Dolgellau: Understanding Urban Character · 1. Study Area Showing Conservation Area Boundaries and Distribution of Listed Buildings 2. Units of Development: Suggested Plot Structure

Dolgellau:Understanding UrbanCharacter

CadwWelsh Assembly GovernmentPlas CarewUnit 5/7 Cefn CoedParc NantgarwCardiff CF15 7QQ

Telephone: 01443 33 6000Fax: 01443 33 6001

First published by Cadw 2009.ISBN 978-1-85760-268-5Crown Copyright 2009.

Cadw is the Welsh Assembly Government’s historic environment service, working for an accessible and well-protected historic environment for Wales.

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Dolgellau:Understanding UrbanCharacter

AcknowledgementIn undertaking this study, Cadw grant-aidedGwynedd Archaeological Trust to undertake datacollection and assess archaeological information.

Welsh names have been included in the English text becausethey often contain valuable evidence for history and formerusage, which is sometimes lost in translation.

Front cover: Aerial view of Dolgellau Crown Copyright: RCAHMW

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Contents

Introduction 7Aims of the Study 7

Historical Development 9

Origins 9Industry and Commerce 11Landownership 14Buildings and Society 14Dolgellau: Mountain Resort 15The Late Nineteenth Century: Expansion and Renewal 15Modern Times 16

Historical Topography 17

The Character of Building 20

Wall Materials and Finishes 20Roofs 23Architectural Detail 24Building Types 24Streets: Furniture and Finishes 25

Character Areas 26

1. Central Area 26 Historical Development and Topography 26The Character of Building 26

2. Lombard Street (Y Lawnt) Area 29Historical Development and Topography 29The Character of Building 29

3. South Area 30Historical Development and Topography 30The Character of Building 31

4. Tanws Area 32Historical Development and Topography 32The Character of Building 32

5. Western Area 33Historical Development and Topography 33The Character of Building 33

6. Arran Road (Pont yr Arran) Area 34Historical Development and Topography 34The Character of Building 34

7. Western Outlying Area 34

8. North of the Wnion Area 35Historical Development and Topography 35The Character of Building 35

Statement of Significance 37

Sources 38

Footnotes 39

List of Maps pages 40–55

1. Study Area Showing Conservation AreaBoundaries and Distribution of Listed Buildings

2. Units of Development: Suggested PlotStructure and Encroachments

3. Dolgellau in 1760 4. Dolgellau in 17945. Dolgellau in 18206. Dolgellau and its Environs in 1842:

the tithe map

7. Dolgellau in 1881: First Edition Ordnance Survey

8. All Character Areas9. Central Area (1)10. Lombard Street (Y Lawnt) Area (2)11. South Area (3)12. Tanws Area (4)13. Western Area (5)14. Arran Road (Pont yr Arran) Area (6)15. Western Outlying Area (7)16. North of the Wnion Area (8)

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DOLGELLAU: UNDERSTANDING URBAN CHARACTER

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IntroductionAims of the Study

Urban characterization aims to describe and explainthe historic character of towns to give a focus tolocal distinctiveness and to serve as a tool for thesustainable management of the historic environment.It seeks to inform and support positive conservationand regeneration programmes, help improve the quality of planning advice, and contribute tolocal interpretation and education strategies.

Urban characterization defines the distinctivehistorical character of individual towns, andidentifies the variety of character within them,recognizing that this character is fundamental to local distinctiveness and pride of place, and is an asset in regeneration. It looks at how thehistory of a town is expressed in its plan andtopography, in areas of archaeological potential, and in its architectural character. The survey is not just an audit of features, but a reconstruction

of the themes and processes which have shaped the town.

The immediate context for this study is as a contribution from Cadw towards SnowdoniaNational Park Authority’s Stage Two bid to theHeritage Lottery Fund for a Townscape HeritageInitiative in Dolgellau. This initiative seeks not only the regeneration of the town through theconservation of its buildings, but also encouragesgreater access to, and understanding of, culturalheritage and the historic built environment.Although the Townscape Heritage Initiative isfocused on the Dolgellau Conservation Area, this characterization study examines the historiccharacter of the whole of the built-up area of thetown, setting the conservation area in a widercontext, and providing a baseline for strategicplanning as well as local management.

Eldon Square is thebiggest of the openspaces which are adistinctive feature of thetown. It marks the site of the original market.


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Historical Development

Origins

‘The town developed almost by stealth, its urbancharacteristics unrecognised by royal administratorsfor several centuries’.1

Dolgellau originated as a native Welsh settlement, a bond vill of the commote of Talybont, whosecentre was at Rhyd-eryw in Llanegryn. The earliestreference to it comes in a survey of 1284 in whichDolgellau was listed as held by unfree tenants. This grouping of bondsmen may suggest theexistence of a modest administrative centre, andalthough the settlement was small — with onlythree tax payers recorded in 1292–93 — duringthe century that followed it became the seat of thelocal commote or hundred court. The presence of a church (the first reference to which is theNorwich Taxatio of 1253) probably also served as a focal point. Dolgellau occupied a favourableposition by a river crossing, on an economicfrontier between the sheep and cattle grazing of the uplands, and the good arable lands of the lowlands. This siting may have fostered itsdevelopment as a centre of exchange, and by the early fourteenth century accounts refer to amarket here. The market was claiming a monopolyover trade in the area by the mid-fifteenth century. By the late sixteenth century (and perhaps earlier)the woollen trade was already flourishing.Alongside this economic function, the towncontinued to develop as an administrative centre in the years that followed — hundred courts, and(later) Quarter Sessions and Great Sessions wereheld here, as Dolgellau emerged as a rival toHarlech as the county town. Despite this, it was still described as a village in the 1530s, albeit ‘thebest village in this commote’.2

The town plan almost certainly encapsulateselements of the early organization of land use, but the earliest surviving buildings are unlikely to be earlier than the seventeenth century. Theone documented medieval building in the townwas Cwrt Plas yn Dre, which originated as atimber-framed hall-house (perhaps of fifteenth-century date). It was the home of Lewis Owen,who in 1552 leased the Crown’s interests in the

town for an annual farm of 38s. 4d. After his death(he was assassinated by the ‘Mawddwy bandits’ in1555), his son inherited the lease of ‘the markettown of Dolgelley and divers parcels of wastegrounds and commons in and adjoining the town.One weekly market and three annual fairs havebeen kept time out of mind for the buying andselling of cattle and other commodities. The king’ssubjects have had their stalls and standings on thewaste grounds, paying the Crown farmer diverssums of money for each site’.3 Defendants indisputed claims of possession were accused of‘pretence of title to the wastes. Building of housesand cottages on the commons in the town andenclosing parcels of land whereon stalls andstandings used to be erected. Straightening thestreets of the town and claiming the land to betheir own freehold’.4 It is probably precisely thisencroachment on common and waste land withinthe town which helps to account for its distinctiveform, in which small islands of building colonizemeandering open spaces between discrete parcels of land.

Cwrt Plas yn Dre was certainly timber framed.There may also be traces of framing within TheOld Courthouse, and also within Plas Newydd,where the rendered panels either side of its bowwindows are probably timber framed. However,with these important exceptions, the earliestsurviving buildings are all built in stone.

Opposite: Cwrt Plas ynDre, a timber-framedhall-house and the oldestdocumented domesticbuilding in the town, was demolished in about 1885 (By permissionof The National Library of Wales).

The Old Courthousemay originally have beentimber framed.

Cwrt Plas yn Dre was eventually demolished and partially re-erected in Newtown in about1885. No other medieval buildings have survived, though there may be elements of early buildingsincorporated in existing structures, and opportunities for more detailed investigation could be valuable in understanding the earlydevelopment of the town. A distinctive earlybuilding type within the town has affinities with the regional rural vernacular — compromising one and a half storeys, with hipped or gableddormers, and gable end (and sometimes lateral)chimneys. None of these buildings has beenspecifically dated, but a demolished row on Baker Street (Lon Bobty) were Bishop Rowland’salmshouses, said to date from 1616. There areseveral houses of this type — Fro Awel andGlanarran Cottages — and more are documentedin early paintings and photographs. They aredistributed throughout the settlement, from thecore area around the church and on up the slopeson the west of the river Arran. Most are singlehouses or pairs, but longer rows have beenrecorded (Tai Gwynion, Finsbury Square (PorthCanol), for example). The distribution pattern and organization of building — pairs and rows —suggests some density of development by the late seventeenth century at least, and was alreadymore urban than rural.

Alongside these small vernacular houses is a series of larger town houses of seventeenth toeighteenth-century date, which gives us someindication of the importance of the town in this period. These include Tan y Fynwent and Y Meirionydd (both of which have lateralchimneys), Plas Gwyn, and, slightly later, the twosubstantial and clearly high-status buildings whichform the core of The Golden Lion. Other buildingswhich are thought to have origins in this periodinclude Plas Coch and The Unicorn. The completerebuilding of the church in 1718 (said to have beenbuilt around its predecessor) is another goodindication of prosperity and status by the earlyeighteenth century.

By the end of the eighteenth century, Dolgellauhad become a significant town. Estate maps of1760 and 1794 (Vaughans of Nannau andHengwrt) show dense development in the core ofthe town, especially to the west of the line of MillStreet (Wtra’r Felin), then only a leat, and aroundwhat became Eldon Square (Stryd Fawr) andQueen’s Square (Llys Owain). The areas to the


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Right: Plas Newydd —the early nineteenth-century frontage mayconceal traces of aseventeenth-centurytimber-framed façade.

