The Lost Cottages - Penrallt Inco, Llanrhychwyn Parish

High up on the hill above Trefriw, where the ground levels a little and slopes gently up to Llyn Cowlyd, sits the cottage of Penrallt Inco. For the name I'm using the form found on the 1888-1913 map, because various accounts have it as Penrallt Inco, Penrallt Ynco, Pen’ralltdinco, and Tanrallt Digwm. Rather ominously, the majority of the information about the place comes from newspaper reports in 1877 about a possible murder, and the crime of sending threatening letters.

 

The house is at Ordnance Survey grid reference SH 77140 65761, directly on a public footpath that leads down to the valley.

 

Walking down towards Penrallt Inco from the road. Formerly a track would have passed the house, but there is little to no evidence of this now. The track is remembered in the line of the public footpath.

 

Penrallt Inco can be seen at the centre of this section of the 1888-1913 Ordnance Survey map, with an established track running down from the now-metalled road above, all the way to the valley floor near Dolgarrog. Not far away is Tyddyn Wilym, erstwhile home to Gwilym Cowlyd, a noted local poet. Nothing appears to remain of his home under modern barns.

 

The house of Penrallt Inco is so lost in a jungle of bracken and overhanging trees that it's almost impossible to decipher. The map above shows two distinct buildings, and there's an implication in records that an older house was abandoned for a newer one - a 1907 newspaper article states  'Pen'rallt (now re-built), thirty years ago was a dilapidated farm', but I found nothing more modern looking than boulder-built structures on the site. This may be the most recent structure, since it's shown as roofed on the map above, but it has obviously been abandoned for a long time. However, the vegetation was so thick I could have missed a mansion a few yards away.

 

 

 There are some walls possibly forming a yard or small outbuilding at the end of the house.

I hadn't been particularly aware of this ruin until I read the reminiscences of John Owen from the early twentieth century, when he lists various houses of yr Allt Wyllt, and comes to a house called Lletty. Owen writes:  

 

Lletty. – This is a cottage situated close to Gwyndy, where Mr. John and Mrs. Catherine Roberts lived. They had two sons, named Robert and Rhys. This Catherine Roberts was a maid servant at “Pen’ralltdinco” at the time of the disappearance of the old maid “Jane Griffiths” (otherwise called “Siani Siag”). This unusual incident created a great disturbance in the Valley. Jane Griffiths was a house-keeper to a farmer. One day the house-keeper disappeared. The police were informed, and a careful search was made throughout the district. Bloodhounds were used, and divers engaged to search the lakes and ponds of the district, but no trace of the old lady was found.

 

Newspaper accounts of the incident expand the facts. Jane Griffiths was actually Jane Owen, forty-five, working in 1877 as housekeeper for a farmer named David Robert Griffith. She was evidently something more than housekeeper, since she had supposedly given birth to two children fathered by Griffith, one which died and one which was adopted by a family in England. She was possibly pregnant at the time of her disappearance.

 

At around five in the morning of 19th April she had given her notice to Griffith, after working for him for four years, and left the house. Supposedly she had £120 with her, paid to her by Griffith; £48 for her six mountain ponies and possibly some sheep, £30 to clear a mortgage she had on the farm, and the rest debts due to her from neighbours. Griffith seems to have told police either that she was met by a man, or that he last saw her alone at a stile some three hundred yards from the house, in the direction of Rowen. Other reports, however, state that she was a cripple on crutches, and unable to walk far. They also say that she was a bad tempered woman, and the relationship between the two was often stormy.

 

After Griffith reported her missing, sixty men aided in the search. Searches continued for some time, with cliffs being scaled, lakes being dragged, and bloodhounds used, but all to no avail. Jane Owen was never seen again.

 

 

 This may be the end of the house which housed the fireplace, looking at the amount of collapsed rubble at this end. The place looks like it would have been a traditional cottage, possible a crogloft, with a large inglenook fireplace at this end.

