In Search of Adelina Patti: The Superstar Who Made Wales Her Home
On 27 September 1919, one of the most famous singers in the world died at her beloved Craig-y-Nos Castle in the Swansea Valley.
More than a century later, her name is still everywhere around this part of Wales. There’s a castle, a pavilion, an old railway station and countless stories that have survived through generations. But who exactly was Adelina Patti? And just how much of her incredible life can still be found today?
That question sent me on a journey through Wales and eventually more than 200 miles away following the traces left behind by a woman who was once one of the greatest celebrities on the planet.
Child prodigy to international superstar
Adelina Patti was born in Madrid in 1843 into a musical family and spent much of her childhood in New York and her talent was apparent from an early age. By the time she was a young woman she was performing on some of the greatest stages in the world.
She made her Covent Garden debut in 1861 and went on to perform across Europe and America, becoming one of the most celebrated sopranos of the 19th century.
The money was extraordinary too. At the height of her fame, Patti could command enormous fees for a performance and enjoyed the kind of international celebrity lifestyle we would probably associate with the biggest music stars of today.
Yet despite being able to live almost anywhere, Patti eventually chose a very different place to call home.... The upper Swansea Valley.
Finding Craig-y-Nos
In 1878, Patti bought a mansion in the shadow of the Brecon Beacons, today Bannau Brycheiniog. The original house was known as Bryn Melin and had been built for Rhys Davies Powell in the 1840s. Patti transformed the property over the following decades, creating the spectacular Craig-y-Nos Castle we know today.
For me, exploring Craig-y-Nos was the obvious place to begin this journey. Walking through the castle today, you start to get an idea of just how extravagant Patti's life here must have been. She expanded the house considerably, adding accommodation, reception rooms and the distinctive clock tower. But perhaps the greatest surviving reminder of her wealth and love of music is her private theatre.
An opera house inside her own home
Imagine becoming so successful as a singer that you decide to build an opera house inside your house. That is effectively what Patti did.
Her private theatre was built in the early 1890s and allowed her to entertain guests at Craig-y-Nos without leaving home. The theatre was modelled in miniature on the Wagner theatre at Bayreuth and survives as one of the most extraordinary rooms in the castle.
This wasn't simply a quiet country retreat. Craig-y-Nos became a place where the worlds of international celebrity and rural Wales collided.
Distinguished visitors came to the estate, performances were held and Patti lived surrounded by reminders of the extraordinary career that had made it all possible.
One detail that particularly fascinated me was the castle's electricity. Craig-y-Nos was the first private house in Wales to be wired for electricity. Just think about how remarkable that would have been in Victorian Wales. At a time when most homes were still illuminated by candles, oil or gas, Patti could switch on electric lamps inside her remote Welsh mansion.
The castle generated its own electricity, supplying power to Swan lamps and other equipment around the house.
It must have appeared almost futuristic to some of the people who visited and technology would later allow Patti to leave behind something even more extraordinary... Her voice.
Hearing Adelina Patti more than a century later
In 1905 and 1906, recording equipment was brought to Craig-y-Nos Castle so that Patti could make gramophone recordings from her own home. More than 30 disc recordings of songs and operatic arias were made, including her famous rendition of Home, Sweet Home.
That means this isn't simply a story where we have photographs, newspaper reports and buildings. We can actually hear her. Standing inside Craig-y-Nos and listening to Patti's voice today creates an incredible connection with the past. But there's another reason that particular song has become associated with the castle.
Craig-y-Nos has developed quite a reputation for paranormal activity over the years, with numerous stories connected to both Patti and the castle's later life as a hospital.
Former patients have even recalled stories about the so-called "White Lady", believed by some to have been the ghost of Adelina Patti.
One former child patient recalled seeing three women in old-fashioned dresses outside, while another story tells of a nervous young singer who believed a mysterious Victorian-looking woman encouraged her before a performance.
There are also modern stories linking paranormal activity at the castle with the playing of Patti's recording of Home, Sweet Home. Whether you believe any of it is another matter.
But when you're standing inside this enormous old castle listening to the voice of its former owner coming from a recording made more than 120 years ago, it certainly adds another layer to the atmosphere.
Beyond the castle
One of the things I wanted to do with this journey was get beyond Craig-y-Nos itself.
Because traces of Adelina Patti can still be found across the Swansea Valley.
That took me to St Cynog's Church in Ystradgynlais, a building with its own fascinating connection to Patti.
She and her second husband, French tenor Ernesto Nicolini, were married in 1886, and the celebrations surrounding their marriage became part of local folklore.