Below: Vernacularcottages of a typestrongly characteristic of the town.

west and south of Eldon Square — LombardStreet (Y Lawnt), Meyrick Street (Heol Feurig) and South Street (Heol y Pandy) — whilst lessdensely built up, were also clearly within the extent of the town. Several high-status houses of this period ornament the town, especially on the higher ground to the south. That they wereessentially conceived as town houses is clear from their context — rubbing shoulders withmuch smaller cottages, rather than separated in their own grounds.

By the early nineteenth century, the status of thetown was not in doubt: ‘Though a small markettown, [it] is in many respects the principal in thecounty, from the summer sessions being held here, and being a manufacturing place, and amarket for the sale of various articles in theclothing line’.5 A series of new civic buildingsexpress this status: a gaol was built in 1811 (thesite is now occupied by Nos 1–4 Bodlondeb), and a courthouse and town hall in 1825. The lattersuperceded the earlier town hall mentioned byEvans in 1812 as ‘scarcely distinguishable from the other houses’.6 The new building, by aprominent architect, was an object of somedistinction, and the old town hall was variouslyused for English church services, a school, and atheatre. A workhouse was built to the east of the town centre in about 1850. The new policestation, also built around 1850, was sited onLombard Street to the west, a measure, perhaps, of the rising importance of this part of the town.

Industry and Commerce

‘The mills, where nothing but hand looms are at work,will repay a visit from the curious in such matters’.7

Throughout the course of the nineteenth century,there is good evidence for a continuous process of urban development and growth, and themajority of the town’s historic buildings post-dateabout 1820. The town expanded to the south andwest, but much building activity was concentratedin its centre, where there was extensive rebuilding.There is little doubt that the engine of this growth was industry, and especially, the growingimportance of the textile trade to the fortunes of the town. Bingley referred to ‘very considerablemanufactories of flannel, which, from the numberof hands necessarily employed, have rendered theplace very populous’.8 A shift to factory productionfrom outwork, and changes in marketing, almostcertainly influenced the development of the town.‘Dolgelley and its vicinity have long been noted for the manufacture of a sort of coarse woollencloth, or flannel, called ‘webs’, or ‘Welsh plains’, inwhich about one thousand four hundred personsare at present employed… in the last century theywere chiefly sold directly from the loom; but fullingmills have since been erected upon the banks of the streams in the neighbourhood, andbleaching-grounds formed along the sides of the hills’.9 ‘The principal market for goods isShrewsbury, but so great a portion has of late been


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Above left: The church,rebuilt in 1718.

Above: Tan y Fynwent, a substantial town house of the lateseventeenth century.

bought on the spot that the inhabitants have had little occasion to send to a market at such a distance’.10

There is plenty of surviving evidence in the town to chart the growing importance of thewoollen industry, and changes in its organizationfrom the early nineteenth century onwards. The shift from a domestic industry to factoryproduction (though still reliant on handwork) isclearly traceable in the building stock. There arehouses with weaving lofts — notably Star Houseon Meyrick Street which had two storeys of loomrooms, and No. 4 Lombard Street with itsdistinctive high upper storey — but also earlypurpose-built factories. The building to the rear ofSalem Chapel on Cader Road (Ffordd Cader Idris)has all the appearance of a loom shop, with itsbands of windows on the upper floor (its use as a school may have come later). Nos 1–3 ArranRoad (Pont yr Arran) was a small woollen factory.Forden House on Mill Street also incorporated aweaving loft by the mid-nineteenth century and TyMeirion in Eldon Square, which has a hoist to anupper floor, may also have included a loom shop or warehouse. Cambrian Mill, Well Street (Pant y


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Star House: two floors of loom shops are visibleabove the dwelling.

Below right: The attictaking-in door at TyMeirion suggests its use within the textileindustry.

Below: The longwindows beneath the eaves may haveoriginally lighted a weaving loft.

Pistyll), was purpose-built as a factory andwarehouse. Plas yn Dre also has a hoist to itsupper storey, suggesting attic warehousing. There is another probable weaving factory at the south end of Smithfield Street (Ffos y Felin).Fulling mills, which needed water power, werelocated out of the town centre in the valley of the Arran. The fragmentary remains of several mills and an impressive weir can still be seen close to the confluence of the Arran and Nant y Ceunant. Behind the Roman Catholic Church are the remains of another weir, crossed by apublic footpath. Other crossings on the river —the stepping stones below Hen Felin, and thefootbridge below South Street — also relate to former mill sites.

The shift to direct retail remarked on by earlynineteenth-century observers is not visible in the building stock until much later, but CentralBuildings, built in 1870, is a fine example of a largeemporium combining warehouse and shop.

Other industries developed to take advantage ofthe agricultural economy of the region and theplentiful water supply afforded by the river Arran.‘Much business is done in the dressing of nativelamb-skins and foreign lamb and kid skins, upwardsof one hundred thousand of the former being sent annually to Worcester and Chester ; and a few to London: tanning is also carried on to aconsiderable extent’.11 One tannery occupied the land immediately north-west of Pont yr Arran.The site of another is now the small housing estate off South Street. There were also several‘skin houses’ in the area now occupied by theRoman Catholic Church — the area once knownas Skinners Square.

As a market town with a strong local industry,Dolgellau also served as an important local orregional retail centre. Surviving buildings provideconsiderable testimony to this and chart a cleartypological development from simple houses with ground-floor shops (No. 1 Marion Road(Ffordd y Marian)) and shop extensions to houses(Star House, Meyrick Street), to full-blowncommercial architecture. Parliament House, theformer hardware shop, is an outstanding exampleof this: it was built as part of the redevelopment of an old quarter of the town in about 1885–86.Other examples of commercial architecture are Glyndwr Buildings and on a smaller scale,Waterloo Building.


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Above: A factory inSmithfield Street.

Left: The risingimportance of retailtrade is reflected in largepurpose-built shops suchas Glyndwr Buildings.

Below: Cambrian Mill,Well Street.

Landownership

Another significant influence on the character of the town in the nineteenth century was landownership. Ownership lay in many hands, asthe diverse character of building shows, but twoestates were particularly important. The Vaughansof Nannau and Hengwrt were a powerful force. It was Robert Vaughan who was responsible for the development of Eldon Row. This is an early example of formal urban building, and the herald of more widespread improvement: ‘The streets are irregularly faced and the housesmostly ill-built, but a good line of houses wasbegun on 4th June 1830 by Sir R.W. Vaughan Bart,and many parts of the town have recentlyexperienced or are now undergoing considerableimprovement’.12 The sheer quantity of building of1830–50 in the town amply bears him out.

Vaughan was also responsible for rebuilding TheGolden Lion which was already considered thetown’s best inn in the early nineteenth century. He was instrumental in the building of theCourthouse in 1825 (his portrait hung inside it),and the gaol in1811. The Llwyn estate also hadscattered holdings in the town, but seems not tohave involved itself directly in the building process.That there was only limited building to thenorth-east of the bridge over the Wnion before the twentieth century may be owing tolandownership: much of this land was also part of the Llwyn estate, which perhaps had otherambitions for it.

Buildings and Society

If the extent of building in the early nineteenthcentury is a good indication of prosperity, its rangereveals a complex social structure. The townpossesses a considerable hierarchy of buildings:from rows of small houses and workers’ cottagesand detached and terraced larger town houses (for example, Ty Meurig), to substantial villas in theirown grounds, the earliest of which include FronArran (1830), Brynhyfryd (1840), and Brynmair(1838). Units of development were generally smalluntil the late nineteenth century. Few terraces arelonger than three or four houses, reflectingfragmented landholding and the piecemealavailability of plots for building.


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Top: Eldon Row is agood example of formalplanned development bya major local landowner.

Above: Brynhyfryd, one of the earliest villas which became acharacteristic feature ofthe town during thenineteenth century.

Right: Cottages on Cader Road.

The villas occupied substantial plots and attained a degree of isolation, but elsewhere, the mixing of buildings of different scale and status is ahallmark of development in the town. Substantialhouses rub shoulders with small cottages, and even the later nineteenth-century developments to the east of the town provided houses ofvariable size — substantial houses with baywindows and front gardens were built close to rows of back-to-back cottages.

Dolgellau: Mountain Resort

The detached villas are indicative not only of localprosperity but also of the popularity of the area asa picturesque destination. Dolgellau was notable notleast as a base for an ascent of Cadair Idris, and thepicturesque qualities of its environs were frequentlycelebrated in nineteenth-century accounts. It isdifficult to quantify the effect of this on thecharacter of the town in the early days, thoughthere was clearly considerable investment in thebuilding of hotels: Vaughan’s rebuilding of TheGolden Lion was a prestigious project, and thescale of accommodation offered by The Royal Ship(also Vaughan property, rebuilt on the site of anearlier building in the early nineteenth century andextended some decades later) gives a goodindication of the value of tourism in this period.Both had extensive service accommodation —stable yards etc. The third principal hotel in thetown was The Angel Hotel (demolished andreplaced by what is now the HSBC bank in1923–24); ambitious plans for it were drawn up in 1800, though probably never implemented.

The arrival of the railway in 1867 had a decisiveinfluence, and there are numbers of buildings whichwere clearly intended as boarding houses. Dolgellauwas ‘famous amongst tourists, anglers etc, and asvisitors have increased, so has the number of villasand handsome houses built and specially fitted upfor their accommodation, the appearance of thetown being much improved thereby’.13 Goodexamples include Frondirion, 1–3 Bryntirion and3–5 Bryn Teg, but there are many others of around1870–1900. The railway had a direct physicalimpact on the town too — its arrival necessitatedthe modification of the bridge over the Wnion, andthe demolition of the cluster of buildings that hadonce developed at the north end of the bridge —including the very large Hen and Chickens Inn.