 

The story concerning Jane Owen became more complicated when David Robert Griffith was arrested the following May for sending a threatening letter. He was described as an intelligent man, an avid reader who could read and write in both Welsh and English. He was known as a farrier and for his understanding animal disorders. It's said that he was a kind neighbour, but not if his enmity were roused. Neighbour Gwilym Cowlyd stated that he carried a gun with him when he walked in the area for fear of him.

 

Allegedly Griffith had written a letter in September 1876 to Edward Elias of Gorswen, near Rowen. The letter (translated from Welsh by the newspaper) read:

 

Edward Elias. – Sir, – If you don’t get the wife of Cowlyd to divide the sheep that are between her and Moses Ardda, we shall destroy you all, and kill you, as the Lord liveth, and shall destroy all that she has as well. Moses, Tynwyd, Dolgarrog, must divide also or else we shall fire him into flames to the devil, like Griffith Rowlyn. Moses is stealing our sheep fearfully, and if you don’t make them up without delay, you shall see something fearful in haste. Send a man to Cowlyd without delay, or else take your chance. – Rebecca and children.

It seems that the letter was designed to incriminate one of Griffith's neighbours, Moses of Ardda, against whom Griffith bore a grudge because Moses had been telling people that Griffith's son was the father of his servant girl's child.

 

Moses Thomas of Ardda, Dolgarrog parish, was 41 in the 1871 census, living with wife Anne, 35, and son William, 4. By 1881 they had two more children, Mary Jane, 8, and Grace, 3. Griffith Rowlyn was likely Griffith Williams of Rowlyn Uchaf, 74 in 1881, and, if my conclusions about Jane Owen are correct, living on the same site as Jane's family - there are two entries for Rowlyn Ucha in the censuses of this time. I haven't identified Tynwyd, or the 'wife of Cowlyd,' who is named as 'Mrs Edwards', 'formerly Mrs Jones of Cowlyd' in a newspaper report. Who 'Rebecca and children' are in all this is also unknown. The only Rebeccas I can find in the surrounding parishes live in Maen y Bardd township, which covers the Rowen area.

 

Griffith denied the charges put to him, but by July he was serving 18 months hard labour in Caernarfon Gaol for the offence. Whether he returned to Penrallt Inco is unknown, but had certainly moved on by the 1881 census, and he died about twelve years later, in George Street, Llanrwst. Supposedly his house was looked after by a man, Robert Davies, as no woman could come near him. His death is recounted by Davies in a 1907 newspaper article: 

 

Bu yn wael am rai wythnosau cyn marw. Holasom lawer ar Robert Davies a oedd David Griffith wedi dadlenu rhywbeth yn nghylch diwedd “Shian,” ac y mae geiriau yr hen wr pert a duwiol yn fyw ar ein cof – “Marw mawr, welwch chwi! ie wir, marw mawr! Faswn i ddim yn licio marw yr un fath: na faswn wir! Be ydi ‘dihofryd,’ deudwch?” –  “‘Diofryd,’ ydych yn ei feddwl?” – “Ie, dyna fo reit siwr. Yr oedd o (David Griffith), yn fy nhyngu ar ‘ddiofryd’ na nawn i ddim deyd ei fod o wedi deud wrtha i mau y fo ddaru.”

(Unfortunately my Welsh isn't good enough to translate this accurately, but Ann Corkett has kindly translated it:

 

He was ill for some weeks before he died. We questioned Robert Davies a lot as to whether David Griffith had revealed something about “Shian”’s end, and the (?)pleasant/dapper and Godly old man’s words live in our memory – “A (?)frightful death, you see! yes indeed, a frightful death! I would not like to die like that; I wouldn’t indeed! What is ‘dihofryd’, tell me?” – “Do you mean ‘diofryd’ (oath)?” – “Yes, that’s it I’m sure. He (David Griffith) swore me on oath that I wouldn’t tell that he had told me that he did it.”)

Trees are collapsed over the building, making it even harder to explore.