But inside the church is another strange reminder of Patti's story... a staircase that seemingly leads nowhere. Patti had intended to help fund a new bell tower for the church, but following a disagreement with the local clergyman the plan was never completed. Today, climbing those stairs brings you to a bricked-up doorway, a physical reminder of a project that never happened. And my visit revealed something else.
A pair of shoes connected to Patti, preserved more than a century after the woman who wore them walked these valleys. It's little discoveries like this that I love. Sometimes an old pair of shoes can make history feel far more real than dates written in a book.
A superstar with her own railway lifestyle
Patti's international career meant travelling regularly between Wales, London and the great cities of Europe and America. The railway therefore became an important part of her life at Craig-y-Nos.
Facilities at nearby Penwyllt station were improved for Patti, including a private waiting room, while the station later became closely associated with Craig-y-Nos. But my search for Patti's railway story eventually took me much further from home. Around 200 miles away, I went looking for an extraordinary survivor from the golden age of luxury railway travel:
GWR Special Saloon No. 9044.
Built as Saloon No. 248 in 1881, this luxurious carriage became associated with royalty and wealthy VIPs and importantly, Adelina Patti. Historical railway sources record the saloon being regularly used by Patti, with journeys to and from Craig-y-Nos forming part of its remarkable history. After decades of service, the carriage was condemned in the 1960s and could easily have disappeared forever. Instead, it survived.
Restoration stretched across more than half a century before the carriage was eventually restored at the Bodmin & Wenford Railway, with the completed restoration celebrated in 2013. Standing inside it gave me another tangible link to Patti's world. This was the Victorian equivalent of luxury celebrity travel, an executive private jet on rails and yet somehow it survives.
The gardens Patti left behind
Back at Craig-y-Nos, Patti and Nicolini didn't restrict their ambitions to the castle.
The surrounding estate was transformed too.
The landscaped grounds included lakes, gardens and places for entertainment, with the River Tawe running through this remarkable landscape. Today much of that former estate forms Craig-y-Nos Country Park. It's easy to walk through it without realising that you're moving through what was effectively the back garden of one of the world's most famous singers.
But one particularly important part of Patti's garden is no longer here. To find that, I had to head back towards Swansea. If you've ever driven past Victoria Park in Swansea, you've probably seen the Patti Pavilion. But you might not realise where it came from.
The structure began life as Patti's Winter Garden at Craig-y-Nos. It was a place where she could enjoy the surroundings of her estate beneath an impressive iron and glass structure.
Patti gifted the Winter Garden to Swansea and, after her death, it was dismantled and re-erected in Victoria Park, where it became the Patti Pavilion. Historical records place its re-erection in Swansea in 1920.
So a building many people in Swansea will have passed countless times is actually a surviving piece of Adelina Patti's Craig-y-Nos estate. More than a century later, her name remains attached to it.
The death of Adelina Patti
Adelina Patti died at Craig-y-Nos Castle on 27 September 1919, aged 76.
But even in death, her story took another unusual turn. Patti had expressed a wish to be buried in Paris.
Her embalmed body remained at Craig-y-Nos before beginning its final journey from Wales. Contemporary historical accounts record her coffin eventually being taken by special train through Neath and onwards towards London. She was ultimately buried at Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, close to her father and her favourite composer, Gioachino Rossini.
It meant the woman who had travelled the world before choosing Wales as her home would make one final journey away from Craig-y-Nos.
Patti's death wasn't the end of the story of Craig-y-Nos. Her third husband, Baron Rolf Cederström, later sold the estate and the castle entered an entirely different chapter. Craig-y-Nos became a tuberculosis sanatorium. Gone were the lavish parties and celebrity guests.
Instead, the rooms and grounds became home to patients battling one of the most feared diseases of the period. Before effective antibiotic treatments, fresh air, sunlight and prolonged rest were central elements of sanatorium treatment.
The castle that had once echoed with Patti's voice was now filled with patients, nurses and doctors. Research into the former sanatorium records how Craig-y-Nos cared particularly for children and young women during a period when tuberculosis rates in industrial South Wales were extremely high. It's one of the reasons Craig-y-Nos has so many layers of history.
Depending on which doorway you walk through, you can find yourself looking at the remnants of a Victorian superstar's mansion or evidence of its decades as a hospital.
Watch the full journey....
In my latest JC Explores film, I follow Adelina Patti's story from her rise to international superstardom to her remarkable life at Craig-y-Nos, before setting out to discover the buildings, objects and stories she left behind.
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