cy|'''Bron-Yr-Aur'''|breast of the gold|italic=no|paren=left, and by extension, 'hill of gold' or 'golden hill';[1] in Welsh pronounced as /brɔn ər ˈai̯r/) is a privately owned 18th-century cottage on the outskirts of Machynlleth in Montgomeryshire, mid-Wales, best known for its association with the English rock band Led Zeppelin. In 1970, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant went there and wrote many of the songs that appeared on the band's third and fourth studio albums.
During the 1950s, the cottage was used as a holiday home by the family of future Led Zeppelin vocalist Robert Plant.[2] [3] In 1970, Plant and guitarist Jimmy Page spent time there after a long and gruelling concert tour of North America. Though the cottage had no running water or electricity, they used it as a retreat to write and record some of their third album, Led Zeppelin III. Also in retreat at the cottage were Plant's wife Maureen and their 18-month-old daughter Carmen, Page's girlfriend Charlotte Martin, and Led Zeppelin roadies Clive Coulson and Sandy MacGregor.
Page explained:
According to the guitarist, the time spent at Bron-Yr-Aur in 1970
Led Zeppelin songs that can be traced to Plant and Page's time at Bron-Yr-Aur in 1970 include "Over the Hills and Far Away" and "The Crunge" (both from Houses of the Holy), "The Rover", "Bron-Yr-Aur" and "Down by the Seaside" (from Physical Graffiti), "Poor Tom" (released on Coda) and three they actually used on Led Zeppelin III: "Friends", "Bron-Y-Aur Stomp" and "That's the Way". There were also two songs recorded, called "Another Way To Wales" and "I Wanna Be Her Man", which were never officially released. A primitive recording of the latter song can be heard on bootleg label Antrabata's studio outtake sessions.[4]
When on stage at Page and Plant's Unledded reunion in 1994, Plant announced that Page's daughter, Scarlet Page, was conceived "about half an hour" after "That's the Way" was written at Bron-Yr-Aur.
Led Zeppelin used the name of the house in the title of two songs. "Bron-Y-Aur Stomp" (the house's name was accidentally misspelled on the album cover)" is a country music-inflected hoedown on Led Zeppelin III, in which Robert Plant sings about walking in the woods with Strider, his blue-eyed merle dog. An earlier, fully electric instrumental version of this song, "Jennings Farm Blues", was recorded at Olympic Studios in 1969 and included on a bootleg album of studio outtakes, Studio Gems. "Bron-Yr-Aur", by contrast, is a gentle, acoustic instrumental played by Page on six-string guitar. It appeared on the later album Physical Graffiti, and in the films Almost Famous and The Song Remains the Same.
On 16 June 2016, Page testified under oath, due to the legal proceedings regarding the rights to the song, that he wrote the acoustic guitar intro to "Stairway to Heaven" at Headley Grange, and not at Bron-Yr-Aur.[5]