Jane Owen's story resurfaced a couple of times in local newspapers after the excitement of Griffth's trial died down. In 1881 a woman living at Aber Llyn, between Llanrhychwyn and Betws y Coed, saw some children playing with tresses of grey hair near a small stream near Llyn Parc. She took little notice, until she realised the hair appeared to have scalp attached. After she raised the alarm, the lake was investigated by a diver from Holyhead, who thought he saw some bones. The lake was then dragged, and bones discovered, but nothing conclusive was proven.

 

In 1907 the story came to the fore again, when bones were found near Coedty, Dolgarrog, about three quarters of a mile from Penrallt Inco. John Williams, working for the Aluminium Works in Dolgarrog, was blasting with some other men when he discovered bones hidden under a slab in a hole in the rocks. Although some of the bones crumbled to dust, a piece of skull and a left thigh bone were identified. These were examined by a doctor and said to be from a small person, who showed signs of rickets.

Perhaps modern DNA examination could have told us who the bones belonged to. As it is, there's no way of telling if these were the bones of Jane Owen. Perhaps more interestingly, if the bones found in Llyn Parc were from a different person, there are the remains of at least two unsolved deaths in the hills.

There are, of course, multiple possibilities for Jane Owen's disappearance. The obvious thought is that she was murdered by her employer, an apparently vindictive man who struck fear into the hearts of his neighbours. But she was supposedly leaving his house with a large sum of money. If she did meet a man, as Griffith claimed, this man could have killed her for her money. She could have left alone, pregnant and disabled, and met by some kind of accident. She could have crawled into shelter in the rocks near Coedty if the weather had turned bad - a distinct possibility in a Welsh April - and died there. There is nothing conclusive about this story except that she is certainly dead by now.

 

 At the opposite end to the fireplace, there are curious suggestions of a blocked up opening in this end wall - unusual since doors and windows are commonly in the long walls at right angles to the fireplace, rather than in the short wall facing it, unless leading through to another part of the building. There was so much bracken and growth that the layout was very hard to discern. Winter would be a better time for exploring.

 

The dog rose rambling over the walls seems to speak something of domestication in this area.

 

 

 More fallen tree limbs obscuring the view of the site.

 

At first I had thought I couldn't find Penrallt Inco in the censuses, except for in the 1911 census, where it's listed in Llanrhychwyn parish as being uninhabited. The map boundaries would seem to indicate the house was in Llanrhychwyn parish, and should fall somewhere near Tyddyn Wilym and others in the area. However, in earlier censuses the house appears in the Trefriw parish census. In 1841, the first preserved census, the place is lived in by farmers Robert and Margaret Griffith, 55 and 50 respectively, and their twenty year old son David - the David Robert Griffith of the story above. Interestingly, under 'place of birth' in the 1851 census all three are down as simply 'British Subject.' I'm not sure what conclusions to draw from this but perhaps it indicates a reluctance to give information to the census taker. It's only in this census that the house is named as Penrallt Inco. In all others it is simply Penrallt.

By 1861 the census says that all three were born in Trefriw. Robert, now 74, is a farmer of 72 acres, and his and Margaret's son still lives with them. In this and the previous census David - now down as 'David R.' - is listed as married, but no wife ever appears.

By 1871 Robert Griffith is widowed, aged 84, and blind of old age, but he's still listed as a farmer of 62 acres. Although he's lost his wife the household has expanded. David R., now 52, is still living with his father, but Robert's grandson 'R. D' - presumably the son of David Robert mentioned as impregnating a servant girl in one of the newspaper reports - is also living there. At the age of 18, he's listed as a scholar, which is relatively unusual for a boy of that age in this era. David Robert is also marked as widowed at this point. The other two household members are Robert Davis, a 49 year old labourer visiting the property, and Ellenor Jones, a 20 year old servant. All are listed as having been born in Trefriw.

