Gwelfryn

Location

On the E side of the road through Minllyn to Ysgol Gynradd Dinas Mawddwy.

History

Minllyn is a planned village associated with the anticipated expansion of industrial enterprises in the Mawddwy area, particularly the development of the slate industry. This was first established around 1800, including some metal extraction, proceeded with the development of a tramway to connect to the Mawddwy Railway, brought to Aberangell after 1865. The impetus came from Edmund Buckley, whose father, a wealthy Manchester industrialist, purchased the estate in 1856. He intended to develop Dinas Mawddwy as a model village, with new education facilities, a hotel, and chapels, served by the railway which was officially opened in 1868, the year he was elevated to the baronetage. Once the main road was diverted out of Dinas Mawddwy, Buckley built a mansion, Plas Dinas in 1864-7, Minllyn Cottages, 1868, and Mawddwy Terraces, 1870-76, all for his estate and industrial workers.

Exterior

Belongs to a group of Nos 7-14 Mawddwy Terrace.

The terrace of 8 worker's cottages is built in mountain-Gothic style with selected local slate laid on bed and has slate roofs. Two cottages, bilaterally symmetrical, form a large gable at each end, set slightly forward to master the central cottages. Each cottage has a 4-paned half-glazed door with plain overlight, and 4-paned horned sash windows to both floors, allow within triangular heads of shale voussoirs, and the upper floor windows in the central cottages set within five large raised and gabled dormers. Deep eaves throughout and extended purlins and ridge with shaped ends. Stone stacks on party walls, with necking string and outsetting heads. The large gable ends has decorative timber framing in the upper half. The internal partitions are said to be of slate slabs set on end, another innovation of Buckley and his architect, James Stephens.

The house, which forms the N side of the N end gable of the terrace, was probably originally designed as a shop for the village, the shop front radically altered in the 1950s to include a modern flush uPVC plate glass window.

Reason for designation

Included, notwithstanding alterations to some doors and windows, as one of a group of buildings in Minllyn retaining robust mountain gothic character and demonstrating the hopes of a wealthy indsutrialist to establish a planned town based economically on local industries, in mid Wales. Part of a carefully planned estate village, and of group value with other buildings in Minllyn.