The Late NineteenthCentury: Expansion and Renewal

Dolgellau witnessed a more general boom in thepost-railway period, with extensive rebuilding, newbuilding, and further work of town planning. Someof this was very ambitious — new streets wereformed in the centre of the town: SpringfieldStreet (Heol Plas Uchaf), Glyndwr Street (HeolGlyndwr), Plas yn Dre Street, Smithfield Street, andCae Tanws Bach. The town also expanded,especially to the east.


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Left: Meyrick Street —the juxtaposition of largetown houses and smallcottages is characteristicof the town.

Below: Late nineteenth-century villas atBodlondeb.


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Modern Times

Twentieth- (and twenty-first-) centurydevelopment takes three principal forms:expansion of the built area, infill within the existing urban area, and clearance. In the twentiethcentury, a programme of council-house buildingcontributed significantly to the expansion of thetown. Two areas in particular were developed fromthe 1920s — north of the bridge and east of theriver Arran. Development continued in the latterarea after the war. Small sites in the Arran valleywithin the town were also developed orredeveloped (Sarn Road (Hen Felin), for example).There was also some speculative building: ‘everyencouragement is given for building by privateenterprise’, according to a town guide of 1962.14

Much of this was concentrated to the north of the river. In the 1950s–60s, there was also aprogramme of clearance, resulting in significantlosses of especially smaller vernacular buildingswithin the town (e.g. Tai Gwynion, Finsbury Square, The Castle public house, and formeralmshouses etc on Baker Street.

The town is continuing to expand, steadilyencroaching onto former farmland on the slopesto the north, and on the high ground to the east ofthe river Arran, as well as within the Arran valley.

Right: Twenty-first-century development inthe Arran valley.

Below: The old town,with twentieth-centuryexpansion to the north.


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Historical Topography

‘It is evident that the Romans had nothing to do in the ground plan of this town. The houses are just inthe same order as the tartars pitch their tents’.15

‘The Town has been built with an entire absence of preconceived plan, being an irregular network ofnarrow lanes, and the houses are often extremelycramped for space’.16

Visitors in the early nineteenth century agreed that the town had a haphazard and irregularappearance. Several of them repeat variations on ariddle: Here, for example, is the Reverend WilliamBingley, quoting a ‘native of Dolgelle’: ‘“There”, sayshe, flinging on the table a handful of nuts, andsetting up a cork in the middle, “suppose each ofthese nuts a house, and that cork the church, youwill have some tolerable idea of Dolgelle”. Theanalogy holds good, for the streets are as irregularas it is possible to imagine them, the houses ingeneral are low and ill-built’.17

In spite of various attempts to impose order on the town in the nineteenth century, its planremains remarkably informal (Refer to map 2 —page 41). It comprises a series of irregular plots ofland which were perhaps once individual holdings,loosely dispersed around an area of open spacewith no defined boundaries — the area which laterbecame Eldon Square and Queen’s Square andwhich was presumably the site of the medievalmarket. Several encroachments were made ontothis space, signalled by the landless buildings andblocks within it. These probably correspond to the encroachments referred to in thesixteenth-century document quoted on page 9.

Elsewhere, the meandering pattern of streets dividesan almost cellular pattern of plots, and buildings clingto pre-existing curvilinear boundaries. We can seethe way in which these boundaries constrainedbuilding in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuriesin the frequent oblique angles, chamfered corners,and curved frontages which are so characteristic ofthe town. These features serve to provide evidencefor earlier boundaries and alignments lost innineteenth-century improvements (e.g. to the rearof Eldon Row). These irregular plots are separatedby a network of roads, lanes and footpaths,

occasionally opening out into a wider space, some of which are the so-called squares which are afeature of Dolgellau. In some areas, blocks of landlessbuildings suggest more encroachment onto otheropen spaces between these plots: at the south endof Well Street, for example, and the now demolishedbuildings in the open ground of Y Lawnt.

These cellular plots clearly formed the basis forurban development. Perhaps it is significant thatseveral of them contain a single large house ofprobable early origin: The Unicorn, Plas Newydd,Plas Isaf (incorporated in The Golden Lion), Tan y

Above left: Ty Meirionoccupies an island site inwhat was probably oncea large open market area.

Above: The curvedbuilding line of WellStreet respects an earlierplot boundary.

Left: Linear building on South Street adheresto the boundary of anearlier plot.

Fynwent, Plas Gwyn, Plas Uchaf and previously,Cwrt Plas yn Dre. Even the earliest survivingbuildings respect their boundaries (see for examplethe chamfered corner on the rear wing of TheTorrent Walk Hotel, or Pen Brynbella). These plotsare clearly indicated on the maps of 1760 and1794,and some were already densely built up by thatdate. These maps also show the plot structure onwhich nineteenth-century expansion took place —e.g. the Meyrick Street/Bryn Teg area, the area tothe west of South Street, and (later) the area to the east of Smithfield Street.

This plot structure contributes strongly to thecharacter of the town, and linear development israre before the late nineteenth century eventhough all the main roads into the town wereturnpikes by the later eighteenth century: ‘Everyentrance… is barred by a turnpike’.18 There weregates on Cader Road, at the top of the bridge, andon Arran Road. But only Cader Road provided aclear building line, and then only for a short lengthbetween Chapel Lane and Creggenan Road. Theformation of the turnpike may have entailed somerationalization of an earlier line, as the road seemsto cut across earlier boundaries immediately to thesouth of Love Lane (Tylau Mair). Above all, it was thecellular plot structure that contained and shapeddevelopment. As the population of the town grew,these little nodes of settlement filled up, forexample, with the development of courts, most ofwhich have now gone. Cwrt Uchaf and Cwrt Isaf,South Street, for example, were demolished some


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time after 1956. By the end of the nineteenthcentury, development was very dense indeed, and pressures on space had resulted in someingenious forms of building: Dr Parsons referred to back-to-back, and houses in tiers, one above the others. He named Lombard Court — sevenhouses in a narrow well of a court entered only byarchways — and English Terrace, which was tworows of back-to-back houses; also Chapel Buildings,a chapel converted into eight houses. At Hen Felin,a row of back-to-back houses had a third set oftenements under the back row, and another rowwith three sets of houses one above the other.Bye-laws for new building were adopted in 1884,but were, in his view, ‘entirely disregarded’.19 Almostall of this dense development pattern has now beenthinned out or lost entirely, but there is a trace of itstill on the south side of Lombard Street.

Plots which had hitherto remained largely empty (and in agricultural use) also began to besurrounded by building. This is particularly true to the south of the town — the near-continuousbuilding line along South Street and Y Domen Fawr was established during the nineteenth century,where there had only been intermittent building at the end of the previous century.

Onto this clustering of densely developed plots,nineteenth-century landowners attempted toimpose some order. Eldon Row is probably thefirst of these — traces of an earlier arrangementare recorded on estate maps of 1794 and 1820,and are perhaps indicated in the alignment ofbuildings and boundaries to its rear. Much later sawthe formation of new streets on the east side ofEldon Square. Plas yn Dre Street and GlyndwrStreet were cut through against the grain ofexisting boundaries in the 1880s. Their creationinvolved the demolition of earlier buildings onother alignments including Cwrt Plas yn Dre itself(‘amongst a range of wretched hovels at the backof the post-office’ in 1837), its place later occupiedby an ironmongery store.20 In some cases,individual buildings were truncated in this process:the former agricultural merchants on GlyndwrStreet has a late nineteenth-century front on whatseems to be an earlier building. Smithfield Street(Ffos y Felin) was another new creation, taking theline of an earlier mill leat, as its Welsh nameindicates. Springfield Street was also pushedthrough: its projected line was shown on a plan of1868, the property of James Lloyd Tamberlaine. Ona smaller scale, a series of demolitions rationalized

This early vernacularbuilding was constrainedby an early plotboundary, as the angledcorner shows. It waslater truncated whenSmithfield Street wascreated and The TorrentWalk Hotel built.

the street and building pattern elsewhere, mostnotably to the east and south of Eldon Square,where in 1881 Crosby Buildings replaced an earlierrow on a slightly different alignment to widen thejunction with Upper Smithfield Street, where atleast one building which had previously projectedinto the line of street was demolished. ‘At last theold houses at the top of Eldon Square… are beingpulled down. It will be recollected that there was a good deal of haggling with respect to the gableend of one of these houses, which the conditionsof sale stated was to be removed further in,whenever it would be rebuilt. The effect of suchremoval would be the widening of the streetcorner opposite Victoria Buildings by about threefeet. Thirty years ago… another building outsidethis disputed gable was pulled down by the late Sir Robert Vaughan, its then owner, for the purposeof widening the street’.21

Elsewhere, later development took place on land which had not been developed previously. The town expanded to the south-west, mainly with larger houses and a series of villas in theirown grounds, and to the east, where a newindustrial and residential quarter was developedbetween the newly formed Smithfield Street and the river Arran, between 1886 and 1900. A small residential suburb was also establishedalong Arran Road, where plots were set out forsale in 1877. After the arrival of the railway, thearea north of the Wnion was also developed,though here it was large villas and boarding houses which were characteristic: their picturesque aspirations are revealed not only in the visual variety and decorative vocabulary of the buildings themselves, and their well-plantedgardens, but also in their names, many of whichhave a sylvan theme (Hafod y Coed, CoedCymmer, and Tyn y Coed).


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Far left: Dense buildingto the rear of LombardStreet — one of the fewsurviving examples ofcourt development.

