Built c1850 as part of a small planned community for workers at the nearby Penrhyn Slate Quarry, the cottages are typical of Edward Douglas-Pennant's considerable efforts to improve the Penrhyn Estate, to which he had succeeded in 1840. The Bryn Eglwys cottages appear to be slightly earlier than St Anne's Church, which was rebuilt by the estate in 1865 after the original church of 1813 had been submerged by new workings at the quarry.