It's after this that the property disappears from the records, apart from the one mention of it as uninhabited in the 1911 census. It would be harder to distinguish from other Penrallts once the family left the property because there's no continuity, but I don't believe it appears. Presumably in this time Jane Owen has come to work for David Robert Griffith, and perhaps servant Ellenor had moved on. The implication in the newspaper reports is that his son still lives with him - they speak of David Robert visiting neighbours along with his son. It seems likely that the place was lived in until David Robert Griffith was committed to prison in 1877, and perhaps then abandoned.

In the 1881 census David Griffith, 62, and son Robert D Griffith, 28, are both living in Pandy, Trefriw, as two of six boarders of William and Margaret Evans. David is of independent means, while his son is a labourer.

 

As for other records - David Robert Griffith was baptised in the Llanrwst Tabernacle chapel, the son of Robert and Margaret Griffith of Berthllwyd, Llanrhychwyn, on 5th February, 1818, having been born on 23rd January. He’s listed in the Trefriw parish burials as David Griffith of George Street, Llanrwst, buried 24th November, 1888, aged 70. A probate report for 14th December, 1888 tells us that his personal estate on death was worth £213 11s 6d. He is described as ‘Veterinary Surgeon a Widower who died 21 November 1888 at 4 George-street’, and administration was granted to Robert David Griffith of 63 Dorrit-street off Park-road Liverpool, ‘Railway Checker the Son and only Next of Kin.’

There's so little information about Jane Owen that she is impossible to trace conclusively. The implication in the newspaper reports seems to be that she was local, and there is a Jane Owen of the right age living in Rowlyn Ucha from the 1841 through to the 1861 censuses, the daughter of Anne Owen, a widowed farmer. In 1861 she is still unmarried at the age of 29. Rowlyn Ucha is relatively close to Penrallt Inco, so perhaps this is the right person. Her family offered money for news of her fate, so it's obvious that she still had a concerned family around her at the time of her disappearance.

Another view of the end wall, although it's hard to see in the photo what looked like a blocked up opening.

 

Another titbit from the John Owen accounts perhaps suggests an origin for the house name of Penrallt Inco.  "Dolygarrog- This place took its name from Carrawg Ynyr, The plain was called Dol Carrawg and the cliff above is Clogwyn Ynyr, which in later times became known as the Inco Cliff. Tradition has it that it was in a farmhouse at the top of this cliff that Inigo Jones, the famous builder, devoted himself to his English expedition during the Civil War."

I hopes this cut wood might be something remaining of the original timbers, but it was just a rotting pallet.

What seems to be a small, crude window.

This is possibly another small window, now blocked.

Looking back towards what may have been the fireplace.

Just outside the structure, a narrow doorway through the ruined walls.

The corner of the house is roughly built, but the stones are quite large.

Possibly a blocked up doorway or window in one of the ruined walls of a chamber built onto the end of the house.

One of the small windows in the end chamber.

Another small window. If the later structure was built in the late Victorian, this seems like a very old-fashioned building for the time.

It's clear to see that this structure was built onto the end of the house at a separate time, and is of a more crude construction than the mortared house wall it abuts.

A last look at the area which may be the newer building.

These conifers are typical of the area around these upland houses, where ruins are often marked by conifers of various types, presumably planted by the inhabitants as wind breaks or for fuel.

Curiously, there are telegraph poles and wires leading past the house. The wires have been brought down by fallen trees, but none of the structure looks terribly old.

A view of the second structure on the site, a little further up the hill, which may simply be outbuildings, or an older house abandoned or turned into outbuildings when the newer one was built. Still, nothing at all looks more modern about either structure, so it could be that the accounts I've read are misleading.

There's not much to see here apart from tumbled, moss covered walls.

 

The view along the structure possibly shows a doorway to the right, but, like the other, there is so much vegetation and ruin that it's hard to decipher.

Leaving the house, the problems of exploring this one are obvious. The bracken is chest high and almost impenetrable. A winter visit is definitely warranted.

