Page Places: Bron-Yr-Aur Cottage

Although I haven't been there yet, I think this is an appropriate time to profile one of the seminal locations in Led Zeppelin lore; the small cottage in Wales known as Bron-Yr-Aur.

Bron-Yr-Aur as it appears today

Bron-Yr-Aur, pronounced "bronrar" is loosely translated from Welsh to mean either "Hill of the Gold" or "Golden Hill" or "Breast of Gold" or Golden Breast"; Welsh is a tricky language. The cottage is situated in the backwoods region of South Snowdonia, Wales and was built sometime in the 18th century and was devoid of running water or electricity. Robert Plant and his family had previously visited the cottage when he was a boy in the 1950's. In 1970 after a stint of grueling tours across America, with the memories of it's quaint setting, and solitude in his mind, Plant invited Page to vacation with him and suggested Bron-Yr-Aur.

Jimmy Page recalled later to Uncut Magazine, "Robert (Plant) and I went to Bron-Yr-Aur in 1970. We'd been working solidly right up to that point. Even recordings were done on the road. We had this time off and Robert suggested the cottage. I certainly hadn't been to that area of Wales. So we took our guitars down there and played a few bits and pieces. This wonderful countryside, panoramic views and having the guitars ... it was just an automatic thing to be playing. And we started writing."

Robert Plant also recalled the situation surrounding the trip to Bron-Yr-Aur. "Zeppelin was starting to get very big and we wanted the rest of our journey to take a very level course. Hence the trip into the mountains and the beginning of the ethereal Page and Plant. I thought we’d be able to get a little peace and quiet and get your actual Californian, Marin County blues — which we managed to do in Wales rather than San Francisco."

Page and Plant walking around near Bron-Yr-Aur

In addition the singer and the guitarist decided to also bring along a select group of people to accompany them. Plant brought Carmen, his 18 month old daughter and his wife Maureen while Page brought his girlfriend Charlotte Martin. Also tagging along were Led Zeppelin roadies Clive Coulson and Sandy MacGregor, who were their to attend to the needs of the two men and their companions.

Page recalled that the retreat "was the first time I really came to know Robert [Plant]. Actually living together at Bron-Yr-Aur, as opposed to occupying nearby hotel rooms. The songs took us into areas that changed the band, and it established a standard of travelling for inspiration... which is the best thing a musician can do." The two truly bonded over the trip, before, Jimmy Page had been the undisputed leader of the group, at a higher station than the rest of the band, but while at Bron-Yr-Aur, Page and Plant established a creative partnership that elevated him in Jimmy's eyes, and was the beginning of a bonanza of creative and world altering music that would be accredited to "Page & Plant."

A bevy of new songs would emerge from the trip to Bron-Yr-Aur that would find their way on to official Led Zeppelin releases, including, "Stairway to Heaven", "Over the Hills and Far Away" and "The Crunge", "The Rover", "Bron-Yr-Aur", "Down by the Seaside", "Poor Tom", "Friends", "Bron-Y-Aur Stomp" and "That's the Way". In addition, they also created and recorded two songs, "Another Way To Wales" and "I Wanna Be Her Man", which were never officially released, but can be heard on various bootlegs.

Robert Plant at Bron-Yr-Aur

 Naturally, as there was no electricity, all the songs were originally drafted on an acoustic guitar and either kept that way, or were re-worked later on with electric instruments. "Stairway to Heaven" originated in this fashion as John Paul Jones recalled, "Page and Plant would come back from the Welsh mountains with the guitar intro and verse. I literally heard it in front of a roaring fire in a country manor house (Headly Grange)! I picked up a bass recorder and played a run-down riff which gave us an intro, then I moved into a piano for the next section, dubbing on the guitars."

The trip to the cottage really inspired much of the tone and atmosphere of the band's third album as Jimmy Page recollected, "Robert and I went away and were in a cottage with no electricity. We had battery recorders and were writing in a more mellow way so when the third album came out as mellow music, they couldn’t understand what it was all about."

Jimmy Page at Bron-Yr-Aur

Incidentally, Robert Plant mentioned on the 1994 Page & Plant tour that Jimmy's daughter Scarlet was conceived at Bron-Yr-Aur about half an hour after the two men wrote the song "That's the Way".

Jimmy and his daughter Scarlet with Uncle Bonzo