The Lost Cottages - Turpeg Mynydd, Pentrefoelas

Turpeg Mynydd is a curious little cottage which sits right on the side of the road which winds down through the Denbigh Moors into Pentrefoelas. Comments on a YouTube video of the place indicate that the last inhabitant was an old woman, but that it's been empty for quite some time. One commenter, Ron Jones, recalls 'I can remember back in the late 50s early 60s, in the summer you would always see the man and lady who owned it sitting outside. They would always have a chat with anybody that stopped. They were very old then. The front garden and the one on the other side of the road were always in full bloom and always smoke coming out of the chimney.'

In various places it's suggested that the place was a turnpike (the name translates to 'Mountain Turnpike'), charging those using the road between Pentrefoelas and Denbigh. Coflein has the place listed as a 'possible squatter's cottage,' presumably referring to the place's origins rather than its later use, saying, 'It has the appearance of having originally been built by squatters on the mountain common.' The site only dates the cottage as post mediaeval, however, with nothing more specific. It called the place 'recently abandoned' in 2008. In a PDF leaflet, however, it states the cottage was 'built in the late 1820s.' It's certain that the building isn't in the more obvious shape of a toll house, with a three sided toll booth projecting onto the side of the road, but not all toll houses are built in this way. Perhaps this was just a more humble building.

The cottage is situated very close to the edge of the road; probably not such an issue when it was first built, but now, with the road popular with bikers and fast cars, it doesn't seem so idyllic.

The house seems to have deteriorated significantly in recent years. Many images online show the place with the window frames, if not all the glass panes, intact, lace curtains still hanging in the windows, and the door on the lean-to still in situ. (For example, this photo from 2017, which refers to the place as 'Sylvia's Cottage.') Now the windows are gone, the lace curtains mere tatters at the top of the windows, and the door to the lean-to has been kicked in. The brightness of the white front of the house has also deteriorated.

 

The coal bunker is hard on the road; the road tarmac is just visible to the right. The roof is gone but the walls are still intact. 

 

Perhaps a vain attempt to contact the occupier, but you have to give the Royal Mail their due for trying.

 

Inside, damp is eating away at the plaster, and has caused most of the wallpaper to slough from the walls. The floor has survived better, being made of slate slabs.

 

 An earlier, equally vain attempt by Royal Mail to contact the occupier.

 

From within, a few shreds of the lace curtain can still be seen. Considering the road outside, the view is still rather pleasant.

 

 The front door, which was perhaps kicked in at some point, and has been replaced with a plywood sheet, possibly indicating someone has responsibility for the property. The colour of paint and the look of the hooks on the back of the door seem to indicate a relatively recent date of occupation, perhaps in the 1990s.

The main fire, with the fire surround falling away from the wall. It seems odd that a cottage like this wouldn't have a big fire in the main room, but perhaps an earlier fireplace has been made smaller.

Some of the remaining wallpaper. Again, the design seems to point to a later occupation.

 

The single intact window is in the end of the cottage, with a telephone wire leading in through the frame. The panes resemble those in earlier photographs of the larger windows in the front of the house. Probably this window has survived due to being too small to climb through, and not facing the road.

 

A single sieve hangs from the shelf over the fire. What's striking about this cottage is that there's no sign of either kitchen or bathroom facilities inside the house, and no obvious sign of an outhouse nearby, unless one of the small buildings across the road served this function.

 

A small detail on the mantleshelf, a little flower at the top of each bracket, gives the place a homely feel. The plastic peg on the washing line again indicates a later date of occupation.

 

Plaster has fallen away from the laths of the ceiling, and also from the stonework of the wall, indicating a leak in the roof above.

 

The door into the second room, which has suffered far more damage than the first room. The door must have been white before being painted over with the same light purple that is on the front door and mantleshelf. It looks as if at some point someone tried to screw it closed.

 

This little fireplace in the second room seems to have been painted up. Perhaps the room was heated with something like storage heaters instead. Scraps of paint show the room was once bright and cheerful.

 

The window in the second room which, again, has lost all its glass and only has shreds of the lace curtain remaining. Something like a dog lead handle seems to be on the windowsill.

 

The roof has failed badly on this side of the cottage, and the damage from the weather entering is easy to see. The rot will slowly spread outwards from this breach, while wind will come in and loosen more slates.

 

Directly under the hole in the roof, the terrible power of water damage can be seen. Unlike the first room, the floor in this room is made with floorboards and joists, and seems quite unsafe to walk on.

 

A single bulb still hangs from the ceiling.

 

This mirror is the sole piece of furniture left in the house.

 

On the floor of the second room just a little wallpaper remains, in a delicate eggshell blue with flowers of pastel pink and green.

The lean-to provides a little extra space for the house. The door has been kicked in and the window is no longer glassed.

 

Again, some of the signs in the electrical wire and plastic washing line indicate a later date of occupation.

 

The doorhandle on the kicked in door is a rather lovely piece of metalwork. The peeling layers of paint are rather beautiful.

 

The lean-to window offers a bleak, if impressive, view across the moors.

 

Outside the lean-to, behind the house, is the indication of the possibility of some kind of structure existing at some time.

 

Hard to see under rubble and dirt, the floor of the lean-to is made up of quarry tiles.

 

 On the other side of the road are two small outbuildings which appear to be in good order.

 

The inside of the coal bunker, with the small hole just visible at the bottom for accessing the coal. This coal would be much needed through the winter on the Denbigh Moors.

