Bron-yr-Aur - a Welsh farm cottage where the famous band crafted their legendary acoustic gem's not exactly a Stairway To Heaven – more a long driveway that needs a lot of maintenance, leading 500ft up a steep hill.
The Welsh former farmer’s cottage at the top of the slope dating back to around 1790 that later inspired a seismic shift in rock music.
The idyllic setting, and particularly its limitations, caused Led Zeppelin’s guitarist Jimmy Page and Robert Plant to turn down the volume for which they had become renowned, as they began crafting some legendary acoustic gems on tape while on retreat there in 1970, during a real purple patch of creativity.
Led Zep had no choice but to pipe down at Bron-yr-Aur, which overlooks the Dyfi Valley near Machynlleth, as it simply had no electricity.
Page and Plant, there with their partners, plus a couple of roadies to collect firewood and water, fell in love with the tumbledown place.
They found a new pastoral sound in the dramatic landscapes that they would later fuse with their awesome thunder, to legendary effect. Their stay is reflected directly in two songs: the misspelt hoedown Bron-Y-Aur Stomp*, that would appear almost immediately on the band’s Led Zeppelin III record, and Page’s flowing solo instrumental Bron-Yr-Aur, that added an extra dimension to the already-kaleidoscopic 1975 double album Physical Graffiti.
Other low-volume classics That’s The Way, Tangerine and Friends were penned there, while work began within the stone walls on later anthems including Over The Hills And Far Away, The Rover and Down By The Seaside.
According to Zep biographer Mick Rock, the group’s most-revered masterpiece Stairway To Heaven also began to see the light of day there, amid the candles and Calor gas that substituted for modern power in the cottage.
Swapped at birth ?