Smithfield Street (left)and Springfield Street(below) are bothcreations of the latenineteenth century,cutting through earlierplot lines.

Villas were characteristicof the town’s growth during thenineteenth century.


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The Character of Building

Wall Materials

and Finishes

Dolgellau is resolutely a town of stone and slate. It was however once home to one of the very fewrecorded timber-framed buildings in Merionydd —Cwrt Plas yn Dre, and there may also be traces oftimber framing in The Old Courthouse and PlasNewydd. From the seventeenth century at least,though, stone has dominated the local vernacular,and it was not displaced until the twentiethcentury. Even the arrival of the railway did notintroduce brick in any quantity.

The local geology produces plentiful stone (thereare quarries to the south-west of the townadjacent to the Creggenan Road, and above BrynTeg), but it is not necessarily the most tractable forbuilding, being difficult to cut and dress. Generally itwas worked in large blocks, needing considerableingenuity in the handling. ‘The masonry ofDolgelley merits particular notice. From timeimmemorial, they have built with very large stones,even to the top, lifting the stones to the work fromtowards the middle course, with an immensemachine, which takes above a day to erect, as torequire a lever of that vast power. Quere if this isnot a dear sort of masonry. The lintels of doorsand windows are generally of immense stones’.22

We have already encountered the changes thatwere made to the plan of Dolgellau from the late nineteenth century onwards, to try toaccommodate the increasing scale and volume of traffic in the streets of the town. Coupled withthose changes, and again brought about by thedevelopment of Dolgellau as a destination fortourists, was a dramatic transformation in theappearance of its buildings. Dolgellau consciouslycreated a new visual identity for itself by thesystematic removal of its traditional externalfinishes. The townscape is now characterized bywalls of chunky grey, almost louring, stonework. Yetthere is overwhelming evidence that, prior to thethird quarter of the nineteenth century, the greatmajority of these buildings were covered externallywith lime render and/or limewash. Traces of these

Top: Stonework detail,South Street.

Centre: Stoneworkdetail, Eldon Squarearea.

Bottom: Limewash in a porch at Pandy yrOdyn Cottages.


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finishes are discernible everywhere in the town.White was the predominant choice of colour forthe limewash, although pink seems to have beenfavoured by a few daring souls. The renders andwashes are still evident on many of the buildingsconstructed in the 1830s and 1840s.

The date at which scraping off the traditionalfinishes started is difficult to determine, but itprobably gained momentum fairly swiftly. In adescription of 1850 ‘the site is so lovely and thegrouping of the grey stone buildings so good atmost points that the traveller is somewhatdisappointed on entering the mean irregularstreets to find that distance has lent enchantmentto the view’.23

Bare stone appears to have been the desirable and fashionable finish by the 1870s, associated with the use of particular dressing techniques(well-squared stonework and especially rock-faced stonework). The change was fuelled by the Victorian misconception that bare stoneworkwas authentically ancient and natural. Mostmedieval churches in Wales were harshly denuded of their original renders in the sameperiod for the same reason, but it is rare to find a whole town being subjected to the treatment.For a place wishing to attract visitors by promotingitself as an ancient market town the process musthave seemed appealing, and the light, bright streetsof a white Dolgellau turned resolutely grey.

There appear to have been very few instances offull or multi-coat rendering. The normal techniqueseems to have been more akin to a full and liberalpointing of joints, with sometimes a thin smear-coatof mortar extended across the faces of stones. The whole appearance was then unified bymultiple applications of limewash, inexorablybuilding up into a protective skin around theexterior of the building, the outlines of individualstones blurred and softened in the process.

No completely rendered or limewashed buildingssurvive in the town, although there are examplesstill to be seen in the outskirts. What remains areisolated elevations, mostly in locations that are outof the public eye, plus an occasional feature such asthe interior of a porch or a flight of steps. Thesesurviving examples need to be safeguarded, andowners encouraged (and assisted financially) tomaintain them by repair and the application offurther coats of limewash. Where fragmentary

evidence survives on other buildings, it should benoted, and protected from damage or removalduring any works of repair or alteration. The ideaof reintroducing renders and limewashes tobuildings that formerly had these finishes shouldnot be discounted, and could be accommodatedwithin the category of assistance within aTownscape Heritage Initiative Scheme ofreintroducing lost architectural detail. Morepertinently perhaps, the traditional finishes couldbe promoted for infill sites or peripheraldevelopments where their use would have theeconomic advantage of permitting the choice of poorer quality or even ‘artificial’ stone.

In addition to surface finish, there is considerablevariety in the handling of stone. Characteristic ofearlier buildings are large quarried blocks whichwere only roughly worked (for example, at Tan yFynwent), and there are rare examples of the useof river boulders (for example, in workshops onSouth Street). From the later eighteenth century,there was greater use of cut stone laid in moreregular courses, and a distinctive masonry style in which smaller stones packed out the joints ofirregular blocks to help bring them to courses. This variety reflected advances in stoneworking

Above: Limewash on an ancillary building at Coed Wenallt.

Left: River stones used in a former workshop,South Street.

techniques, and provides us with important cluesto the phasing of building and alteration. Techniquesalso varied with levels of investment, giving anindication of a building’s status. There waseverything from finely worked ashlar (e.g. parts of The Golden Lion and the police station), toroughly-coursed rubble, and it became increasinglycommon to distinguish between the main façade(where finer working was concentrated) and theside and rear walls. From 1870, there was amarked change in the dressing of stone and in thestyle of working it: a rock-faced, snecked masonryfaçade style dominates later nineteenth-centurybuilding in the town, overshadowing examples ofother techniques such as the heavily tooled ashlarof Agriculture House.


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Coursed and squaredstonework, Bridgend.

Right: Coursed andsquared stonework,Lombard Street.

Far right: Vernacularstonework, Cader Road.

Right: Contrastingstonework styles, The Golden Lion.

Far right: Channelledashlar, the old PoliceStation.

Roofs

Turning now to other materials in the town, thereare a few surviving examples of traditional slatingtechniques that must once have been common inDolgellau before the advent of railways and thearrival of the almost ubiquitous large, thin slates of Penrhyn and Bethesda. Roofs of random ordiminishing courses should be guarded with pride,as should the few examples of the hybrid sweptand laced slatework which is characteristic ofhistoric roof valleys in the town and its environs. A general reintroduction of this older type ofroofing is patently not possible, but it could bepromoted for the re-roofing of the few remainingseventeenth-century houses in the town, andespecially the smaller vernacular buildings such as Fro Awel and Cemlyn House.

Dolgellau is fortunate in retaining a lively anddistinctive roof-scape of which chimneys are themost obvious component (though it is as well toremember also the town’s prominent gables,dormers and angled walls). Dolgellau’s chimneystend to be big and bold. Their juxtaposition witheach other, and their use of devices such as ornatecappings and weather coursing, provide vitalevidence for the dates of construction and thesequences of developments. Chimneys should notbe lowered or removed, whether the building islisted or not. A building shorn of its chimneyssuffers a damaging blow to its character and henceto the character of the town as a whole. If at allpossible, the designers of new structures inDolgellau should be encouraged to incorporatechimneys — and not spindly examples, either.


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Above: Graded slate on The Unicorn.

Left: Chimneys in theMeyrick Street area.

Far left: A rare survivingexample of graded slate,Meyrick Street.

Left: Valley detailrestored at The Golden Lion.

Architectural Detail

The town is remarkable for its widespreadretention of original windows, for which theconservation staff at the National Park office musttake much of the credit. It cannot be stressed toohighly that windows and their distinctive perioddetailing provide the most obvious and generallyreliable clues to the age of a building. Dolgellau isdoubly fortunate in retaining countless examples oforiginal glass. Any repair or renewal of windows inthe town should seek, as a matter of course, toretain and reuse the existing glass. It is a rare,precious and finite resource of historic fabric. Of inappropriately designed or UPVC windowsthere are, of course, examples to be found. It is tobe hoped that with the commencement of a


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Townscape Heritage Initiative, and the introductionof Article 4 Directions by the local planningauthority coupled with generous grants to replacethe few rogue examples, the fenestration ofDolgellau will become a model to be emulated by other towns in Wales.

Finally, a word about shop fronts. Dolgellau hassome extremely fine historic examples, whichshould be protected and cherished. But the town isnot alone in having suffered from the introductionof too many brutally modern examples that arewrong in scale and materials. A sustainedprogramme of improvement through the sensitiveapplication of Development Control policies,coupled possibly with financial incentives via theTownscape Heritage Initiative, should bringsubstantial townscape benefits. But one must guardagainst the usual ‘in-keeping’ proposals. Theseinvariably display little or no real understanding ofperiod construction and detailing and the resultsare patently bogus and unsatisfying. Large-scaledetailed drawings, particularly of joineryconstruction, should accompany every proposednew shop front. Simplicity of design often producesa more convincing result than a scheme that isloaded with excessive Victoriana. Goodproportions, well-thought-out detailing and qualitymaterials are the fundamental aspects. It goeswithout saying that Dolgellau is a town of paintedtimberwork, not only for shop fronts but also forall windows and doors, and stained or varnishedwood should be regarded as an alien intrusion.

Building Types

Dolgellau exhibits a remarkable range of domesticbuilding types, suggesting a complex socialstructure. Amongst the earliest buildings to surviveis a distinctive vernacular cottage type displayingconsiderable uniformity of form. By the lateseventeenth century and during the eighteenthcentury, the building stock also included somesignificant town houses (Plas Gwyn, Plas y Ffynnon,and Plas Isaf). Extensive new building in thenineteenth century has given us a far morecomplete social structure, ranging from very smallcottages to very large villas, reflecting the diverseeconomy and society of the town in this period.