The Lost Cottages - Cwm Cowlyd, Dolgarrog Parish

Cwm Cowlyd is a beautiful little cottage part-way along Cowlyd lake up above Trefriw, on the west side of the Conwy Valley. It's a place that I fell in love with as soon as I saw it. The thought of living in such a place, with the lake spreading to the north-east and south-west, and the mountains rising up on either side, seemed idyllic. Of course that's an idealised notion. It would have been a hard life in this place, especially during winter or at difficult times. It would have been a long way from any towns or villages, although close to a small group of neighbours. But for hundreds of years, it seems, very little would have changed in this place, and the sounds and scents of wind and nature would have been enduring.

In records the cottage seems always to be referred to simply as 'Cowlyd'. It does seem highly likely, though, that the Cowlyd of the records is the Cwm Cowlyd of the 1888-1913 map. There is no other house in the area likely to have that name. Perhaps the house is referred to as Cwm Cowlyd at times to distinguish it from the lake nearby. The 1816 Robert Dawson map names the place 'Cwm Cawlwyd' (the lake is also marked as 'Cawlwyd'.)

A video of the place can be seen here. The house is at Ordnance Survey grid reference SH 7293 6323.

From down nearer the lake shore, the house just peeks up over the curve of the slope. When the house was built the lake would have been significantly smaller, and Cwm Cowlyd sat quite near the north-east end. The first dam which turned the lake into a reservoir wasn't built until 1897, at least two hundred years into the house's history. A second dam was built later, increasing the reservoir's capacity and size.

Walking south-west, before you reach the house you come to a small series of outbuildings and pens which were probably associated with the home.

A couple of small pens stand to the south of the track.

The valley of Cwm Cowlyd is possibly the same valley mentioned in the Mabinogion, the home of the ancient Owl of Cwm Cowlyd, who speaks of the valley once being covered in trees which were uprooted by men. Three forests grew in the place, one after another, but there are few trees in the valley today. Sheep grazing, in part, will have altered the landscape.

The western sun made photographs hard to take, but you can see what might be a pen, with a quite intact outbuilding just beyond. A satellite view of the area shows the layout of the structures quite clearly.

Looking into the ruins of a possible outbuilding at the north-east end of the range.

This part seems to be a low-walled pen rather than an outbuilding.

Like many of these earlier buildings, this one seems to have a lip of stone protruding from the bottom of the wall.

A lot of this area is so ruined it's hard to tell what the structure would have looked like originally.

This end wall is rather nicely made of quite squared-off stone. It's hard to tell if the area to the left was an enclosed building or just a pen. Perhaps these buildings were built later than the house.

Another possible little pen in the range of structures.

This corner shows an interesting construction in that the stones seem to have been built out and over the corner space a little. Perhaps originally there was something of a sheltering overhang or low roof here.

A nicely defined doorway into one of the structures.

The doorway from the other side.

Looking back towards the most intact of these ruins.

Looking north east, back along Cwm Cowlyd towards the edge of the Conwy Valley.

The lake meets the roughly straight edge of the dam today, but the lake end would have been rather closer to the buildings in the past.

Looking south west along the lake, with the house in the distance.

The track in front of the pens, going towards the house. I read somewhere that parts of the track may have been paved, but I can't find the source any more!

This little nook at the side of the track looks almost like an old fashioned passing place.

A little further south west there are more substantial pens to be found.

The track enters a well-walled area, with a high wall to the left and sheepfolds to the right.

The following photos are all of the pens, but there seems little point in captioning each of them.

___

This little D-shaped pen is something of a mystery, since it appears to have no way in or out.

This area has obviously been used in much more recent years, and is possibly still in use, which probably explains why these walls are still so intact.

The track continues between high walls which end at the end of the sheepfold.

Finally we're approaching the house, after walking past the pens and outbuildings.

The earliest mention I've found of the house so far is in the Llanbedr y Cennin parish baptism records. Owen, son of Rowland Williams of Cowllyd and Catherine Edward his wife, was baptised on what appears to be the 28th December, 1691. Since the available Llanbedr parish records don't go back much further than this, it's entirely possible that the house is still older than this. It seems equally possible that inhabitants may have gone to other churches from this location, like Llanrhychwyn or Trefriw. These churches would have been closer to the house, but I haven't yet looked at their records.

