The entrance is reached along the Cliff Path, now renamed "Dylan’s Walk", and through the front garden to the door on the first floor. The path through the garden used by Dylan no longer exists, although remains of it may be seen towards the edge of the garden closest to the river.

The first floor included the Parlour, the bedroom of the oldest child, Llewelyn, now the reception area and bookshop, and the bathroom.

A staircase leads down to the basement where the kitchen and sitting room were found. These are now the kitchen and the tearoom. There is a rear door that gives onto the garden.

The top floor included two bedrooms, that of Dylan and Caitlin, and that of Aeronwy and Colm. Dylan’s bedroom now houses the display area with a rich collection of exhibits, while in the smaller room a video on Dylan Thomas is shown.

THE PARLOUR
The parlour was the best room in the house, where special guests would be received. It was a formal room, not the living room for the family. The parlour has been restored to what it would probably have been like when Dylan and Caitlin lived here. It is the parlour of a household with little money and which is at the same time both rather bohemian and middle-class.

The furniture, family photographs and the numerous smaller items in the parlour are mainly from the 1940’s and the 1950’s. Of particular interest is the desk near the door. This belonged to Dylan’s father and was given to Dylan. It was originally in Dylan’s birthplace, Cwmdonkin Drive, in Swansea.

Other pieces of furniture brought from Cwmdonkin Drive include the blue-backed armchair, the chaise longue and the slatted-back chair. This particular chair was remembered clearly by one of the home help girls at Cwmdonkin who visited the Boat House after Dylan’s death. She said it was the only chair on which the servants were allowed to sit.

The folding writing desk and much of the rest of the furniture belonged to Dylan’s mother and were brought to the house when she lived there between 1954 and 1958. The coffee table was found in the writing shed in 1980 and was probably part of the Thomas household.

Apart from the material objects, it is the light, the silence and especially the views which give insight into the world of Dylan Thomas. The room has windows on three sides, giving views over the water and the surrounding hills. The room is perched high above water and mud-flats and captures constantly the sounds of the birds and the shifting light on the landscape.

A few moments spent in the quiet in this room, listening to the voice of Dylan reading his own poems, offer a privileged experience and a glimpse of the extraordinary quality of Dylan’s work. For it is his work that is important, beyond all the scandal and gossip and hype that surrounds the man.

THE UPSTAIRS BEDROOMS AND THE DISPLAY FACILITIES
The two upstairs rooms offer both a video presentation and an interpretative display of books, photographs, letters and documents and explanatory panels.
Among the many objects of interest, there is the famous portrait of Dylan as a young man. This is the original photograph signed by Dylan and dedicated "For Pamela and Neil and Mrs J with all my love. Dylan. Christmas 1936." The Pamela in question is Pamela Hansford Johnson, a poet and novelist. She and Dylan corresponded in the 1930’s, and eventually friendship and love grew. Dylan visited Pamela in London frequently, and Pamela and her mother visited Swansea. Dylan hoped to marry Pamela, but she was concerned about his drinking habits and about his unreliability and declined his proposal. Pamela later married the eminent scientist and novelist C. P. Snow, later Lord Snow, author of The Corridors of Power and a minister in the Labour Government of 1964.

Incidentally, when NASA, the American Space Agency, was collecting cultural icons to send into space they selected this portrait to make the journey!
Other notable objects include a drawing by Dylan, a pair of his cuff-links and the death mask of Dylan by David Slivka. This mask formerly belonged to Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. After the death of Richard Burton, the mask was included in the sale of some of his belongings, and the purchaser brought the mask to Laugharne to place it in the Boat House.

HARBOUR AND TERRACE
The terrace to the rear of the house may originally have been used as a harbour or dry dock. Until recently the river would cover the terrace, reaching up to the house at high tide, and indeed still does so in particularly high tides. Originally a door led to a path along the water’s edge to the town. This has now been closed off, although the traces of the entrance can still be seen.

THE WRITING SHED
When Dylan worked here, the shed contained a table, a chair and a chest of drawers. A coal-fired stove provided heating in cold weather. On the walls were photographs of his favourite authors and a few reproductions of paintings and photographs. On the floor were the numerous drafts that he discarded as he sat, staring out of the window, copying out his work time and time again as he struggled to find exactly what he wanted.

After extensive restoration, the shed today is largely as it was in Dylan’s time. The structure itself is as it was. The chairs and the table are belonged to the Thomas family. Most importantly, the view is still as breathtaking and almost as unspoilt as when Dylan lived here. The sources of his inspiration can be experienced directly by visitors today.

Almost immediately after arriving in Laugharne in 1949, Dylan started to write again. He adopted as his place of work the shed alongside the path that led from the town to the Boat House. Here, perched high above the estuary, at a safe distance from his family and conveniently placed to slip away to the town and the pub, Dylan was inspired by the dramatic views and by the life that he saw unroll before him.

In this shed, Dylan wrote many of his finest works. The first poem he wrote was "Over Sir John’s Hill" in which he describes the view from the shed, and in which he talks of birds stalking their prey and bringing death in the midst of this beauty. Life, death, beauty, tragedy, eternity and God: Dylan could see them all from his window in this unique place.

After his first trip to America, other poems followed. "In the white giant’s thigh", "In Country Heaven", "Poem on his Birthday", "Do not go gentle into that good night" and "Elegy" were all crafted in the silence of the writing shed, and in the increasingly destructive despair that was overtaking Dylan.

Unhappy and unable to control his life, Dylan asserted that he would write only of "universal happiness". Under Milk Wood, his radio play set in a caricatural Welsh village and based on various villages Dylan had known but mainly on Laugharne, sprang joyously from his dark days in his shed.

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