Although short terraces and paired houses andcottages were already being built along with single

Above: Well-maintainedarchitectural detail,South Street.

Right: Traditionalpaintwork and sashwindows, UpperSmithfield Street.

houses in the seventeenth century, units ofdevelopment were generally small until the end of the nineteenth century. Even when new streetswere created in the later nineteenth century, thecharacteristic building pattern remained one ofsmall units: Springfield Street, for example,comprised terraces, pairs of houses and adetached villa. More unified schemes of buildingwere introduced for the rather later developmentto the south of Glyndwr Street where AberwnionTerrace and English Terrace originally comprisedblocks of back-to-back houses, and on the north of Arran Road where unified development was emphasized in symmetrical composition.Twentieth-century council-house building (and to a lesser extent inter-war speculative building)introduced unified development on a much greaterscale. This has remained characteristic of morerecent development — whether expressed interraced groups (e.g. Nant y Gader, CreggenanRoad) or in the repetition of detached units —though there has also been piecemeal individualdevelopment on Creggenan Road, FforddBodlondeb, and the former drive to Bryn y Gwin.

The range of building types indicative of thedeveloping economy of the town in the nineteenthcentury has already been discussed in the sectionIndustry and Commerce: an exceptionally goodseries of nineteenth-century industrial andcommercial buildings provide powerful testimonyto the importance of the textile industry and to the organization of retail.

Streets: Furniture

and Finishes

The town retains significant elements of traditionalsurfaces — cobbled forecourts are particularlycharacteristic, and good examples survive in frontof The Royal Ship, and along Meyrick Street. Afterthe coming of the railway, Staffordshire Bluepaviours with an incised diamond pattern usedwith slate or clay kerbs were introduced. Thecast-iron street signs which also survive around the town were probably made in a local foundry.


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Top left: Pont yr ArranCottage — one of thebest examples of thevernacular cottage which was typical ofDolgellau before thenineteeth century.

Above and top right:Industrial housing in a planned developmentto the rear of Glyndwr Street.

Left: A symmetricalcomposition indicatesplanned development on Arran Road.


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Character Areas

1. Central Area (Eldon Square, Queen’s Square,Bridge Street, Smithfield Street, and Upper Smithfield Street)

Historical Development and Topography

Eldon Square and Queen’s Square form a centralopen space around which is a series of cellularplots of land that are densely built up. The openspace was almost certainly the marketplace of the medieval settlement. A series of apparentencroachments onto the open space of thesquares may themselves have early origins(encroachments were referred to in a sixteenth

to seventeenth-century lawsuit). Ty Meirion, TheOld Courthouse (probably the pre-1825 town hall,with significant seventeenth-century fabric), andperhaps The Royal Ship and Central Buildings —maybe even Eldon Row itself — are characteristicof encroachments, where the building occupies the whole of the plot as an ‘island’ site.

Around the market area, discrete plots of landwere gradually developed with buildings. On theseplots, buildings adhered to the perimeters, resultingin some oddly angled corners in places. Butbuilding also took place within the plots: thelaundry building behind Nos 1–3 Bridgend is anextant example, and there are clear remains ofothers both within this block, and between MillStreet and Upper Smithfield Street. These plots ofland were divided by narrow lanes and alleywaysuntil a campaign of town improvement andrebuilding in the nineteenth century introducednew street and building lines. Eldon Row itselfrationalized an earlier building line on the west sideof Eldon Square: there may be clues to the earlierpattern of building in the alignments of buildingsand boundaries to its rear. Mill Street, WaterlooStreet (Heol y Dwr) and Bridge Street (Heol yBont) mark early divisions between plots, whereasSmithfield Street was developed on the line of aformer mill leat. Plas yn Dre Street and GlyndwrStreet were carved through an earlier plot, cuttingacross prior building alignments. The medievalhouse of Cwrt Plas yn Dre was demolished in1885 during this programme of work. The housewas recorded before its demolition, and surveydrawings show its origins as a timber-framedhouse, with fine spere truss to the open hall. A brief campaign to save it came to nothing, butpart of it was re-erected in Newtown where itsurvives as the Quaker Meeting House.


The importance of the central area of the town isunderscored by successive periods of investment inits buildings (including cycles of rebuilding). Althoughthere are important traces of an earlier history,much of the built character derives from thenineteenth century. There is a distinctive buildingphase of about 1820–40, and a second major phase

Above: The building lineof Mill Street reflects the boundary of an early plot.

Right: Bridgend wasbuilt to respect an earlierplot line, but the straightline of Smithfield Street(built over a former millleat) was the result ofurban improvement inthe nineteenth century.

around 1880, but it is clear that both of these wererebuilding rather than new building.

Another index of importance is the scale ofbuilding in this area, both in terms of the size ofindividual buildings (many of which are three-storeyed), and by the size of units of development:Eldon Row and Crosby Buildings are bothexamples of planned development of 1830 and1880 respectively. Other examples of large-scaledevelopment from the later nineteenth centuryinclude Glyndwr Buildings and the block onSmithfield Street between Cae Tanws Bach andGlyndwr Street.

Vernacular buildings on Mill Street (part of TheTorrent Walk Hotel and The Cross Keys publichouse) and Waterloo Street (nos 1–2) survivefrom an earlier period of development in theseventeenth and eighteenth centuries, confirmingthe early origins of this plot structure and clearlyrespecting its boundaries. Other vernacularbuildings are recorded but have now been lost —The Old Swan (possibly on the site of GlyndwrBuildings), and The Castle public house on thesouth-west corner of Lion Street.

There are examples of more ambitious building in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. PlasNewydd incorporates what is thought to be aseventeenth-century house as its rear range, andmay also have a timber-framed frontage. Plas Isafwas a large town house belonging to the Nannauestate, and was rebuilt in the nineteenth century(incorporated in The Golden Lion). Anotherpossible example of a seventeenth-century house,listed as Dilys Meredith, survives on UpperSmithfield Street. By the later eighteenth centurybuilding development of a different and moreobviously urban kind was underway: Nos 1–3 BridgeStreet and The Stag public house, and Nos 1–3Bridgend are both short terraces of smaller townhouses, implying a speculative building process.

The early vernacular buildings are typically small in scale (one and a half storeyed), and rubble-built (the limewash finish of The Cross Keys public house has been reinstated). The largervernacular buildings from this period, and the early urban buildings of the later eighteenthcentury are also rubble-built, and there are strongindications that limewash was common — forexample, traces survive on Dilys Meredith, UpperSmithfield Street.


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Crosby Buildings: A latenineteenth-centuryunified development.

Bridgend is an earlyexample of organizedbuilding — a shortterrace rather than asingle house.

A traditional limewashfinish reinstated at TheCross Keys public house.

During extensive building and rebuilding during theearly nineteenth century, distinctive urban buildingforms were adopted — characteristically, at leastthree-storeyed and in the Georgian tradition. The formal terrace of Eldon Row is an exceptionalexample, but Ty Meirion also exhibits sophisticationin construction (its coursed rubble has lacingcourses at each floor), and in detail (symmetricalelevation, tripartite sashes and classical shop front).Other buildings from this period include the Boots building, Siop Hughes, and the bakery onUpper Smithfield Street. Stonework was generallycoursed, with blocks either roughly squared and packed out with smaller stones, or moreregularly squared.

The late nineteenth-century building boomdominates the east side of the town centre.Buildings are characteristically large scale: three or more storeys and either large single commercialestablishments or blocks of shops or housing. A snecked masonry finish was widely adopted for façades, contrasting with the rougher rubbleused in rear and side walls. Some of the largercommercial buildings adopted a palazzo style with renaissance detail and a strong composition.

As the commercial heart of the town, the areaincludes good indications of its economicdevelopment during the nineteenth century.Though intermixed with domestic buildings, thearea has a strong commercial character. The textileindustry is well represented: Forden House is anearly industrial building incorporating weaving lofts,and Ty Meirion may also have housed warehousing,workshops or retail. Central Buildings is anexcellent example of a late nineteenth-centuryemporium combining warehousing with retail. Plasyn Dre is a late nineteenth-century house withattic warehousing. Hotels and inns also played animportant part in the economy of the town in thenineteenth century. Pre-eminent was The GoldenLion which incorporated Plas Isaf and which wasrebuilt by Robert Vaughan in 1839 — itsarchitectural composition and the quality ofmaterials (ashlar) are indicative of its ambitions.The Royal Ship also testifies to expanding trade by the scale of mid-nineteenth-century additions to an already substantial building of the earliernineteenth century. There is also a good range of shop buildings, of which Parliament House and Glyndwr Buildings are especially good latenineteenth-century examples. Crosby Buildings was also purpose-built as a row of shops.


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Stonework detail at Ty Meirion.

Right: The Golden Lionwith fine stonework, anineteenth-centuryaddition to an earlier building.

Below: Evidence for the textile industry atForden House.

2. Lombard Street (Y Lawnt) Area


Like the central area, this area represents part ofthe core of the town, and development is basedupon a series of irregular plots separated bynarrow lanes. There may also have been largeropen spaces between these plots of land, on whichbuilding later encroached, giving the characteristiclandless building block. A good example of this‘island’ development occupies the space betweenthe two arms of Well Street (a space undevelopeduntil the nineteenth century), and there wereformerly buildings in the open area of Y Lawnt(demolished in the twentieth century).