In the early 1700s it seems that a number of the children of Robert Ewan, or Evan, of Cowlyd are being married. In 1708 John Parry of Crafnant marries Margaret of 'Cowlwyd. In 1714 Richard ab Ewan of Eilio marries Sarah vch Robert of 'Cowlwyd', and in 1716 Ewan ap Robert Ewan of 'Cowlwyd' marries Elizabeth Rowland of Garreg Wen. Eilio is just over the hill from Cwm Cowlyd, and Garreg Wen is the next farm down the valley from Cwm Cowlyd.

There are two main buildings on this little plot of land; the house to the right and an outbuilding to the left.

The house seems to have survived better than some, despite being uninhabited since about 1900, but has apparently declined a lot in recent years. The Coflein page for the property shows roof timbers, and many more of the slates in place, in 2003, compared to how it looks in 2021.

The place seems to have been in pretty much continuous occupation, by families young enough to be having their children baptised, at least all the way through to the end of the 18th century. After this point the house isn't mentioned for baptisms in the Llanbedr y Cennin records, but that might just reflect the inhabitants starting to use a different church or chapel. From 1824 services were being held in the house of Brwynog Uchaf at the east end of the lake, and then at the nearby Siloh Chapel that was built later, which would have been very convenient for Cwm Cowlyd. There is a little more about the chapel in my post here.

 

A baptism entry for 1747, for David the son of Thomas Williams of Cowlyd and Anne his wife, has been annotated later to include the information that David was buried on December 3, 1819. At that time David was living in Cedryn, another upland house just over the mountainous divide near Llyn Eigiau. It seems quite common for these families to keep to their upland lives, being born, marrying, and dying from houses in quite a close area to one another.

The outbuilding has lost its roof, but the walls and gable ends are all intact.

Timbers lie on the ground outside, either from the house or the outbuilding.

Adjoining the house to the north end is a little outbuilding which Coflein lists as a small stable or barn.

Inside the small northern outbuilding.

The view across the reservoir is quite beautiful, but it would have been smaller when the house was lived in so a lot of the lake to the left would have been grassland.

A lovely stone-edged channel leads past the outbuilding and under the enclosure wall towards the lake. There are a lot of rushes in the area but this channel indicates it would have been better drained when the place was lived in and maintained.

The doorway to the detached outbuilding is facing the lake, and the stonework still looks very solid.

The doorway still retains stone flags.

The north-east end of the outbuilding is rather more ruined, but you can still see a single window high up in the wall.

On the ground under the window there are still the remains of joists or roof timbers.

A close up of the working on the outbuilding timbers.

The other end of the timbers. There doesn't seem to be any ironwork associated with the wood, so perhaps they were pegged.

Looking back out through the doorway, and joist holes can be seen in the wall above, implying that at least this end of the outbuilding had a first floor. It's harder to see if there are joist holes in the other end of the building.

The view from the outbuilding over over the lake, and the cliffs of Marian Mawr.

Finally at the house, and a partly blocked up window is evident to the left of the doorway.

When the census starts in 1841 the house is lived in by Morris Owens, 25, an agricultural labourer, with his wife Margaret, also 25, sons John, 4, and Evan, 1, and a female servant, Jane Thomas, 25. By 1851 the occupation has changed to Thomas Roberts, 34, a farmer of mountainous land, wife Elizabeth, 37, son William, 2, and daughter Elen, 5 months; all but Elen were born in Llanllechid. Elen was born in Dolgarrog parish - possibly in the house. They also have a general servant, John Owens, who is only 13, who was born in Trefriw.

This south-east face of the house is relatively ruined, partly owing to the collapse of the fireplace at the end of the house.

In 1861 the house has apparently changed hands again, and is in the occupation of Thomas Williams, 30, listed as having a 'High land farm of 495 acres employing one boy.' His wife Elizabeth is 26. Living with them are son William, 4, son John, 2, and son Thomas, 6 months. The 'one boy' mentioned above is also living with them - 15 year old Zachariah Jones, a shepherd who was born in Llanrwst. Perhaps this is the same Zachariah Jones who is listed in the 1851 census for Betws y Coed, where he is five years old, born in Llanrwst, the son of a lead miner, and one of five siblings.

