The Cambrian Mountains are home to some of the remotest spots in all of the UK.
For all of its beauty, this wild area, which covers hundreds of square miles across the middle of Wales, is also one of the most isolated places imaginable.
With barely another soul for miles around, travelling through the Cambrian Mountains it is easy to see how it has historically been a hiding place for bandits and home to myths and legends throughout the centuries.
However, one of the most haunting stories to come out of the area is a real life tale, which took place some 170 years ago.
As remote then as it is now, barely anything has changed in the landscape of the Cambrian Mountains in the century and a half since Isaac and Margaret Hughes called it home.
Living in Nant Syddion, around 15 miles outside Aberystwyth, the Hughes family would go on to welcome the first ever recorded quadruplets in Wales in the 1850s.
However, theirs is a story almost as haunting as the landscape they called home, and one which has been almost entirely forgotten in the years since.
Nant Syddion
In the 1850s, Nant Syddion was home to a small cottage and a mine.
Like much of the Cambrian Mountains, the landscape in the highlands above Aberystwyth is naturally rich with lead. As a result, during the industrial revolution, a mine shaft was constructed in the area.
Roughly two miles west of the cottage and mine, slightly closer to the communities of Pontarfynch and Pontwerwyd and with Aberystwyth ever so slightly more in reach, sits the small hamlet of Ysbyty Cynfyn.
There isn’t much in the community, save for a couple of houses, a campsite and an old church - St. John the Baptist.
Built in the early 1800s on the site of a much older building, the little grey church stands almost entirely alone in the big open countryside that surrounds it.
In the surrounding burial ground, on an unassuming grave below the yew trees, the following inscription can be found:
“To the memory of four infants, children of Isaac Hughes by Margaret his wife:
“Margaret, Feb. 17 - Feb. 21, 1856
“Elizabeth, Feb. 17 - Feb. 21, 1856
“Catherine, Feb. 17 - Feb. 22, 1856
“Isaac, Feb. 17 - Feb. 28, 1856.”
This small churchyard in the middle of the Ceredigion hinterland is the final resting place of four children who are believed to be the first set of quadruplets born in Wales and the UK, who all tragically died within days of each other.
On the adjacent stone, there is another set of inscriptions.
“In memory of Isaac Hughes of Nantsyddion in this parish, who died March 6, 1856, aged 32 years,” it reads.
“Also to the memory of Hugh, son of the above nam’d Isaac and Margaret Hughes, who died March 1, 1856, aged 5 years.”
And, then, heartbreakingly, there is one last headstone: "To the memory of Hannah, daughter of the aforementioned Isaac & Margaret Hughes. She died March 10, 1856, aged 3 years."
The Hughes family
According to the Welsh Mines Trust, in 1856 Nant Syddion was home to the Hughes family - husband and wife Isaac and Margaret Hughes, their five-year-old son Hugh and three-year-old daughter Hannah.
On February 17, Margaret gave birth to what are believed to be the first recorded quadruplets in Wales.
However, tragically, whatever celebrations there may have been were not to last. Within the next three weeks, seven members of the family would be dead, including all four quadruplets.
Both Margaret and Catherine died on the day they were born. Four days later, on February 21, Elizabeth died. Finally, on February 28, Isaac died.
If this wasn’t tragic enough, in the following weeks, the family would incur three more deaths.
On March 1, five-year-old Hugh died, with his father Isaac passing away at the age of 32 on March 6. Lastly, three-year-old Hannah died on March 10.
In less than a month, Margaret Hughes had lost everything, and was now the sole surviving member of her family.
In his book ‘Ceredigion Folk Tales’, author Peter Stevenson writes: ”The locals had tried to help by leaving them gifts of food and money by the well, dipped in vinegar to avoid passing on the plague.”
The cause of the death in the family isn’t known, however, several unreferenced accounts suggest it might have been an outbreak of an infectious disease such as smallpox or typhoid.
It also isn’t known what became of Margaret, as she has no known grave with the rest of her family in St John’s churchyard.
One suggestion is that she spent the rest of her days locked away.
“Margaret survived the fever and stayed at Nant Syddion before madness took her to Carmarthen Asylum, where she is thought to have killed herself,” Peter Stevenson suggests in his book.
“The vicar refused her request to be reunited with her children and her husband, for a suicide would not be allowed in consecrated ground, so she was buried outside the church walls.”
However, it could also be that Margaret simply moved away. As there are no referenced accounts of what became of Margaret, her fate is shrouded in uncertainty.
Today, there is still a cottage at Nant Syddion which serves as a bothy, where hikers can shelter away from the elements and spent the night in relative warmth and comfort.
There are rumours that some who have used the bothy have reported a friendly, almost motherly presence during their stays.
Although we might not know for certain what happened to poor Margaret after losing her family, her ordeal and the almost-forgotten history of the first recorded quadruplets in Wales lives on in the inscriptions found in the churchyard they were laid to rest in almost two centuries ago.
To get the latest email updates from WalesOnline click here