Buildings are constrained by the boundaries of these plots, resulting in some abrupt angles or curved frontages. But there is also evidence of development in the interior of the plots —although the early cottage on Well Street (TheCottage) pre-dates the perimeter buildings whichare all nineteenth century. Two courts survive onthe south side of Lombard Street as a reminder of the density of building in the town during thenineteenth century.

Lombard Street marked the limit of the town to the north-west, and although the narrow line of building along its north-west boundary wasestablished early, the land behind remainedundeveloped until the twentieth century.


The area was already densely built up by the endof the eighteenth century, but most buildingspost-date 1800. Earlier buildings include TheCottage on Well Street, which is a vernacularcottage perhaps of the seventeenth century.Buildings on Baker Street may also be early, and a row of almshouses here (demolished in thetwentieth century) were thought to have beenbuilt in 1616. Tan y Fynwent is a seventeenth toeighteenth-century town house and an importantindicator of wealth and status in that period.

Most buildings in the area belong to the period1800–1850, with very few later nineteenth-centurybuildings (exceptions include Islwyn Terrace onLombard Street, and a pair of narrow villasadjacent to the old police station). Most building

is recognizably urban, conceived as a series of pairs or terraces in a simple Georgian vernacular, a style applied to houses and cottages of varyingsize and status.

The influence of the underlying plot structure is very apparent, especially on Well Street, where nos 5 and 6 are built with a curvedfrontage, contrasting with the angled façades of nos 2 and 3. At the junction of Well Street and Finsbury Square, No. 1 Finsbury Square has an acutely angled gable. Clues to the boundarylines that preceded the construction of Eldon Row lie in the similarly angled façade of theGladstone House block.


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The Cottage, Well Street:a traditional vernacularcottage, and an exampleof the density of buildingwithin the core of thetown.

The acute angle at therear of No. 1 FinsburySquare was necessitatedby a pre-existing plotboundary.

Although the area is now strongly domestic incharacter it was fully integrated into the industrialand commercial economy of the town. No. 4Lombard Street was built to incorporate a woollenfactory in its upper floors, whilst Cambrian Mill onWell Street with the works building to its rear isalso almost certainly linked to the textile industry.The Old Bank is an early example of a commercialbuilding indistinguishable from a house (in contrastto the later nineteenth-century former North andSouth Wales Bank at the junction of Marion Roadand Lombard Street). There are good examples ofsmall nineteenth-century shops at No. 1 MarionRoad, and Llys y Delyn, Lombard Street. The areaalso housed the first police station of 1850.


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3. South Area (Meyrick Street, South Street, lane west of Bryn Teg, Love Lane, and Finsbury Square)


South of Upper Smithfield Street to Cader Roadthe pattern of development is also based on acellular plot structure. The block of land boundedto the north by Plas Newydd is a particularly goodexample, with buildings forming a near-circle, and with dense building in the centre of the plot(including some ruins). Meyrick Street, Bryn Teg,and Finsbury Square once formed the boundariesof another plot, sliced through by the creation ofSpringfield Street in the 1860s. The importance ofthis plot structure in containing development isapparent in Finsbury Square, where buildingsrespect earlier plot boundaries rather than theroad line. Both sides of Meyrick Street had beenbuilt up by the end of the eighteenth century, andthere are several early vernacular houses here. Themaps of 1760 and 1794 also show Y Domen Fawrquite clearly, as an open space surrounded bybuildings clustered along the margins of adjacentplots of land. Development was confined to thenorthern and eastern margins of this area until thelater nineteenth century, when the formation ofSpringfield Street and Upperfield Street created a new axis for building within its interior.

From Y Domen Fawr, South Street and a network offootpaths to the west delineate another large plotwhich has remained largely undeveloped beyond itseastern periphery, retaining an agricultural character.It was cut through by a new road to the rear ofSouth Street in the later twentieth century. Estatemaps of 1760 and 1794 show this plot quite clearly,with buildings clinging to its eastern margins, andtwo or three houses elsewhere (one of these is thesite of Pen y Bryn, whose rear outbuilding maypossibly be the predecessor of the present house).Between Mount Pleasant Road (Bryn Teg) and LoveLane, the boundary of another plot is clearlyrespected by the chamfered corner of PenBrynbella, a probable seventeenth toeighteenth-century vernacular cottage.

To the east of Meyrick Street is a series of smallerplots bounded by the river Arran. One of thesewas occupied by a tannery from the early

Above: Evidence of thewoollen industry onLombard Street.

Right: A well-preservedshop front at No. 1Marion Road.

nineteenth century at least. The site wasredeveloped with a small housing estate in themid-twentieth century. Upper Smithfield Streetrepresents the rationalization and widening of an earlier line, which was virtually blocked by abuilding projecting south from Eldon Square until the late nineteenth century. Victoria Buildings(1870) and Liverpool House (1830) may representthe site of another encroachment onto a formeropen space, though clearly respecting the line of Unicorn Lane.

Unlike the town centre, development here isgenerally smaller scale, comprising single buildingsor very short rows, and the different fortunes ofdifferent plots are clearly indicated in the radicallydifferent scales of adjacent buildings. Substantialtown houses punctuate the piecemealdevelopment of short rows, creating an almostcontinuous building line along Y Domen Fawr and South Street by the later nineteenth century.

The density of development varied, presumablywith landownership. One of the most notoriouslycrowded areas was Hen Felin (described by Dr Parsons in 1888), in what is now the Sarn Road area, but it was eventually cleared and thearea redeveloped. Similarly South Street wasdensely built up on its western side. Two courtswere located here, but a single building line is allthat remains. The formation of Springfield Streetand Upperfield Street represented an opportunityfor unified development, but though the saleparticulars suggested a uniform layout, what wasbuilt included substantial villas as well as a series of short terraces.


A series of buildings with seventeenth-centuryorigins hints at the extent of settlement in thisperiod: Plas Coch, The Unicorn and Plas Newyddare all thought to incorporate seventeenth-centuryfabric, albeit in all cases extended and remodelledin the early nineteenth century. The originalbuildings may all have been substantial houses. Plas Uchaf is also thought to have seventeenth oreighteenth-century origins as a town house, butwas rebuilt in the mid-nineteenth century andre-oriented with a picturesque frontage facinginwards over its garden. Plas Gwyn is eighteenthcentury and a substantially intact town house.These large houses are quite distinct from thesmaller vernacular buildings which have also

survived in this area (Fro Awel, Cemlyn House,Isfryn House, Glan Arran Cottages, and PenBrynbella). Rising prosperity is reflected in thecharacter of buildings from the later eighteenthcentury, including a series of ambitious townhouses. Glan Arran was probably built to replacean earlier cottage, and abuts two vernacularcottages in a juxtaposition of very different scalesof building. Tan y Gader of 1800, Glanafon of 1820,Ty Meurig of around 1830 and Mervinian Housealso sit in the midst of much smaller buildings.

The setting of these buildings — in relatively smallplots of land and juxtaposed with much smallerhousing — suggests that they were closely alliedwith an urban or even industrial economy. Prime examples of this may be Star House andSpringfield Villa: the former is a house of about1800 built to incorporate two floors of weavinglofts with independent external access. SpringfieldVilla is a mid- to late nineteenth-century houselinked to Star House via the stair and bridge which gave access to the loom shops.

Rather different in character is a series ofmid-nineteenth-century and later houses whichseem to relate to the picturesque movement.Some of these are individual houses set in theirown grounds — Tan yr Allt and Fron Arran ofabout 1830. Others are pairs or short terraces —Y Graig and Rhoslyn and the houses on Bryn Teg.


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Contrasting scales ofdevelopment: GlanArran, South Street.

These seem built for single occupancy, but thelarger terrace on Bryn Teg, and the three housesthat comprise Bryntirion, with their large windowsand bays, may have been intended as boardinghouses for the holiday trade.

Most of the surviving building in this area isdomestic, though there are commercial andindustrial buildings on the edge of the town centre. Chief amongst these is the fine earlynineteenth-century frontage of Plas Newydd (aninn with stabling and houses to the rear in 1820),whilst Victoria Buildings and Liverpool House areexamples of later nineteenth-century commercialarchitecture and town improvement —establishing a rational building line at the head ofMeyrick Street. Adjacent to the bridge over theArran was a small textile factory of 1830, whilstStar House represents an earlier generation oftextile production, when loom shops wereincorporated in the upper floors of a house.


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4. Tanws Area


The mill leat which was later taken by the line ofSmithfield Street marked the eastern limit ofdevelopment in the town at the end of theeighteenth century. The area to the east of the leatwas developed only at its upper (southern end)where Pont yr Arran Cottage is a good example ofthe rural vernacular building type characteristic ofearly buildings in the town. A small cluster of buildingsshown here on the 1794 map probably included amill. There was a tannery here by 1820, and the areastill has an industrial character. The Courthouse wasbuilt to the north of this area in 1825, and in 1850,the town gasworks was established. The RetortHouse, Governor House, and some contemporaryhousing survive. But significant development tookplace here only at the end of the nineteenth century,associated with the formation of Smithfield Street,and the new streets (Glyndwr Street and Plas yn Dre Street) to its east, giving the area a stronglyunified character as an industrial suburb.

Although the area was developed with mixedresidential and industrial functions, they were firmlyspatially segregated. Immediately adjacent to Pont yr Arran the tannery area was separated from thenew streets of houses to its north by a high stoneboundary wall (extant). The wood yard and joineryworkshop also has a clearly defined boundary. Onlythe warehousing/workshops on Glyndwr Street andCae Tanws Bach, and the former printing works onCae Tanws Bach, were intermixed with housing. Tothe south of Glyndwr Street a small and unusuallycoherent residential area was developed betweenaround 1886 and 1903.


