Full Report for Listed Buildings
The list description is not intended to be a complete inventory of what is listed: it is principally intended to aid identification. By law, the definition of a listed building includes the entire building (i) and any structure or object that is fixed to the said building and ancillary to it and (ii) any other structure or object that forms part of the land and has done so since before 1 July 1948, and was within the curtilage of the building, and ancillary to it, on the date on which said building was first included in the list, or on 1 January 1969, whichever was later.
Summary Description
Reference Number
19605
Building Number
Grade
II
Status
Designated
Date of Designation
01/04/1998
Date of Amendment
01/04/1998
Name of Property
Engine-house Tower by Tower Cottage
Address
Location
Unitary Authority
Gwynedd
Community
Llanengan
Town
Pwllheli
Locality
Penrhyndu
Easting
232258
Northing
326235
Street Side
Location
Situated some 250m NNW of Penrhynmawr farmhouse to W of track leading on to Penrhyndu headland.
Description
Broad Class
Industrial
Period
History
Engine house of Cornish type for a steam-powered pumping engine for the Penrhyndu lead mine. The tower may have been built in the late C18 for a Newcomen type engine and altered in the early to mid C19 to take a Boulton & Watt type beam engine. There is no visible chimney, but this would probably have been detached and it is suggested that Tower Cottage may have been a separate boiler house. Lead mining at Penrhyndu may go back to Roman times, there were workings owned by Cymer Abbey in the Middle Ages. Mining is mentioned in 1668 and 1734, Messrs Roe of Macclesfield were working the mine from the 1760s to the early C19. In 1785 John Cartwright and three others erected an engine to drain the mine, but Edward Hyde Hall in 1809-11 found all mining ceased. In 1828 Messrs Williams of Gwennap, Cornwall took over, running the mine to 1839. There was a successful find in 1869, and the mine operated until 1892. In the C19 owned by the Assheton-Smith family of Vaynol.
Exterior
Cornish engine-house, rubble stone, roofless. Tall square tower with gabled rear, flat-topped side walls and front large square upper opening for balance-beam. Doorway in front with timber lintel, left side has window to ground floor right and first floor centre, right side has door to left. Rear has blocked ground floor opening and windows first floor and loft. Side walls are stepped in at first floor.
Interior
Roofless and floorless, holes for floor beams visible, walls stepped out at first floor sides. There are indications of alterations.
Reason for designation
One of the very few mine engine houses of the Cornish type built in Wales.
Cadw : Full Report for Listed Buildings [ Records 1 of 1 ]
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