22645

 

II  

Designated  

04/11/1999  

04/11/1999  

Parc-y-garnedd  

 

Gwynedd  

Llanddeiniolen  

Caernarfon  

Dinorwic  

259066  

362577  

 

Situated at end of short track in remote moorland-edge location on eastern side of minor road leading north from Dinorwic to join the road from Deiniolen to Mynydd Llandegai; set in its own stone-walled small field system.  

Domestic  

 

Shown on the 1838 Tithe Map, the cottage is likely to have been built as part of a smallholding created after 1814: the Enclosure Award of that year, following the Enclosure Act promoted by Thomas Assheton Smith the first (1752-1828) in 1806-08, allotted to the Vaynol Estate most of the mountain common close to his Dinorwic Slate Quarry. These holdings were typically of between 3 and 10 acres (1.2 and 4ha), characterised by the regular pattern of their field boundaries and enabled the quarrymen and their families to supplement their paid income by engaging in subsistence agriculture. While the plots were laid out by the Estate, the quarrymen themselves were responsible for building the cottages; the enclosure process was initially contested by existing squatters on the common, including several quarrymen and their wives during the 'riot' of 1809.  

Single-storey 2-room cottage, aligned roughly north-east to south-west with taller gabled barn, attached by single-storey link section, projecting to north-west. Roughly coursed rubblestone, lime plastered to cottage and link; slate roofs. Cottage has windows on either side of boarded door offset to right, left with joinery missing, right with damaged 4-paned sash; integral end stacks with slate drips, left heightened in red brick, right incorporated in link section. This has a lateral stack to front wall on left and 4-paned sash to right in angle with rubblestone hay barn, which has square opening in upper part of front gable, blank left return wall and lean-to addition on right. In poor condition at time of Survey.  

Interior not accessible at time of Survey.  

Included, notwithstanding its poor condition, as an essentially well-preserved and largely unaltered early C19 quarryman's cottage typical of the type authorised by Thomas Assheton Smith as part of his development of the Dinorwic Slate Quarry after c1814. The cottage forms part of a group of these buildings on the moorland edge near Dinorwic, a classic illustration of the way in which this major landowner sought to control the process of settlement associated with the exploitation of the Dinorwic quarries and encourage the development of marginal land.