Man buys ‘baby castle’ dream home, and he can even call himself a lord
IT’S often said that a man’s home is his castle – and for one man living just outside Abergavenny, that’s especially true.
Wales is full of amazing homes that range from the quirky to the spectacular. From million-pound mansions to quaint fairy tale cottages, the country is full of homes to spark interest and envy, whatever your taste.
For Mok O’Keefe, home is a “baby castle” just outside Abergavenny – that even came with its own title. Mok lives in Twr Mihangel with his husband, Joe, and their three dogs after moving into the property in June 2021.
Having been interested in historic houses his whole life, Mok, 52, says he never saw his community represented within them. As a result, he was inspired to set up his own social media accounts, Gay Aristo, to share the untold stories of the LGBTQ+ aristocrats and gentry.
Alongside his Instagram account, where he posts reels discussing LGBTQ+ figures throughout history, Mok also posts videos to his YouTube channel. Now, Mok, who is also a fellow at Windsor Castle, gets to live in his own historic home.
The term “baby castle” was used to refer to the property in an article in Country Life when it went up for sale, Mok told us.
“There’s the main house which is kind of like 1600s which was sort of a Welsh long house, which was part of the big house that’s round here – Llanvihangel Court,” Mok said.
“Then there is rather interestingly an extension – I call it an extension. There’s a huge sort of turret plonked on the end of this 16th-century long house.”
The “baby castle” is registered with Cadw as Elizabethan, with Mok saying the house was sold to them as an “Elizabethan turret.”
He continued: “But we’ve carried out some research. It didn’t really appear on the maps until about 1870, so we think it’s a Victorian extension and that craze for Gothic architecture at the time that they built the turret on the end as a bit of an eye-catcher for the big house which is a couple of fields away.”
The Tudor country house, Llanvihangel Court, remains a private house, occasionally open to the public, and is a Grade I listed building. Its stable block is also Grade I and the garden house, originally one of two on the site of a former walled garden, is listed Grade II*.
The “baby castle”, where Mok lives, has its own history, once acting as the village school and later as a prisoner of
war camp for Italian prisoners during World War II.
“We’ve got some scratchings inside on the fireplace that we believe may be ‘witches scratchings’ to try and protect the house from witches coming through the chimney,” Mok said. “We have heard tales of a ghost that picked people up and took them down the stairs.
“Neighbours have seen a small boy sitting at the window when there’s been no one home – but I haven’t seen a ghost or been picked up. I’ve heard a couple of noises late in the night and I’ve just said, ‘Look, if you are there, you’ve been here a lot longer than me, you’ve been here a lot longer after me, so let’s just rub along together and get on.”
Born to Irish parents who met in London, Mok says he has a “long personal association with Wales”, having spent childhood holidays in Mumbles, Swansea.
After meeting husband Joe, who is from Tonypandy, the pair decided to make the move back to Wales, eventually finding their current home.
“I’ve always come to Wales, all my life. I did my A-level geography project down here in Wales on the Gower Peninsula, Langland Bay and Caswell Bay. I’ve always loved Wales,” Mok said.
During lockdown, Mok said Joe expressed a desire to move closer to his family, and they decided to look in Wales.
The couple originally had plans to buy in Carmarthenshire, but that fell through.
Mok continued: “We’d seen this house, Tower Mihangel, when we’d already agreed to buy the other house – and we loved it. I remember sending it to my niece and saying ‘Wouldn’t it be amazing to live in a baby castle?’”
After three months, the plans to buy the Carmarthenshire property fell through and Mok and Joe were living in temporary accommodation. However, it was then that Tower Mihangel came back on the market. Mok saw the property in Country Life, texted Joe, and rang the estate agents.
“We saw it on the Monday, brought my in-laws to see it on Monday afternoon, by Wednesday we had agreed a figure, it was off the market, and six weeks later it was ours,” he said. “I think it’s fate, we were supposed to come here to this amazing village to be near my in-laws, to renovate just under two acres of garden and to explore history.”
While he was unaware at the time, Mok says the house came with a Lord of the Manor title, which he says is “quite hilarious”. Mok added that he doesn’t use the title, but is technically the Lord of Glenbach.
He continued: “At school, I was bullied and called ‘gay lord’. They used to shout it at me in the corridor and I think it’s quite funny now that I am, in fact, a gay lord – a very happy, out, and proud gay lord.”
He added: “I think it’s quite funny that my father came here with £1.50 from Ireland and then however many years later his son lives in a baby castle in Wales with the Lord of Glenbach title. Things change, it’s hilarious.”
Twr Mihangel, based in Llanvihangel Crucorney, offers a view over the Skirrid Mountain and is just a stone’s throw away from the Skirrid Mountain Inn – which has its own supernatural reputation. “We have a shop, a church, a petrol station and a pub – what more do you want in a village?” Mok said.
Mok said the house was sold in the 1800s as a “gentleman’s residence”, meaning it was classed as a “small country house, sufficient enough for a professional single man, maybe with one or two manservants or a maid.”
He added: “I like the term and I like the fact that my husband and I live here now and it’s gone back to being a ‘gentleman’s residence’ – I think that’s quite funny.”