The space between house and outbuilding is scattered with rubble. It seems likely there would be cobbles under the grass and stone.

The census for 1871 shows a change has occurred. Thomas Williams of the previous census has died. His wife Elizabeth Williams is now a widow of 37, farming 490 acres of sheep pasture. It seems likely Thomas's death was recent, because her youngest child is only one year old. She is living with son William, 14, a shepherd, son John, 12, son Elis, 5, son Robert, 3, and daughter Mary, who is one.

 

Garreg Wen, the next farm down the valley, is also occupied by a widow at this time, a woman of 61 with a 29 year old son and two servants. But by 1881 Elizabeth Williams had moved into Garreg Wen with William, 24, daughter Jane, 17 (it's unknown where Jane was on the night of the census in 1871, when she must have been about 7), son Elis, 15, and daughter Mary, 11. She is farming 200 acres and employing one boy. Cowlyd is still occupied by her son John, a farmer, 22 years old, and Robert, 13. They also have a domestic servant, Ellen Thomas, who is 34. Interestingly, by 1891 John Williams appears to be married to Ellen Thomas - or, at least, the house is occupied by John Williams, 32, his wife Ellen Williams, 44, and son Thomas, 4. The two censuses disagree on Ellen's birthplace - in 1881 this was listed as Betws y Coed but in 1891 it was listed as Bethesda. These discrepancies are quite common, though. John Williams, too, has his birthplace shift from Dolgarrog to Llanbedr.

According to a descendant of Elizabeth and Thomas Williams, Elizabeth, nee Jones, had been the youngest of seven children. Her husband Thomas died at the age of 40 in 1870, and it was after this that she bought the farm at Garreg Wen. By 1891, however, she had moved down into the valley. 

It seems that the beginning of the 20th century brought the end of occupation for Cwm Cowlyd. In 1901 the census shows the house as unoccupied, although a Welsh Coast Pioneer and Review for North Cambria article of 19th March, 1908, implies the house was lived in then. The story, about the water supply from the reservoir, says 'the members of the Board met the tenants of their estate, regarding the rents of Garregwen and Cwm Cowlyd.' It also includes the titbit that a 'flat-bottomed boat [was] kindly lent by the tenant of Cwm Cowlyd farm'. Because this is between censuses, though, there's no record of the tenant's name. By 1911 the place is uninhabited again. It is, of course, hard to know if there was any more off-again, on-again inhabitation of the place after this.

 

Garreg Wen, by contrast, did continue in occupation through to 1911, by farmer William Thomas and his family. The house has been completely demolished, though, and almost no trace remains.

Inside the house, plenty of roof timbers still survive. Coflein's 2003 survey show these timbers still in situ, with more of the roof surviving, including a cross beam which probably marked the extent of the crogloft platform. The partly blocked up window can be seen in this photo. It's hard to imagine a family living together in this tiny space with it ruined as it is. Perhaps with the crogloft in place it would have looked more accommodating.

A ceramic roof ridge tile lies on the ground. The slates are quite coarse, so are perhaps quite old, but the ridge tiles were probably a newer addition.

Looking out through the partially blocked window over the lake.

There seems to be a tiny window very high up in this gable end, probably to provide a small amount of light to the crogloft.

Low down on this end wall this almost looks like another tiny window - except it seems too low - or tiny fireplace - except there could be no chimney, with the window above it. Perhaps this was just a storage nook, or simply a large stone in the wall with smaller ones having fallen out from beneath.

The floor of the house is littered with slates from the collapsed roof.

A blocked up door on the south-west side of the building, which leads through to a little ruined structure that could have been a dairy or a small adjoining outbuilding.

Comparing this timber with the Coflein photos, it seems likely that this was one side of the A frame which held the roof. This piece of wood is almost 94" long.

