Cae Glas, Llanfrothen – A House History

Items in this story:

Introduction

The 'new' house at Cae Glas (Ty Newydd), situated in the old county of Meirionydd, is an early example of a Snowdonian house and was one of the houses studied by the Dating Old Welsh Houses community-based history project, when it was tree-ring dated to 1548. The bwythyn (cottage) to its side is even earlier.

This house history tells the story of Cae Glas: its historical features as a Snowdonian house, its owners and its many tenants and their changing occupants from the 16th century to the present day.

The Snowdonian House

“Snowdonia Houses are houses of which we can all be proud. These are houses which look as if they have grown out of the rocky landscape in which they sit.” Alex Samuel, Presenter of Cartrefi Cefn Gwlad Cymru (Houses of the Welsh Countryside), 2010.

The Snowdonian house has some claim to be the earliest type of storeyed (with an upper floor) house in Wales, it is regionally distinctive and concentrated in the historic counties of Meirionydd and Caernarfonshire. It was a new kind of house that was being built locally from the mid 1500’s by the gentry classes. The main features are shown in this cutaway drawing by Peter Smith. The house is a 'two-unit' dwelling, that is, the ground floor is divided into two parts on either side of the entrance passage. The ground floor usually had a large hall or kitchen on one side of the entrance and two smaller screened outer rooms, cold parlour and dairy/pantry, on the other side of the entry. The hall/kitchen had a large gable-end fireplace which was the focus of the room. Typically, to one side of the fireplace there was a winding stone stair that led to the upper floor. There were two chambers on the first floor: the smaller chamber at the head of the stairs led to into the principal chamber beyond. The principal chamber was heated by a gable-end fireplace and the room may have had an ornate open truss and (as in the drawing) cusped windbraces. The combination of stone walling with robust and high-quality interior carpentry is one of the characteristic features of the Snowdonian house. With its end chimneys, offset doorway, and diamond-mullioned windows it was a very distinctive building, especially when contrasted with its long and low hall-house predecessors. 

Cae Glas is an early version of the Snowdonian house and features all these characteristics. Its cross-passage was fully screened with post-and-panel partitions between the outer rooms and the hall. The first floor was open to the roof with two trusses of collar-beam type and two tiers of cusped wind-braces. The principal chamber has a corbelled fireplace (supported on stone brackets) and there is a voissoir-headed (arch made of stones) doorway opening on the cross-passage. The drawings below show the house and the cottage at Cae Glas from different angles.

The first owners of Cae Glas

The first evidence of ownership of Cae Glas is found in the Mostyn estate papers in which is recorded a John ap Rhydderch Owen of Llanfrothen in 1608. We know that this was a gentry family with connections to the large estates of Wern and Parc, both also in the parish of Llanfrothen. In 1638 there is a letter from John ap Rudderch Owen at Croysor [Croesor] in which he writes to Maurice Wynn at Gwydir giving an account of various chief rents. We know that Maurice Wynn’s brother Sir John Wynn enclosed part of the commons of Llanfrothen. Rhydderch Owen died in 1691, and we have his will which contains various bequests to his children: John, Margaret and Owen, and a Lowry Rhydderch who may have been his wife.  His will has an inventory of the substantial farm stock at Cae Glas which includes 22 cattle, 30 sheep and 24 goats. It seems that his son Owen inherits Cae Glas on his death and, around 1704, the detached, 3-bay cowhouse is built by him. Owen Rhydderch died in 1710 and, as it appears he had no sons, his eldest daughter Ellen, inherited Cae Glas with her husband Evan Thomas, the brother of Gabriel Thomas of Berthlwyd, Beddgelert. This brother, Evan Thomas of Cae Glas died in 1728 leaving a will and inventory which had a total value of about £500 including bequests, indicating that they were a family of very substantial wealth. The inventory lists:

The furniture in the house:

Eleven chests, 6 cupboards, 7 bedsteads, 2 ordinary feather beds, 7 boulsters [bolsters were long feather pillows which were the width of the bed], 1 table cloth & napkins, Dishes plates & spoons, Potts & pans, 4 candlesticks & 1tundish [a tundish was a shallow wooden funnel used in brewing]                      

The farm implements and stock:

8 pound of wool, four barrels, brewing & milking vessels, cheese press, 3 ricks of hay                

The farm animals:

8 cowes, 2 heifers, 2 yearlings, 3 calves, 2 mares, 90 weathers, 40 ewes, 10 yearlings

This wealth increased after Gabriel Thomas, in his will of 1744, bequeathed Berthlwyd to ‘Evan Isaac of Cae Glase’. Evan Isaac was Ellen and Evan’s son-in-law through their eldest daughter Jane’s marriage. Evan Isaac was on the Grand Jury of the Merionydd Quarter Sessions, another indication of the family’s wealth and influence in the community. He and Jane had nine children at Cae Glas:

·         John Evans, 1721-1794

·         Evan Evans, 1722-1768

·         Robert 1730

·         Gwen 1732-33

·         Gaynor 1734-35

·         Gwen 1737

·         Isaac 1742

·         Thomas 1747

·         Ellin [dates unknown]

When he died in 1755, Evan left bequests of money to his wife, children and grandchildren and bequeathed Berthlwyd to his eldest son, John who moved there. Evan Evans, his second son lived at Cae Glas. Tragically, both Evan and his wife Mary Ffoulkes died in the same year they were married: 1765. They had married in February, and in September, Mary died aged 23 and he died in October aged 40.  It was probably at this time that Cae Glas was rented to tenants for the first time.

