Pen-y-llyn

Cadw's description

Location

Set in its own stone-walled small field system in roadside location on moorland edge; spectacular backdrop of waste heaps from Penrhyn Slate Quarry with mountain scenery beyond.

History

Not shown on the 1839 Tithe Map, the cottage is likely to have been built c1860 as a quarryman's cottage with its own small parcel of land forming a smallholding, coinciding with a period of expansion at the Penrhyn Slate Quarry. The size and standard of the accommodation in the cottage itself is very similar to that provided by the Estate for its workers in the terraced cottages at Mynydd Llandygai. In addition to Pen-y-llyn there are several other smallholdings of similar type, although now much altered, on the road between Mynydd Llandygai and Bryn Eglwys.

Exterior

Single-storey 2-room plan, aligned roughly east-west. Roughcast rubblestone with purple/brown brick window surrounds; slate roof with purple/brown brick coping. Front has tall windows (sheeted over at time of Survey) on either side of central slate porch with ogee-pointed outer arch; rendered integral end stacks. Full-length catslide outshut to rear.

Interior

Interior not accessible at time of Survey.

Reason for designation

Included as the well-preserved cottage of a quarryman's smallholding associated with the post-1840 phase of Estate-authorised settlement linked to the Douglas-Pennant family's continued development of the Penrhyn Slate Quarry; the cottage (together with its outbuildings) is particularly important in that it shows this process could take place on an individual smallholding basis as well as in group form, as at Mynydd Llandygai.