Plas yn Rhiw: A Historic Manor House and Garden in Wales
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.6
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Early Modern
- Civilizations
- English, Welsh
- Site type
- Domestic
- Remains
- Manor House
On this page11 sections
History
Plas yn Rhiw is a small manor house in Wales, United Kingdom, at Rhiw on the Llŷn Peninsula. The present building is an early 17th-century house in Tudor and Georgian styles, occupying an estate whose history is associated with settlement, Welsh gentry families, and later conservation by the National Trust.
Early settlement and the medieval tradition
The history of the estate is said to reach back approximately 4,000 years to the Neolithic period. Celtic forts within 2 kilometres of the manor house indicate local settlement about 2,000 years ago. The wider region also has evidence connected with Roman military activity at Segontium and with the defence of the area near the sixth-century church of St Hywyn at Aberdaron.
The Gwynedd royal dynasty became established in the area around the fifth century after defeating Irish settlers. Viking and Saxon incursions affected the region during the ninth and tenth centuries, when many churches were destroyed, although the kings of Gwynedd defeated many of the invaders. Rhodri the Great, described as the first king of all Wales, ruled in the ninth century. His great-grandson Meirion Goch is said to have built a house near the present manor house. An earlier house in the same vicinity is also attributed to him and is associated with defence against Viking incursions into Porth Neigwl during the tenth century.
The Lewis family and the early manor house
A 16th-century Caernarfon Quarter Sessions calendar names the manor house as “Plas yn Rhiw.” Its occupants were prosperous Welsh gentry who served on juries and were respected members of the local community. They first used patronymics, names derived from a father’s name, instead of permanent hereditary surnames. The family later adopted Lewis, either as a surname or as part of a compound name.
The present manor house was built in the early 17th century. A window lintel bears the initials I.L. and the date 1634, an inscription attributed to John Lewis, who is presumed to have owned the house at that time. The Lewis succession continued through Richard Lewis, his sons, and later descendants named Jane and William William. Jane Ann became the sole heiress in 1816 and married Lewis Moore Bennet, during which period the house was enlarged.
The Williams family and nineteenth-century ownership
Jane Ann Bennet’s daughter inherited the property and married Cyril Williams, an attorney and the son of the rector of Llanbedrog. Cyril Williams became mayor of Pwllheli in 1846. He unsuccessfully promoted a railway linking Worcester with Porth Dinllaen through Ludlow, Tremadog, and Pwllheli, together with a ferry connection to Ireland.
After Cyril Williams died in 1859, the property passed to his son William Lewis Williams. He was an army officer and died unmarried, after which the house and estate were sold for £8,000. Thomas Edward Roberts of Hendre, Abererch, then bought the property and lived there with his family. The estate was later released to Lady Strickland of Sizergh Castle in Cumbria, who occupied the manor house for two summers.
A daughter of the Williams family subsequently lived at Plas yn Rhiw before moving to Abergele in 1922. The house then stood deserted and neglected until its purchase by the Keating family.
The Keating restoration and National Trust ownership
In 1939, Eileen, Lorna, and Honora Keating, together with their mother Constance, purchased the manor house. The family traced its ancestry to the original owners and had moved to Rhiw in 1904. The sisters refurbished the house, improved the garden, and acquired additional land around the property.
In the 1940s, the sisters gave Plas yn Rhiw to the National Trust in memory of their parents, Constance and William Keating. The National Trust is a conservation organization that manages historic buildings and landscapes in the United Kingdom. Each sister lived in the house until her death, and they were buried in a churchyard near Porth Ysgo, approximately 5 kilometres away.
The National Trust enlarged the garden and estate by adding 150 acres of surrounding woodland. The garden and park are listed at Grade II on the Cadw/ICOMOS Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales. Cadw is the Welsh historic-environment service, while ICOMOS is an international organization concerned with cultural-heritage conservation and assessment. Plas yn Rhiw is described as the only organic National Trust garden in Wales.
Remains
The manor house
Plas yn Rhiw stands at the base of Mynydd Rhiw, overlooking Porth Neigwl, Cardigan Bay, and the Llŷn Peninsula. Its walls are built from large stones and reach up to 6.5 feet, or 2 metres, in thickness. A third storey was added to the older 17th-century house, followed by a rear stair wing and later extensions to the sides.
The front elevation, doors, and windows were redesigned with a Georgian façade. Georgian architecture refers broadly to British design of the 18th and early 19th centuries. The alterations included sixteen-pane sash windows, whose framed panels slide vertically, and a veranda above the ground floor. The house also contains a stone spiral staircase. It was remodelled in 1820, while the approximately 1816 Regency-style stucco was removed during the Keating restoration in 1939, exposing the original grey stone walls. Regency architecture belongs more narrowly to the period around the early 19th-century regency of George, Prince of Wales. The restoration received advice from Clough Williams-Ellis, the Welsh architect and designer known for creating the Italianate village of Portmeirion.
Earlier house interpretation
An interpretation of an earlier house, possibly dating from the 15th century, proposes walls about 1 metre thick, mud floors covered with locally gathered meadowsweet, and small unglazed windows screened with waxed cloth. A heavy main entrance door, a principal room with a circular stair leading to a watchtower, and a fireplace and chimney beneath a thatched roof are also part of this interpretation. The surrounding farm buildings are proposed as including pigsties, barns, stables, and labourers’ houses.
Estate buildings and watermill
The estate includes the manor house, a detached cottage, a summerhouse, a tool shed, and a cartshed. Several of these buildings are Grade II listed, including the cartshed, which was listed in 1971. An old mill beside a stream had royal permission to grind its own corn.
The terraced garden
The garden occupies just under one acre below the house. Sheltered from prevailing winds and benefiting from a local microclimate, it is terraced into the slope and divided by hedges into several small compartments. Native and cultivated plants grow among grass and cobbled paths, including snowdrops and bluebells in spring and summer, as well as rhododendrons, azaleas, and magnolias. Stone gateposts, stone seats, old unused buildings, and geometric parterres form part of the layout. A parterre is a formal garden arrangement made from geometric beds. One of these is called Lady Strickland’s Garden, whose entrance has a slate plaque bearing an epitaph.
Mildred Eldridge produced the earliest known planting plan in 1966, and the garden designer John Hubbard drew an improved plan in 1994. Lady Strickland’s bathtub survives as a water-display feature. Anne Elizabeth Williams, the daughter of Cyril Williams, inscribed her name on a diamond ring and placed it against glass in an upstairs room that is now closed.
Woodland estate
The enlarged estate includes extensive woodland added around the property by the National Trust. Snowdrop Wood is identified with Oxalis magellanica, and the woodland forms part of the wider garden and estate landscape associated with Plas yn Rhiw.
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