 

The end of the house has been pebbledashed down to a point, but the indication is that there used to be some structure against the end wall here. Every photo online seems to be of the cottage from the front or the other end, though, so there's no way to see if there was a structure in earlier photos.

The bleak moorland, stretching away behind the cottage.

 

With the vandalism of recent years and the start of damage to the roof, it seems likely that this cottage won't be intact for long. Such a small place in such an isolated location doesn't seem to have much hope of rescue. Perhaps one day a rich recluse will come along, and save it from ruin.

The Lost Cottages - Glan y Gors, near Aled Isaf Reservoir

We were driving through the Denbigh Moors in late August on the way to the Aled Isaf Reservoir, and then Llyn Brenig. This is a landscape very different from the Snowdonia mountains that I'm more used to; a fascinating, windswept, ancient place. We passed two tumuli, one on either side of the road, both very obvious in the flat, high land. It seemed like a minor mystery to then come across a little cottage built with thin slate slabs. I've got used to seeing buildings like this in the great slate quarrying areas around Blaenau Ffestiniog, but didn't expect it on the moors. A small slate quarry by the Aled Isaf Reservoir provided some context. These moors must be peat layered on slate, and with few stones lying about on the moorland, the only resource for houses would be quarrying.

The area past this, around Llyn Brenig, was full of abandoned houses, and it was a torture to not be able to just jump out of the car and go and explore. This one, though, was right next to the single lane road down to the reservoir, with a parking space nearby. Of course I had to have a look.

The second of the tumuli I saw (OS Grid Reference SH 9191 6217) on the way to Aled Isaf Reservoir. Photo taken from the moving car.

This is what I caught sight of from the car; a long, low cottage, falling into ruin. Glan y Gors is at OS Grid Reference SH 9131 6094. There's no information about it easily found online, but it does exist on the 1888-1913 map.

The cottage from the end, with a wall extending outwards which implies the presence of another room or outbuilding. 

The moorland stretching away. The trees around the house were the only ones close by, and would have provided a little shelter from the scouring upland wind. 

The whole building almost seems to be sagging into the ground, collapsing in on itself. The slates it was built of are astonishingly thin.

The big fireplace has collapsed in part. Perhaps the lintel was wood, or the slate beam has failed, but it makes for a precariously balanced chimney stack. 

It's hard to tell if some of the interior walls - to the side of the chimney stack, for example - were wood, of if they were of slate and have simply collapsed. Perhaps if there were a doorway to this side, the wall would more easily collapse, with few stones to show where it used to be.

Part of a collapsed wall in front of the big fireplace. 

The gap to the right of the big fireplace. Possibly a doorway to the next room.

The corner of one of the badly ruined rooms. 

The small fireplace on the back of the chimney stack. Again, there is no lintel. Perhaps, faced with these thin, poor slates, wood was the only option.

In what could be the end wall, there seems to be a small window hole near the ground. 

The view towards the end wall, with a collapsed wall between.

The width of the house, with the chimney stack and wall to the right of it still standing. 

Bricks tumbled in with the slate, maybe from the fireplace.

The grass in and around the cottage was impossibly lush and green. Some of the collapsed back wall can be seen, but very little remains.

Perhaps the amount of water standing on the ground explains the lush grass. The house was on a little rise only a foot or so above this mini flood.

The collapsed wall behind the room with the small fireplace, the slates lying in the same order in which they were built.

The small window low down in the end wall. 

Part of the long wall facing the road, badly ruined.

Some of the render still remains on the outside of the cottage, but it looks ready to fall off at the slightest provocation.

The long length of the cottage. Quite a lot of render still remains.

Outside the almost entirely intact end wall are signs of another chamber, perhaps a barn. This makes the low window in the end wall more intriguing.

The end wall and ruined next chamber or pen. 

In this wide angle shot the house looks impossibly long.

Looking along the house from beside the end wall. 

The big breach in the wall. Maybe there was a window here.

Almost no sign remains of the opposite wall.

A view through the walls to the hills beyond. Little render remains on this end of the house.

The little house is sheltered by low trees, which might have been a welcome comfort during bad weather, but a worry in very strong winds. 

The nearby Aled Isaf Reservoir, which postdates the house. The house exists on the 1888-1913 map, while the reservoir was not created until 1938. The land flooded by the reservoir has been shown to have been occupied during the Mesolithic period.

The river, Afon Aled, has carved a deep channel through the land on its way northwards.

A small slate quarry stands right on the edge of the river, very near the dam. It's not shown on early maps, but neither is it marked as a quarry on the modern map.

 

 

At Llyn Brenig, to the south-east of Aled Isaf Reservoir, is a cornucopia of Bronze Age religious sites, including a tumulus called Boncyn Arian (to the left in the photo) and another tumulus just visible on the island in the lake. Much is known about these sites because of in-depth archaeological investigations before the flooding associated with creating the reservoir. 

Next to Boncyn Arian is a ring cairn, a ritual site which also contains cremation burials.

The geological strata are beautifully presented at the edge of the lake, with dark peat on top.

As we passed this little cottage at the edge of Llyn Brenig, I wondered if this is how Glan y Gors might have looked before it fell into ruin. I think this cottage is Bwlch Du (OS Grid Reference SH 9871 5838), shown on the 1888-1913 map, and so much older than the reservoir, which was created between 1973-76.

 

Another day, we'll come back to this area to explore further, including the full Llyn Brenig archaeological trail, and maybe a few more cottages.