Parc is hidden away in the foothills to the north-east of the Traeth Mawr plain, in a secluded setting with wide views, a great variety of terrain and vegetation, and stark contrasts with the steep and craggy slopes around. It was the ancient and chief seat of the Anwyls, one of the most notable families of Meirionedd in the Tudor and Stuart periods, who settled at Parc by the mid sixteenth century and possibly earlier. Early settlement at the site focused on several adjacent houses built on the ‘unit system’, the earliest now reduced to foundations (NPRN 404989). The estate is now in the hands of the Clough Williams Ellis Foundation.

The houses and farm lie roughly in the centre of the contemporary walled park, which occupies a rectangular area between two parallel streams, the Afon Maesgwm and the Afon Croesor, the long axis running south-west to north-east. The original park was probably smaller than at present but enlarged, probably during the eighteenth century, to include the large field in the northern corner and the wooded area north and north-east of the old drive. The two streams are both in fairly steep valleys, and the ground between them rises to a flattened ridge on which the buildings stand. This plateau undulates, with rocky outcrops, one of which was cut away to build the first house. Another, higher up to the north, has also been quarried, the resulting smooth faces covered in graffiti from the seventeenth-century onwards.

The current main drive enters the park on the north-east from a sharp bend in the road, leading straight into the farmyard, bypassing the gatehouse (28624) and the houses. The drive is flanked by beech and lime trees planted in the twentieth century. The old drive left the road lower down, before the sharp bends, and little of its course can now be seen. There is a viewpoint in the park, to the south-west, a circular mound commanding magnificent views.

As the estate was small and unprofitable the park was probably always relatively intensively farmed and is unlikely to have ever been very different from its present condition: most of the area under pasture; woodland on the steeper parts; scattered trees in the grazed areas. Along the valley south-west of the houses, to the south boundary of the park and particularly in the area of Park Quarry, trees of mixed age, especially beech and larch, are planted. Oaks in the quarry area were planted by Clough Williams-Ellis and some very large beeches pre-date the quarry by many years.
The character of the park has been changed by an industrial stratum overlying the earlier landscape. An incline/tramway, serving Croesor quarry to the north-east (34933), now divides the farmed part of the park from a rougher area within the north-west boundary. A small quarry belonging to the estate, in the southern and south-west extreme of the park, is out of use with disused buildings, tips and tramways in and around the valley of the Maesgwm (420105).

There are gardens below and to the north-east of the houses (265122).

Source:
Cadw 1998: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales: Conwy, Gwynedd & the Isle of Anglesey, 230-34 (ref: PGW(Gd)35(GWY).

RCAHMW, 22 June 2022