Gorllwyn Uchaf – A House History

Items in this story:

Introduction




Gorllwyn Ucha is an early hall-house situated on the edge of the Snowdonia National Park. Because of its historical features, the house was first surveyed in 1953 and in 2009, the Dating Old Welsh Houses community project commissioned tree-ring dating which dated the timbers to 1533. It belongs to a group of houses which are between hall houses and classic Snowdonian houses and this house history describes its historic features and also tells the story of its owners and occupants over the 500 years of its existence.




Historical features




Gorllwyn Uchaf appears to be an ordinary small stone end-chimney farmhouse, but in 1953 investigators from the RCAHMW saw signs which indicated it had interesting origins. The reconstruction drawings above and below shows what the interior would have looked like when it was first built – a central hall with massive oak cruck trusses and a dais partition with three doorways. Only the outer room had a ceiling originally, and the hall itself, with a central hearth, was open to the roof until the 18th or 19th century.  It is not clear when the projecting end chimney was added, but it would have replaced the dais-end inner-room (reached through the partition shown above). To find out more about hall-houses and their features see the medieval hall-houses chapter here:  http://www.peoplescollectionwales.co.uk/Story/444-branas-ucha-a-house-history



The drawings below by the artist Falcon Hildred show some of the features recorded in the house:








Early owners




The first known owner of Gorllwyn Uchaf was Hywel ap Rhys ap Dafydd ap Cynddelw ap  Iorwerth ap Ynyr ap Madog ap Rhirid Flaidd (a mouthful of a name, but which shows his noble lineage, descended from the Merionydd chieftain Rhirid Flaidd). He lived in the late 15th century when Gorllwyn was a large upland holding high on the slopes of Moel Ddu. It may well have come to the family, who were settled on the opposite side of nearby Traeth Mawr, by marriage with an heiress. The tree-ring dates for the house (1533)suggest that it was this Hywel ap Rhys (for short) who erected Gorllwyn or possibly his sons Robert ap Hywel and David Llwyd ap Hywel, who were born around 1500.



An interesting account, which shows that they were an important and influential family, is in the book ‘Eifionydd’ by Colin Gresham, which suggests that, as one of the Gwynedd gentry, David Llwyd ap Hywel, aged eighty, Hywel ap Rhys’s son, was examined before the Special Commission investigating the ‘Forest of Snowdon lands’ in 1580. The commission’s purpose was to annul the commissions and grants that had been given to the Earl of Leicester over lands of the forest of Snowdon and it succeeded. The area of Snowdonia was heavily forested at this time with oak and ash. Hywel’s eldest son, Robert ap Hywel ap Rhys inherited Gorllwyn shortly after and also held lands near Beddgelert formerly belonging to Aberconway Abbey (a Cistercian monastery) after it’s dissolution by Henry VIII in 1535.



Robert ap Hywel’s son, William ap Robert, married Marged ferch [daughter of] Gruffydd, and their youngest son, Richard ap William, had a son named William ap Richard. His son, Robert ap William ap Richard, left a will in1676 which provides our first glimpse into life at Gorllwyn Uchaf. He names William Roberts as his eldest son. Interestingly, the patronymic tradition of naming children using the father’s first name as a surname is still evident, but the ‘ap’ or ‘son of’ is disappearing from this period. William Roberts is bequeathed his: ‘best table board and great chest’. At this time, furniture, clothing, pots and chests were treasured and valuable items to be handed down. His also mentions in the will an illegitimate son, Jonathon Robert, to whom he leaves ‘debts due upon me’ which are listed and amount to £20 and 7 shillings, then a considerable sum of money and an indication of the lack of stigma then attached to illegitimacy. The accompanying inventory of farm stock is valued at 34 pounds, 3 shillings and 6 pence, and lists:



·         12 cowes and calfes        at        £18



·         6 three yeare ould beasts  at      £6



·         7 two yeare ould              at           £3



·         1 ould horse                       at       15 shillings



·         18 of all sort of sheepe    at       £2, 5shillings 



·         The househould stuffe    at   £4, 3 shillings, 6 pence



After this date, it’s probable that the family rented Gorllwyn Uchaf to tenants and lived themselves in one of their other properties, probably the more substantial house of Brondanw  at Llanfrothen. Brondanw was owned by the Williams family who were descendents of Robert ap Hywel’s son, William ap Robert.  One of these descendents, Catherine Williams, died unmarried in 1804 and willed the Brondanw estate to Jane Bulgin, the daughter of her niece Mary. Jane changed her name back to Williams on this inheritance from her aunt and married the Rev Thomas Ellis of Glasfryn. The house then became the second seat of the Williams-Ellises of Glasfryn, and was given to Clough Williams-Ellis in 1908, he became the famous architect who created the village of Portmeirion and also re-designed Brondanw and its gardens.