In 1771 Cae Glas, along with other properties in the parish of Llanfrothen, was mortgaged by Jane Isaac (widow) and John Evans, her son, to John Evan’s wife Lowry’s uncle, the Reverend Evan Owen. Lowry had come from the Owen family of Ty-Gwyn, Dolgellau. She and John had moved to Berthlwyd and had a daughter, Ellen or Eleanor.

There was a wooden board in the kitchen at Berthlwyd which was said to be from a pew in Beddgelert church – it had an inscription which read: E Evans, Berthlwyd 1798.

Ellen is named as owner of the Caeglas estatein the 1832 sale particulars for the Parc estate. She remained a spinster and owner of both Berthlwyd and Cae Glas, and other properties until she died in 1848 aged 81, the family gravestone in Dolgellau churchyard reads:

Here Lies

Lowry Evans: wife of John Evans of Bethgelert: and

eldest daughter of Robert Owen Esquire of Ty Gwyn in this parish

 Died January 18th 1806 Aged 74.

Here also are interred the Remains of

Eleanor Evans

daughter of the before mentioned John Evans and

Lowry his wife, who departed this life at Bodowen in

the parish of Llanaber, onthe 15th day of February 1848 in the 81st year of her age.

“He shall return no more to his house, neither shall his place know him any more.”  Job VII. 10.

It seems that the estates owned by Ellen/Eleanor passed to her Owen relations on her death, and that Eleanor had not lived at Cae Glas which was rented to tenants from around 1765. The owner in 1845 was a Doctor Owen Owens, an army brigade surgeon of Coleshill, Warwickshire, who bequeathed his ‘lands in parish of Llanfrothen’ to his son Richard Jones Owen. When Richard J Owen died in 1926, probate was granted to Major Robert Henry Withington Owen (Owen Owen’s first son’s son), and it seems that he then sold the estates in 1940.

Tenants of Cae Glas - weavers, farmers & quarrymen

From about 1765, the Isaac and Evans families rented Cae Glas to tenants. There were at least two dwellings at Cae Glas – the Bwythyn or cottage and the later Ty Newydd (new house) dated to 1548. Tenant farmer families lived in both dwellings and the parish records tell us that the first of these was Edward Jones and his wife Gwen. Edward is described as a labourer in the records of their six children’s baptisms. From 1776, there is a new family recorded as living at Cae Glas. This family were descended from the weaving family of Lewis Jones Mordecai of Tyddyn Gwyn and there is an account of John Mordecai of Tyddyn Gwyn weaving for the local squire between 1695-1722- helped by his three sons. Later, an account book from the Brondanw estate records:

Sept 17, 1722 - paid John Mordecai for weaving Fflannen, Blanketts and cloth, 12/0

1773 - There is … left unused 19 ½ yards on account of the Blanketts that was weaved for me by Tyddyn Gwyn weaver-1 piece was 49 yards, the other was 28 yards.

Photo:Welsh wool blanket produced on a narrow loom in two sections which have been joined at the centre.

Lewis Jones’s sons, John and Edward Lewis had been left his ‘working house’ in his will of 1762. Edward continued weaving at Tyddyn Gwyn, but John moved to Cae Glas and is described as a weaver in the baptism records of his three children which record the family as living there. Until about 200 years ago, woven cloth was made by spinning and weaving on hand-looms, above is an example of a Welsh woolen blanket woven on a narrow loom.

Photo: The farmhouse of Crowlwm, near Llanidloes is where the first Sunday school in Wales is believed to have been established in 1769 by Jenkin Morgan.

Another brother, William was also living at Cae Glas, and he and his wife Margaret had at least 13 children, all of whose surname was Williams, following the patronymic tradition of giving children their father’s first name as a surname. This William Lewis is known for establishing the first Sunday school in the parish in about 1787 in their home in nearby Hafodty where they lived before moving toTy Newydd, Cae Glas where they continued holding a Sunday school. One of William and Margaret’s daughters, Elizabeth Williams, married John Owen who worked at a nearby slate quarry. Their son, Richard Owen, born about 1831, became a skilful quarryman at Croesor quarry who in his spare time studied geology to better understand the slate seams he was working with, as well as singing with the local Llanfrothen choir. He later wrote poetry and prose and became renowned under hisbardic name of Glaslyn. In his book “Reminiscences”, he refers to the ‘poor man’s struggle for knowledge’. This struggle was aided by the growth of Sunday schools like the one at Cae Glas, first held in houses and barns throughout Wales and linked to Nonconformist denominations. They were open to children and adults alike, teaching reading and writing based on the scriptures and were hugely beneficial in raising literacy rates and supporting the Welsh language. As a result of schools like these, Wales is thought to have had in the second half of the 18th century, the highest literacy rate of any country in the world.

