28 March 2027, Earthly Paradise: Radical Living in the UK will tour to Tŷ Pawb, Wrexham (April–September 2027), Blackwell – The Arts & Crafts House, Bowness-on-Windermere (October 2027–February 2028) and Dovecot Studios, Edinburgh (March–September 2028).

Calon, an imprint of University of Wales Press, will publish Shopland’s new biography of the Ladies of Llangollen, Extraordinary Female Affection, in June 2028.

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