Tenants at Gorllwyn Uchaf




The next piece of evidence we have for the occupants of Gorllwyn Uchaf is the will of the widow Jane verch Morris of 1711, in which she leave her personal estate to her brother David Morris. The farm stock listed in the inventory amounts to £16 and there are now only three cows. In 1769 the tenant is Humphrey Pierce paying the Land Tax of £1 4s 0d. This Humphrey Pierce, described as a yeoman, appears to own or rent a number of properties in the area. His will of 1775 states that he is of Tan’r Allt and Treflys, and in this will, he leaves the lease of Gorllwyn to his daughters Catherine and Ann and names Maurice William of Gorllwyn as guardian. His wife is Elizabeth Williams, and it’s possible to speculate that Maurice is his wife’s brother and therefore uncle to Catherine and Ann. 



William Alexander Maddocks moved to Humphrey Pierce’s Tan yr Allt around 1800. Madocks’ agent, John Williams, had found the property for him and built a two storey four window front facing out over Traeth Mawr for Maddocks to view his great engineering work of 1800-1811 – The Cob (see above), at the place which was named after him - Tremadog.



In 1784 and 1785, the Land Tax Assessments for the parish of Penmorfa lists the owner as a Mr. Williams (Brondanw), and the tenant as Owen Williams who might have been a relation of Maurice Williams. From 1789 to 1805 the tenant is the same, but a Miss Williams is now owner. In 1806 the owner is Mr Jones who had connections to the Williams family and who rents Gorllwyn Uchaf to a William Williams in 1807, then a Robert Williams until 1812, when the tenant becomes Robert Roberts. It is this Robert Roberts, Gorllwyn Uchaf, who is listed as a farmer in the first census of 1841, aged 76 living there with his wife Jane, aged 73, and their grown son, Edward.



There is an entry for Gorllwyn Uchaf in the Tithe Commutation Map and schedule of 1844. It is listed as owned by a William Jones, has a house and three barns and over 162 acres. The tenant is Robert Roberts. This William Jones was a descendent of the Williams family of Brondanw. Catherine William of Brondanw’s sister Jane Jones had married Rev Thomas Jones, Rector of Trawsfynydd, Jane Jones inherited Ynysfor, Llanfrothen, withGorllwyn Uchaf from William Williams, Brondanw.



In the next census of 1851, Robert Roberts and his wife are both remarkably still alive and living at Gorllwyn Uchaf aged 86 and 83 years old. Living in the house too, are their daughter Jane, son-in-law, Robert Jones, and their 2 year old son, William.



By the next census of 1861, a Richard Jones and his wife, Jane, are farming 112 acres at Gorllwyn Uchaf and employing two men. By 1871, Jane Jones is widowed, but described as a ‘farmer of 200 acres’ with a labourer to help with the land and animals.



Changes over the next ten years mean that by the 1881 census, Gorllwyn Uchaf was then occupied by Owen Williams, his wife and 3 daughters. Sadly, the parish records tell us that Owen died aged 53 in 1886. Accordingly, the next census of 1891 has a new family – John Evans and his wife Jane. This family does not stay long and both the 1901 and 1911 censuses show Gorllwyn Uchaf occupied by a David and Ellen Thomas and their large family. We can see from the 1910 Land Tax Assessments that the land totaled 177 acres and that the owner was now; being the next in line in the Williams-Jones family, John Jones of Ynysfor. 





Information is scarce about the house until around 1950 when, as a semi derelict building, it was leased from the ‘Misses Jones, Ynysfor’ by a Miss Doreen Carlos-Perkins and her two friends who were from Portsmouth. The photograph above shows that state of the building in 1953. These three women then brought the property around 1980. Remarkably, it was the first sale in the house’s 450 year history. Unlike many houses of its type in Merionydd and Caernarfonshire, Gorllwyn Uchaf was owned throughout its history until very recent times by descendents of the same gentry family.



Finally, it was bought by Gwyn Williams and Wendy Vaughan in around 1995 and improvements were carried out in 2005.



 



Resources used:



Research notes, Margaret Dunn, director of Dating Old Welsh Houses



Eifionydd,  C A Gresham, 1973, p 47-8



Pedigrees of Anglesey and Carnarvonshire Families, J. E. Griffith, 1914



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