Croesor quarry produced slate from its underground workings from about 1850. Access was by a single adit (opening) leading to underground inclines connecting seven working levels. Around 2,000 tons of slate were produced each year and made into chimney slabs, gravestones, flooring slabs, lintels and ornamental products. These products were initially carted to the Ffestiniog Railway at Penrhyndeudraeth but after 1864, they were taken via the Croesor Tramway which carried wagons, powered by gravity and horse-power, and passed close to Cae Glas on its way to the ships at Porthmadog.

Photo: Workers at Croesor slate quarry, early 20th century.

Slate workers and emigration

The dwellings at Cae Glas continue to be occupied by families of various names, thought to be related by birth or marriage. In the 1851 Census there are a Robert (quarryman) and Gwen Roberts with their five children living at Ty Newydd, Cae Glas; a William and Mary Davies and a grown son, David,  living at the cottage, Cae Glas where he is described as a farmer of 160 acres. Gwen Roberts was William and Mary Davies’s daughter. Another family, Robert and Eleanor Ellis and their four children, were living at Ty Croes, Cae Glas, we are unsure of the connection with the other two houses and families; Robert Ellis’s birthplace is recorded as Trawsfynydd. By the next census of 1861, both Willam and Mary had died and the Ellis’s were living in the cottage, Cae Glas with now, seven children. Ty Newydd is occupied by Mary Parry, a quarryman’s widow aged 26, and her two small children.

The 1871 census lists the Ellis family as living at the cottage, Cae Glas where Robert Ellis is described as a ‘farmer of 276 acres’. Ty Newydd is occupied by John and Mary Jones and their six children. John is described as a miner, born in Llaniestyn, a village on the Lleyn.  Ty Croes is occupied by another Jones family; William and Jane, their two-year old twin sons, William and Edward, and their year old daughter, Ellen. These twins, William and Edward, are said to have started work in the quarry at the age of eleven, and then emigrated with their family to America aged twelve.  There was extensive emigration of skilled Welsh quarry workers from 1850 to American slate quarries.

The next census of 1881 shows a different picture again at Cae Glas – The Jones family is still at Ty Groes, just before leaving for the slate quarries of America. They now have eight children, including the twins, William and Edward. The cottage is occupied by Robert Ellis and his family, but now, from being a described as a farmer of 276 acres ten years before, he has just 30 aces and both his sons are described as slate quarrymen.

Ty Newydd is occupied by a Thomas Owen (quarryman), his wife Catherine, their three daughters, and a boarder called John Lloyd aged 91. In a touching and well-written letter to his daughter in Utah, America in 1874, this John Lloyd explains that he is living with his niece in Cae Glas, and refers to her church, which was the Church of Latter Day Saints. He writes:

“…There is but little progress in membership in our Denomination and very little interest in religion in Wales at the present time. It will be interesting to learn how your church denomination is progressing in these days. I shall expect a letter soon from you with lots of news about your state and your Church.  It adds to my contentment with cheerful anticipation of meeting again, if not here, in the life beyond. I would like to know how many children and grandchildren you have so that I may know the proper number of my descendants.  As you know I have lived for many years with my niece. She and her family are in good health. They have three children and are very happy. Her husband has worked in the slate Quarries about a year. … Accept my kind greetings too. I would like to see you once again, but owing to distance between us that may by impossible. I remain your aged father”. [signed: John Lloyd].

By the time of the census in 1901, there are just two families at Cae Glas; Catherine Owen in the cottage, now a widow aged 56 with her daughter, Jane ‘assisting mother’ and a general servant ‘tending cattle’. Ty Newydd has a new young family: William Williams, 27, his wife Jane, 26, and their two young children. William is a slate quarryman.

From this snapshot of the lives of the occupants of Cae Glas it’s possible to get a glimpse into the very turbulent 19th century in North Wales. The industrialization of the countryside due to slate quarrying on a massive scale, the influence of new religions on the Welsh population and the emigration of some to the other side of the world for religious and economic reasons. To find out more about Welsh emigration see: http://www.peoplescollection.co.uk/Story/199-working-abroad---welsh-emigration

The early twentieth century sees the widow Catherine Owen still farming at Cae Glas with her unmarried daughter, Jane (1911 census). She died aged 84 in 1928. We do not know whether her daughter Jane stayed on at Cae Glas after her mother’s death, but in around 1956 Owain Williams (son of William Williams andbrother to Griffith Williams of Caeglas) bought Caeglas. The present owner and occupier bought Cae glas in 1958.

Resources used:

Research notes by Margaret Dunn, Nantgwynant

Gwynedd Archives

Richard Jones Owen - Glaslyn 1831 – 1909,compiled by Arfon and Angela Owen (great grandson and wife). Trawsfynydd. August 2002.

Welsh Mormon History - Lloyd, John - letter to his daughter Gwen