Because most of the area was developed over ashort period in the later nineteenth century it has a consistent character, reinforced by the widespreaduse of a dark snecked facing stone. Along the two principal streets, units of development wererelatively small, and there is a variety of house types, including paired villas with bay windows and short terraces with front gardens. AberwnionTerrace, English Terrace and Talyrafon Buildings form a very coherent development. AberwnionTerrace and English Terrace were probably built as back-to-backs.

Right: The largewindows and gothicdetailing of Bryntirion,built to serve thegrowing holiday trade,are typical of the laternineteenth century.

Below: Informal rows oflarge houses characterizethe development of theSouth Area in thenineteenth century.

5. Western Area


West of Love Lane, the underlying character of the topography changes. Although the areabetween Love Lane and Ffordd Bodlondeb ischaracterized by curvilinear boundaries andthreaded by footpaths, it does not have thepronounced cellular structure of the urban area,and seems to have remained as farmland, largelyundeveloped until the nineteenth century. From 1830, the slopes began to be colonized by substantial villas set in spacious grounds.Small-scale developments in the twentieth century began to erode this character, but it is the villas and their sylvan settings which dominatethe area.

A different underlying structure is also suggestedby the character of development along CaderRoad. Beyond Love Lane, development is oriented to the road line rather than to plotboundaries, giving it a linear character. Piecemealdevelopment was shown on the 1794 map, andSalem Chapel was established in 1766, but thecharacter of building is largely nineteenth century.

Building is mainly domestic, but there are twobuildings which may have had an industrial function— the former school room at Salem Chapel andthe building adjacent to Bryn House.


The earliest villas use a simple Georgian idiom, but by the mid-nineteenth century, a taste for thepicturesque introduced a decorative vocabulary of big gables and large windows.

On Cader Road, development is typically mixed, ranging from quite large single or paired late eighteenth to early nineteenth-century houses, to small cottage rows. As elsewhere, eventhe larger houses occupy relatively small plots ofland, suggesting that they belong to an urban andperhaps industrial economy. Bryn House is aparticularly good example of this, not least becauseits large outbuilding has all the appearance of a textile warehouse or workshop. Erw Wen and its neighbour are a fine pair of early nineteenth-century houses with good Georgian detail,remodelled in the later nineteenth century when given an additional storey, and bay windows — perhaps enabling them to be used as boarding houses.


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Above left: Probablyoriginally built asback-to-back houses,these terraces have thecharacter of a small-scaleindustrial suburb.

Above: Detached villasin spacious grounds arecharacteristic of theWestern Area.

6. Arran Road (Pont yr Arran) Area


The river Arran formed a definite boundary to the town until the later nineteenth century. Beyondit, development was limited and an agriculturalcharacter with large, regular fields prevailed. The river itself, however, was a major source ofindustrial water power, and along its banks were a series of mills. These were mainly fulling mills,though there was also a corn mill and a woollenfactory by the later eighteenth century. None ofthese has survived, but there are substantialremains of the fulling mills at the confluence of the Ceunant with the Arran.

Well beyond the limits of the town, the workhouse(now Llwyn View) was built in 1850. It is areminder of the administrative significance ofDolgellau in the nineteenth century, and one of a number of institutional buildings which marked its status in this period.

Arran Road was also a turnpike (a turnpike gateand cottage are mentioned near the NationalSchool in nineteenth-century descriptions of the town), and it provided an axis for lineardevelopment at the end of the nineteenth century,when land which had previously formed part ofthe Llwyn Estate was laid out for development.


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In the twentieth century, former agricultural land on the edge of the town proved ripe fordevelopment, first with council estates in theinter-war and immediate post-war periods (and the hospital in 1929), and later with private speculative development, in a processwhich continues.


There was little development here before the twentieth century. Adjacent to the bridge, a long early nineteenth-century terrace of smallhouses may have been associated with the textilefactory which it faced across the river.

Aran Dale was the mill house associated with the Upper Mill corn mill and was probably aNannau estate house (it has the characteristicapsidal wing of other houses on the estate). The later development on former Llwyn estateland comprised a series of parallel terraces (and a further row at right-angles to the road), someconceived as symmetrical compositions. Like theTanws Area on the west bank of the Arran, thisdevelopment forms a coherent suburb with a strong character.

Away from the main road, the area is dominatedby twentieth-century building — the characteristicpairs of inter-war public housing, the longerterraces of the 1950s and 60s, and the detachedand semi-detached houses of more recentspeculative development.

7. Western Outlying Area

West of Ffordd Bodlondeb, there is a strong break in the underlying historical topography, with a system of rectilinear fields on the upperslopes. The influence of the town remains apparent, not only in the spread oftwentieth-century development, but alsohistorically in a series of villas and gentleman’sresidences. It is notable that those furthest fromthe town are more closely akin to small countryestates — Bryn y Gwin, for example, which had its own estate cottages at the gates, and which was probably also responsible for the picturesquePandy yr Odyn Cottages.

Bryn y Gwin is a smallestate house on the edgeof the town.

8. North of the Wnion Area


The area to the north of the river remained largelyundeveloped until the coming of the railway in1867, though there was a small group of buildingsat the bridge head by the early nineteenth century,lost when the railway was put through. These areclearly shown on an engraving for The Beauties ofEngland and Wales in 1812, and mapped on aLlwyn Estate survey of 1820. This map, and anearlier survey of Dolwyrch Eogryd (Dolrhyd) alsoclearly show intermittent buildings hugging Pen yCefn Road, which was the only road out ofDolgellau to the north in the eighteenth century.The land was broadly divided between the Llwynand Nannau/Hengwrt estates. To the west of Pen yCefn road lay Vaughan land which was released forbuilding immediately following the building of therailway. The Llwyn Estate was more reticent: therewas little development to the east of the road untilthe twentieth century. The estate character of thisarea is signalled by one of the few pre-railwaybuildings — Coed Fronallt (part of the LlwynEstate in 1820), with its picturesque detail.

After the coming of the railway, the area changedradically as fields were progressively released forbuilding. At first, development was largely confinedto the area west of Pen y Cefn Road, and wasmainly in the form of large villas, built as detachedhouses or pairs. This private development is incontrast to the public building programmes of thetwentieth century which dominate the area to theeast of Pen y Cefn Road. These include the primaryschool of 1915, and the council offices of 1953 (anearlier plan for a commission by Sir Giles GilbertScott having come to nothing), as well as acouncil-house building programme begun in theinter-war period. This, together with some limitedspeculative development, introduced building at ahigher density to the east. The town is continuing toexpand onto former agricultural land to the north.


The villas are clearly all individually designed in arange of styles, but with strong common elements:bay windows and broad gables predominate. Theymay have served as boarding houses as much asprivate residences, though one was the rectory,built on land acquired for the purpose in 1871.

Haulfryn and Frondirion represent a particularlyinteresting development which was almostcertainly intended for the holiday trade: it is aplanned development with two matching housesflanking a once gated drive, above which the four- storeyed, gabled range of Frondirion looms.Additional doorways at the back of the terraceseem to suggest that it was built to enablesubdivision as apartments. The large bay windowsare classic features of the boarding house, and therow commands a fine view over Cader Idris.

The villas are generally set in wooded gardens, with stone gate piers to driveways, and nameswhich are redolent of the picturesque (CoedCymmer, Coed Celyn, and Haulfryn).


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Picturesque estatecottages at Pandy yr Odyn.

Detached villas are the hallmark of thenorthern area.

Frondirion was anambitious planneddevelopment of the latenineteenth century; itscommanding positionclose to the railwaystation and its scalesuggest it was built with the holiday trade in mind.

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Statement of Significance

Dolgellau is a town like no other. The shape andstructure of the town centre takes us straight to itsmedieval origins. It grew on a series of irregularlyshaped plots of land, and buildings cling to theirboundaries and once crowded within them. Theplots are divided by meandering patterns of lanesand alleys, or separated by open spaces ontowhich other buildings occasionally encroached.Buildings are often literally shaped to theboundaries of the plots, which have been tenaciousin structuring the growth of the town. Even outsidethe town core, the underlying plot pattern can bediscerned as the primary influence on thestructure of development, both for the straddlinglines of buildings on the west side of the riverArran, and for the dispersed villas that ring thetown to the north and south-west.Notwithstanding various nineteenth-centurytown-planning initiatives, which have also left animportant mark on the town, the underlyingpattern was never obliterated.

This pattern of alternating open spaces, windinglanes, and plots of land which are sometimesalmost entirely girdled with buildings is offundamental importance to the historic characterof the town. Variety in the scale, type and date ofbuilding is also central to its historic character, andshould be maintained and enhanced. Dolgellauboasts a great range of building types in close

proximity to each other. Small vernacular cottagesrub shoulders with substantial polite town houses,and gothic villas overlook terraced rows. Thisvariety was accumulated over several centuries ofbuilding and rebuilding, and reveals in considerabledetail the developing social structure of the town.Unlike many towns, Dolgellau is still rich in theevidence of its economic drivers. Its origins as amarket are betrayed in the extensive open spacesthat lie at its heart, and the development of thewoollen industry, commerce and tourism from theearly nineteenth century can still clearly be traced.

Dolgellau is resolutely a town of stone, butvariations in its treatment reflect both the longchronology and broad social range of building.These differences add up to a wide vocabulary of detail, ranging from the limewash and renderfinishes of early buildings, through to the sneckedstone of the later nineteenth century. This variety isimportant and should be retained and celebrated.A parallel variety in the use of roofing slates hasbeen much diminished, but should be cherished.There is history in every surviving detail — fromchimneys to windows and doorsteps — and thesurvival of so many of these details is a richresource for understanding the history of thetown. These are the qualities which combine tomake Dolgellau an urban settlement of suchdistinctive character.

