22646

 

II  

Designated  

04/11/1999  

04/11/1999  

Bryn-brith  

 

Gwynedd  

Llanddeiniolen  

Caernarfon  

Dinorwic  

259323  

362610  

 

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 process of enclosure was initially contested by existing squatters on the common, including several quarrymen and their wives during the 'riot' of 1809.  

Single-storey 2-room plan, aligned roughly north-east to south-west. Irregularly coursed rubblestone with extensive traces of render; graded slate roof with coped verges. Front has windows (joinery largely gone at time of Survey) with slate cills on either side of slightly offset boarded door; integral end stacks with slate drips. In poor condition.  

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.