Historical background
Though the fourteenth century Record of Caernarvon records
eight free gafaelion (holdings) in the township of Dwygyfylchi
, maps of the eighteenth century reveal the paucity of settlement
along this coastal strip, though a small nucleated settlement
may have existed around St Gwynan's church and at the foot
of the road through the Sychnant pass. The local family of
consequence in the eighteenth century were a branch of the
Coetmors, and lived at Ty Mawr. Their last survivor sold the
estate to one George Thomas Smith, who constructed a new house
called Pendyffryn nearly two away, thereby earning the praise
of Edmund Hyde Hall for having
given "a polish and a social look to a tract that was
heretofore sufficiently desolate."Pendyffryn was later
inhabited by Samuel Dukinfield Darbishire, secretary of the
Chester and Holyhead Railway Company, who was responsible for
much of the subsequent development of Penmaenmawr as a community.
The existing settlements at Penmaenmawr and Dwygyfylchi both
expanded rapidly in the nineteenth century. At Penmaenmawr
an initial quarry-workers' settlement of 1838 on the newly-built
post road grew into a substantial town, housing both holidaymakers
and quarry families.
Key historic landscape characteristics
Quarry workers' settlement, resort development, pre-modern
nucleated community, colonnaded walkways, and use of Penmaenmawr
granite
The town of Penmaenmawr is characterised by quarry workers'
dwellings, which predominate in the western half of the town,
and by holiday villas, boarding houses and hotels, which predominate
in the eastern half. The east-west axes of the Telford post
road, the Chester to Holyhead main line railway, and the modern
A55 dominate the settlement, and the courses of the former
quarry inclines, one of which is in re-use for a conveyor belt
system to a sorting plant at the railway station, pass through
the residential areas.
The town includes a wide variety of workers' housing, ranging
from the very simple early buildings at New York , the Lancashire-style
terraced housing at David Street and Erasmus Street , and the
attractive range of buildings for staff employees at St David's
Terrace. These, and their associated community infrastructure,
reflect the paternalistic regime of the Darbishire family at
the quarry.
The resort buildings are for the most part late nineteenth
and early twentieth century, and are laid out following the
lie of the land. The broad but winding street from the railway
station to the main shopping area on the post road is especially
prominent, but other streets in this part of the settlement
are narrow as well as winding. The main street is noted for
its covered walkways, supported by cast-iron pillars, in imitation
of Llandudno.
The dominant building material for both the quarry and the
resort dwellings is Penmaenmawr granite, though there is considerable
use of glazed Rhiwabon brick for decorative work. Slate is
the dominant roofing material, but there is some use of tile.
The smaller nucleated community at Dwygyfylchi to the east
is made up partly of villa style architecture of the late nineteenth
and early twentieth century and a modern housing estate, interspersed
with older agricultural buildings and a cluster of nineteenth
century dwellings at the foot of the road over the Sychnant
pass to Conwy. The substantial Regency dwelling Pendyffryn
survives as an office complex and a social centre for the caravan
park established on its demesne. A golf-course has been laid
out north of the Old Conwy Road .
Back to Creuddyn
and Arllechwedd Landscape Character Map
