Plas Tan-y-Bwlch is situated on the north side of the Dwyryd valley, in the western part of the Vale of Ffestiniog (aka Vale of Maentwrog), part way up the steep valley side. It is notable for the survival of a more-or-less intact mid-Victorian landscaped estate of house, garden, wooded park, valley and estate village, set in the magnificent scenery of the Ffestiniog area of north Wales, within the Snowdonia National Park. For the park see nprn 700107.
Plas Tan-y-bwlch mansion, an eighteenth-century house enlarged in the nineteenth (nprn 28687), is located towards the south-east boundary of its parkland, and is surrounded by gardens. From the house and its mainly informal gardens there are outstandingly beautiful views across the landscape, and conversely the house and garden form a conspicuous and picturesque object within it.
The landscape here has a history of development from at least the later eighteenth century but the surviving layout of park and garden was largely created between 1869 and the start of the twentieth century after the estate came into the hands of the Oakeley family who owned several local slate quarries: Holland's, The Welsh Slate Company and Gloddfa Canol. The local landscape was written about, and painted, by the noted tourist Thomas Pennant who visited Plas Tan-y-bwlch in 1773.
The garden of about 80 acres occupies a shallow triangle on the slope below the house and is separated from the south-east park enclosures by a ha-ha. The slope is generally steep with outcropping rock in many places which influenced the garden design. The garden front of the house opens on to a long, broad, gravelled terrace with parapet, extending beyond the house to the north-east, and giving exceptional views to the north-east. Below the south-west end is a broader terrace extension. Below the terraces is a steeply-sloping lawn planted with specimen trees and groups of shrubs. There is also a small rockery and water garden on a natural outcrop and a pond (both twentieth-century features). Beyond these lie wooded areas, that on the south-west a large woodland garden with specimen trees, a small viewing platform, and a network of paths. At the south-west end of the garden are the remains of the walled garden (700108).
The park and gardens at Plas Tan-y-bwlch are part of the Slate Landscape of Northwest Wales World Heritage Site: Component Part 5: Ffestiniog: its slate mines and quarries, slate town and railway to Porthmadog. Inscribed July 2020.
See nprn 700107 for sources.
Sources:
Cadw 1998: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales: Conwy, Gwynedd & the Isle of Anglesey, 274-81 (ref: PGW(Gd)31(GWY)).
Ordnance Survey 25-inch map, sheet: Merionethshire XI.8 (1888).
David Leighton & Hannah Genders Boyd, RCAHMW, 25 April 2022