Looking back towards the doorway, across more tumbled timbers.

The fireplace has collapsed entirely. The Coflein photos show what looks like the remains of a wooden beam in the rubble, which maybe have been the beam over the fireplace. As soon as it rotted through the whole chimney would have collapsed.

One of the carved sockets in the beams. These sockets are about 5" long by 2" wide.

Another socket of similar dimensions.

Comparing this with the Coflein photos, this seems to be the right-hand diagonal beam from the A frame, as you face the lake-end of the house.

Another slate in the rubble, just over 14" long by almost 7" wide.

A whole slew of roof slates have landed here, some of them seemingly still roughly in position.

There are two jutting stones on the end wall opposite the fireplace, which took the weight of crossbeams which presumably formed the end of the crogloft. These can be seen in situ in the Coflein photos.

A little of the wood still rests on the right-hand stone.

An upright stone to the right of the partly-blocked window. Perhaps it was just a convenient shape.

The partly blocked window, with timbers leaning against it.

A full view of the end of the house, with joist holes for the crogloft platform just above where the wooden beams would have rested on the jutting stones, and the small unexplained nook in the wall at bottom centre.

 

 

 Looking out through the door over the lake.

At the fireplace end, there seem to have been two recesses in the wall to the left of the fire.

The fireplace is completely collapsed, and there's no sign of the possible wooden beam that can been seen in the Coflein photos. It seems more likely the fire was supported by a wooden beam, purely because a big stone lintel can't just disappear, unless it were taken to be used elsewhere.

I wonder if there could be a bread oven in the thick wall to the right of the fireplace. If there is, it is hidden under the rubble.

In the wall to the left of the fire is a small blocked up window.

Back outside again, looking along the north-east side of the detached outbuilding.

Standing outside the outbuilding looking towards the house, although the late evening sun is rather spoiling the shot.

 

 

 Outside the little yard that encircles the outbuilding - the house forms one wall of this yard. The hole for the water drainage channel can just be seen to the left.

 

The south-east end of the house is banked up a little way with an earth and stone wall, presumably to support it against the drop in the land.

A terrace of built-up land is nearby.

Looking up at the end of the house, and the tiny crogloft window.

On the wall at the side of the house, and the blocked doorway can be seen into the little space outside which may have been a dairy or other building.

It seems that once there were pine trees planted near the house, as with so many of these houses, probably to give a little shelter from the wind. The trees haven't survived, though.

This is a rather curious space outside the house. It is relatively unusual for these houses to have more than one door, and the little diagonal arrangement of wall to the right is interesting, with the roof coming down over it.

It does seem likely that there was some kind of structure here, given the line of stones coming out at right angles to the wall here. Perhaps the roof came out to cover it. I've mentioned it may be a dairy because Coflein suggests a similar arrangement at Maen Eira, between Llyn Eigiau and Dulyn, could be for that purpose. In Maen Eira this extension is at the fireplace end of the house.

Looking along the back wall of the house, towards the remains of the roof.

The odd diagonal arrangement of stones between the end of the house and the adjoining field wall.

The door into the possible dairy, with a glimpse of the remaining wall structure to the left.

 

The remaining slates are very coarse and thick, and seem to have been cemented together at some point. Perhaps this explains why the cottage roof and timbers survived for so long after the place was abandoned, although it would have added considerable weight to the roof.

Looking at the roof from a higher angle.

 

 

 The gable end shows a lip of stone raised from the height of the wall, which I have seen suggested to be indicative of the roof being thatched in the past. Given the age of the house it seems certain it would have been thatched originally.

 

Looking along the length of the house towards the collapsed fireplace, with the scant remaining wall of the possible dairy visible to the left.

 

Some of these slates are as much as in inch thick, nothing like the thin and carefully finished slates we're more used to today.

 

 

Looking back towards the house from the south west. There are a lot of rushes here, and the 1888-1913 map indicates there would have been a well in this area, although I couldn't find a sign of it.