Sources

Archive Sources

Gwynedd Archives

Photographs General views of Dolgellau (ZS/36K)

Maps and Plans– Dolgellau in 1794: Nannau Estate Map

(ZM/3667)– Dolgellau in 1820: Survey and Map of the Llwyn

Estate (ZM/86)– Plan of Freehold Premises, Lands and Building

Sites in Dolgelley, 1868 (ZM/2569)– Plan of Valuable Freehold Properties Situated In

and Near Dolgelley, 1901 (ZDCE/9)

Printed materialArchitects Report to Committee for the

Preservation of the Old Parliament House,Dolgelley (ZM/191)

Dr Parsons, Report to the Local GovernmentBoard on the Sanitary Condition of DolgelleyUrban Sanitary District, 1888

The National Library of Wales

Photographic Collections: John Thomas (1838–1905)Geoff Charles (1909–2002)

Maps and Plans– Dolgellau in 1760: Map of Several Estates in the

County of Merioneth Belonging to Griffith apHowell Vaughan Esq. (Map 7425)

– Award Map of Common In and Above the Townof Dolgelley, 1817 (Map 10018)

– Dolgellau and its Environs in 1842: The Tithe Map– Plan of Land in the Parish of Dolgelley Belonging

to G. W. Vaughan Esq. (Map 7427)– Map of Lands near Dolgelley, 1853 (Map 7399)– Survey of Wool Pack in the Town of Dolgelley,

1856 (Map 7399)– Castell Aran in the Town of Dolgellau, 1865

(Map 7397)– Land in the Parish of Dolgelley Granted to

Mr Lewis Evans, 1875 (Map 7411)


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– Plan of Property Situated in the Town ofDolgellay, 1877 (Mer. 182)

– Map of Houses and Lands Situated in the Townof Dolgellau n.d. (Mer.113)

Published Material

G. J. Bennett, The Pedestrian’s Guide through NorthWales: A Tour Performed in 1837 (London, 1838).

Rev. W. Bingley, North Wales: Delineated from TwoExcursions through all the Interesting Parts of thatHighly Beautiful and Romantic Country, and Intendedas a Guide to Future Tourists (London, 1814).

The Cambrian Tourist Guide and Companion(Dolgelley, 1847).

B. P. Capper, Topographical Dictionary of the UnitedKingdom (London, 1829).

C. F. Cliffe, The Book of North Wales(London/Bangor, 1850).

W. Davies, General View of the Agriculture andDomestic Economy of North Wales (London, 1810).

Dolgellau Town and Rural District: The Official Guide(Croydon, 1962).

T. P. Ellis, ‘Merioneth Notes’, Y Cymmrodor, 38 (1927).

T. P. Ellis, The Story of Two Parishes: Dolgelley andLlanelltyd (Newtown, 1928).

Rev. J. Evans, The Beauties of England and Wales(London, 1812).

R. Fenton, ‘Tours in Wales (1804–1813)’,Archaeologia Cambrensis, Supplement XVI (London, 1917).

J. G. Jones, ‘Government and Society, 1536–1603’ inJ. and L. Beverley Smith (eds), History of Merioneth,Volume II: The Middle Ages (Cardiff, 2001).

T. I. J. Jones, Exchequer Proceedings Concerning Walesin Tempore James I: Abstracts of Bills and Answers andInventory of Further Proceedings, Board of CelticStudies, University of Wales History and LawSeries, No. XV (Cardiff, 1955).

S. Lewis, A Topographical Dictionary of Wales(London, 1833).

H. J. Owen, ‘Owen Glyn Dwr’s Old ParliamentHouse at Dolgelley’, Journal of the MerionethHistorical and Record Society, Vol. II (1954).

T. Pennant, A Tour in Wales (London, 1778).

A. Rhydderch, Dolgellau (Gwynedd ArchivesService, 1976).

L. Beverley Smith, ‘Towns and Trade’ in J. and L.Beverley Smith (eds), History of Merioneth, Volume II:The Middle Ages (Cardiff, 2001).

I. Soulsby, The Towns of Medieval Wales: A Study oftheir History, Archaeology and Early Topography(Chichester, 1983).

K. Williams-Jones, The Merioneth Lay Subsidy Roll,1292–93, Board of Celtic Studies, University of Wales History and Law Series, No. XXVIIII(Cardiff, 1976).

J. Worrall, Worrall’s Directory of North Wales(Oldham, 1874).

Web Sources

Gathering the Jewels: www.gtj.org.uk

Footnotes

1. L. Beverley Smith, ‘Towns and Trade’ in J. and L.Beverley Smith (eds), History of Merioneth, Volume II: The Middle Ages (Cardiff, 2001)

2. John Leland quoted in L. Beverley Smith, ‘Townsand Trade’ in J. and L. Beverley Smith (eds),History of Merioneth, Volume II: The Middle Ages(Cardiff, 2001)

3. T. I. J. Jones, Exchequer Proceedings ConcerningWales in Tempore James I: Abstracts of Bills andAnswers and Inventory of Further Proceedings,Board of Celtic Studies, University of WalesHistory and Law Series, No. XV (Cardiff, 1955)

4. T. I. J. Jones, Exchequer Proceedings ConcerningWales in Tempore James I: Abstracts of Bills andAnswers and Inventory of Further Proceedings,Board of Celtic Studies, University of WalesHistory and Law Series, No. XV (Cardiff, 1955)

5. Rev. J. Evans, The Beauties of England and Wales(London, 1812)

6. Rev. J. Evans, The Beauties of England and Wales(London, 1812)

7. J. Worrall, Worrall’s Directory of North Wales(Oldham, 1874)

8. Rev. W. Bingley, North Wales: Delineated from TwoExcursions through all the Interesting Parts of thatHighly Beautiful and Romantic Country, andIntended as a Guide to Future Tourists (London,1814)

9. S. Lewis, A Topographical Dictionary of Wales(London, 1833)

10. Rev. W. Bingley, North Wales: Delineated from TwoExcursions through all the Interesting Parts of thatHighly Beautiful and Romantic Country, andIntended as a Guide to Future Tourists (London,1814)



13. J. Worrall, Worrall’s Directory of North Wales(Oldham, 1874)

14. Dolgellau Town and Rural District: The OfficialGuide (Croydon, 1962)

15. W. Davies, General View of the Agriculture and Domestic Economy of North Wales(London, 1810)

16. Dr Parsons, Report to the Local GovernmentBoard on the Sanitary Condition of DolgelleyUrban Sanitary District, 1888

17. Rev. W. Bingley, North Wales: Delineated fromTwo Excursions through all the Interesting Partsof that Highly Beautiful and Romantic Country,and Intended as a Guide to Future Tourists(London, 1814)

18. T. Pennant, A Tour in Wales (London, 1778) 19. Dr Parsons, Report to the Local Government

Board on the Sanitary Condition of DolgelleyUrban Sanitary District, 1888

20. G. J. Bennett, The Pedestrian’s Guide throughNorth Wales: A Tour Performed in 1837(London, 1838)

21. Cambrian News, 1881, quoted in A.Rhydderch, Dolgellau (Gwynedd ArchivesService, 1976)

22. R. Fenton, ‘Tours in Wales (1804–1813)’,Archaeologia Cambrensis, Supplement XVI(London, 1917)

23. C. F. Cliffe, The Book of North Wales(London/Bangor, 1850)


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1 Study Area Showing Conservation Area Boundaries and Distribution of Listed Buildings

38This map is reproduced from Ordnance Survey material with the permission of Ordnance Survey on behalfof the Controller of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office © Crown Copyright. Unauthorised reproductioninfringes Crown copyright and may lead to prosecution or civil proceedings. Licence Number 100021874.


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2 Units of Development: Suggested Plot Structure and Encroachments

This map is reproduced from Ordnance Survey material with the permission of Ordnance Survey on behalfof the Controller of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office © Crown Copyright. Unauthorised reproductioninfringes Crown copyright and may lead to prosecution or civil proceedings. Licence Number 100021874.


3 Dolgellau in 1760: Map of Several Estates in the County of Merioneth Belonging to Griffith apHowell Vaughan Esq. (By permission of The National Library of Wales)

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41

4 Dolgellau in 1794: Nannau Estate Map (Gwynedd Archives, ZM/3667)


5 Dolgellau in 1820: Survey and Map of the Llwyn Estate (Gwynedd Archives, ZM/86)

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6 Dolgellau and its Environs in 1842: The Tithe Map (By permission of The National Library Wales)


7 Dolgellau in 1881: First Edition Ordnance Survey (1:2,500) © and database right ‘Crown Copyright and Landmark Information Group Ltd’ (All rights reserved 2009).

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45

8 All Character Areas



9 Central Area (1)



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10 Lombard Street (Y Lawnt) Area (2)



11 South Area (3)



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12 Tanws Area (4)



13 Western Area (5)



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14 Arran Road (Pont yr Arran) Area (6)



15 Western Outlying Area (7)



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16 North of the Wnion Area (8)


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Cadw is the Welsh Assembly Government’s historic environment service, working for an accessible and well-protected historic environment for Wales.

CadwWelsh Assembly GovernmentPlas CarewUnit 5/7 Cefn CoedParc NantgarwCardiff CF15 7QQ

Documents

Dolgellau: Understanding Urban Character · 1. Study Area Showing Conservation Area Boundaries and Distribution of Listed Buildings 2. Units of Development: Suggested Plot Structure