15471

 

II  

Designated  

31/01/1995  

31/01/1995  

Caprera Cottage  

 

Gwynedd  

Barmouth  

 

Old Barmouth  

261546  

315673  

 

Located towards the top of the old town above Bron Eifion behind a small, dwarf-walled terrace.  

Domestic  

 

The cottage is one of the St. George's Guild Cottages and formed one of originally 13 units which formerly served a community founded by John Ruskin. From 1871 Ruskin published his socialist theories in a series of letters- the Fors Clavigera- which were addressed to `the working men of England.' In that year he founded the Guild of St. George, `a society established to carry out certain charitable acts,' and the community at Barmouth was his first social experiment. It was made possible by the donation in 1874 of the land and cottages by Mrs Talbot of Tyn-y-Fynnon, a friend of Ruskin's and a sympathiser with his beliefs. The rents for the cottages were fixed at between 35s and ú5 per year.  

A probably early C18 cottage, altered in the C19 and C20. Single storey plus attic; 2 window front. Of rubble with slate roofand rubble gable parapets with squat end chimney to L; weathercoursing. Plain modern boarded door to centre with flanking modernwindows. 2 large, high-set late C19 triangular dormers withpebble-dashed faces and modern windows as before.  

Inglenook with plain ingle beam and thin, crude beams to ceiling in ground floor room to L.  

Included despite window alterations as one of Ruskin's guild cottages and consequently of considerable socio-historic interest as a group.