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Click for examples of houses in the Chubut region featured on 04Wal:

The home of Ricardo and Sonia Irianni

The home of Luned Gonzalez and Tegai Roberts

Wales away from home
Aled and Greg travelled far to find traditional Welsh houses – all the way to ‘Y Wladfa’, the small corner of South America which has been home to a Welsh community for over 140 years. The two house detectives visited the homes built by the first Welsh settlers, and were amazed at what they found – untouched Welsh cottages, traditional farmsteads and chapels.

Greg says that it was the people they met that made their visit so special, particularly as they were in many ways the last of their kind. “Although many people can speak Welsh in Patagonia, those who speak it as their first language are few and far between. We’ve recorded the last of a generation in these programmes, and because many of them are elderly we’ve been able to capture their memories of ‘Yr Hen Ffordd Gymreig o Fyw’ (the Welsh way of life) in their homes.”

“We could easily have filmed a whole series out there,” adds Greg. “The landscape was full of untouched houses… and the people were so welcoming. They helped us uncover the history of the Welsh in the area.”

In the first programme of the series Greg and Aled visited Dyffryn Camwy, the area first colonised by the Welsh after they landed on the ship Mimosa in 1865. “The arid, flat landscape is like a desert,” recalls Greg. “I was really shocked by it, it’s so different to Wales – it’s real cowboy country! Life must have been hard, very hard, at first, and you can see this reflected in the simple, rustic cottages that the first settlers built.”


The first house in Gaiman
This stone house was built by David Roberts, from Llanfihangel y Pennant, in 1874. It follows a traditional Welsh design, although its external look has been changed since the original thatched roof was replaced by zinc. However, inside things are much as they were in the old days, as the building is now a museum.

Three generations of memories
This one storey house stands on a street in Gaiman named after Michael D. Jones - the man who inspired the Welsh emigration to Patagonia. Although the building is in the style characteristic of the valley, the windows were transported all the way from Wales. The whole house is infused with the history of the Welsh in Patagonia : in the kitchen there’s a lovely sampler that was devised by the owner’s grandmother on board the Mimosa on her journey from Liverpool to Argentina.

Hyde Park
Hyde Park farm was named after the town in Pennsylvania's coal-mining district from which the original immigrant family came to settle in Patagonia. The building dates from the 1890s, and its design is typical of Patagonian houses, with its four rooms in a square plan. But it also has Welsh features, such as the cupboards either side of the chimney.

Capel Salem
This small chapel was built in 1912, and although it's clad in zinc on the outside, on the inside it has exactly the same feel as a Welsh chapel back in the old country.

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