Mok says he has loved history “all [his] life” but as a gay man never really saw himself represented in it. He said: “I’d go to National Trust properties, I’d go to Cadw properties when I was on holiday here in Wales, or visit – not always stately homes – small cottages going around Ireland. But I never really saw any LGBTQ+ history there.”
He added that two things inspired him to start up the Gay Aristo. One, he recalls, was a history lesson he remembers being in as a 15-year-old where his teacher was talking about Lord Castlereagh.
“As a son of Irish immigrants, I was interested in the Lord Castlereagh story because he was very involved in the Acts of Union in Ireland,” Mok said.
He added that he remembered his tutor referring to Lord Castlereagh as a “troubled man and that he committed suicide – but we’ll move on from that”.
“It just struck me as really odd that someone who had been so powerful, who was involved in the cabinet, who was incredibly wealthy – I consider, incredibly good-looking – suddenly committed suicide,” Mok said.
As an adult, Mok says that he found out that Castlereagh had said that he was being blackmailed for an alleged homosexual offence.
At a meeting with the King on August 9, 1822, Castlereagh said he was being mysteriously watched by a servant, that he had committed all manner of crimes, and remarked: “I am accused of the same crime as the Bishop of Clogher.” Percy Jocelyn, who had been the Bishop of Clogher until the previous month, was prosecuted for homosexuality. On August 12, Castlereagh took his own life.
“If my tutor had had a conversation about gay shame, about prejudice, about inclusion, I might have had a very different experience as a teenager,” Mok said. “Castlereagh stuck with me for 35 years, and I never really knew why. I knew something was odd.”
Last year, Mok says he took some time out to think about his future career and, because of his love of history, looked into doing a history course.
He applied for a Masters in Country House studies at the University of Buckingham, which he is still studying, where he has had lectures from historian Lucy Worsley and Charles Spencer – the brother of Diana, Princess of Wales.
“As I started to investigate and hear more about these stories, I started to realise that LGBTQ+ history is undiscovered and has potentially been edited out of history. So I decided to put that right by writing my [dissertation] thesis on the country house as a refuge for queer folk,” Mok said.
“I thought I’d start a little Instagram account, just to share with my husband, my three nieces and a couple of friends this new history that I was learning – the LGBTQ+ history – to shine a loving light on an undiscovered history. It really took off.”
Within a couple of months of setting up the account, Mok says he had almost 6,000 followers. He subsequently set up a YouTube channel to produce more detailed videos on LGBTQ+ history and, while he initially focused on the undiscovered history behind stately homes, he has broadened his coverage, recently producing a video on Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM).
“What I’m trying to do constantly is say, ‘There’s some lessons from history. Here’s some LGBTQ+ facts from history you probably didn’t know.’”
Mok added that accessibility is important to him when it comes to history, leading him to use social media to post about the stories he finds.
“History is written, generally, by straight white men, that’s the first thing and they write lots of history books. To make sure that history remains in people’s minds and we learn lessons from history, you have to make it accessible,” he said.
Over 35% of Mok’s audience are under 35 years old.
“It’s not a boring book that you have to sit and read,” he said. “It’s a 90-second reel on Instagram that you might be able to watch as you wait for your bus to school in the morning, or as you’re queueing up at the McDonald’s drive-thru.”
Mok also releases bi-monthly episodes of “mini TV shows” on his YouTube channel that go into more detail.
“I want it to be really inclusive, so we’re doing anything from Edward II through to Welsh miners,” he said.
Mok says that he has “a couple of Welsh heroes” throughout history, including Lady Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby, known as the Ladies of Llangollen. Sarah and Eleanor lived in Ireland and formed a close bond that lasted the rest of their lives. The two women secretly fled to North Wales in 1778 to set up home together and received visitors such as the Duke of Wellington and William Wordsworth.
“We don’t know whether or not they were lovers,” Mok said. “But we know their relationship was very intense. We know it was ‘queer’ in terms that it was out of the ordinary. I love the fact that those two fought against the conventions of their time for love, that they were willing to move country for love.
“I love that fact that they called their new home ‘Plasnewydd’ - ‘new place’ – to establish their new life. I love the fact that simply by loving each other and creating a home for each other, they challenged people’s perceptions of what it was like to have a romantic friendship, or to have a lesbian relationship. I love the fact that they quietly went forward, lived their lives, and changed people’s attitudes.”
Mok added that he has “huge respect” for the Lesbian and Gays Support the Miners group and the relationship they had with Wales.
“When I was doing the research, what people talked about is the fact that it really opened their mind beyond the [Welsh] Valleys. They met and talked to and saw worlds that were very far away from their own, which is why when the Lesbian and Gays Support the Miners came down to Wales, they were actually invited in.”
He continued: “Most of the mining community were very positive towards them, didn’t show discrimination, and welcomed their support. I love the fact that [there were] people looking beyond where they are in life, looking beyond their immediate social or historical backgrounds, looking outwards, can be inclusive and ultimately change the world.
“That’s what I want to do with the Gay Aristo – I want to share stories that people may not have heard. I want to add a new layer to a story they may have some familiarity with, but ultimately I want to create a world that’s more inclusive and get to the point where I’m not talking about gay history, I’m just talking about history.”