History

Minllyn is a planned village associated with the anticipated expansion of industrial enterprises in the Mawddwy area, particularly the development of the slate industry. This was first established around 1800, including some metal extraction, proceeded with the development of a tramway to connect to the Mawddwy Railway, brought to Aberangell after 1865. The impetus came from Edmund Peck (later adopting the name Buckley), the illegitimate son of a wealthy Manchester industrialist, purchased the estate in 1856. He intended to develop Dinas Mawddwy as a model village, with new education facilities, a hotel, and chapels, served by the railway which was officially opened in 1868, the year he was elevated to the baronetage. Once the main road was diverted out of Dinas Mawddwy, Buckley built a mansion, Plas Dinas in 1864-7, Minllyn Cottages, 1868, and Mawddwy Terraces, 1870-76, all for his estate and industrial workers. The hotel was built in 1873 for Sir Edmund Buckley to the designs of his architect, James Stephens of Manchester. He harboured great ambitions for the future of the area under his patronage, and undertook innovative experiments with is-situ concrete construction, parallel in time to those being undertaken for Lord Sudely at Gregynog, Powys. Formerly known as the Buckley Arms Hotel.

Exterior

The building is built with in-situ concrete, rendered and lined externally, and plastered internally, with slate roofs from the local Minllyn quarry. Two storeys and attics. The frontage is of 3 bays, with the entrance between the 2nd and 3rd bays from the left; a gabled slated canopy on cut brackets. To either side, shallow square bay windows with hipped roofs, each having two plate glass windows in openings with low pointed heads. The left bay has two similar windows on the ground floor, but set flush and provided with louvred shutters. Similar windows on the first floor, one to each bay. A half-bay between bays 1 and 2 also has similar windows. The top floor also has windows of the same pattern set in raised dormers in bays 1 and 3, and in a larger gable at the centre carried on paired cut brackets. Decorative timber framing in the gable apex. Open wide raftered eaves. The left elevation has a hipped single storey bay, and various windows similar in style to those of the front, and, to the rear, a large single storey service range. The rear elevation, designed to be of equal importance, overlooking the view over the Dyfi valley, has a modern glazed dining room with a flat roof added across the ground floor, and two canted bay windows to the first floor, each with hipped slate roofs. The top floor is within projecting gables with decorative timberwork above an arched braced bargeboards.

Interior

The interior retains the same general arrangements of rooms, but the detail has been altered. The front bar, on the left, has a good plain slate slab arched fireplace with pierced roundels in the spandrels.

Reasons for Listing

Included as a building of special interest for its early use of in-situ concrete construction, amongst the earliest essay in this material in Wales, and for its association with the model village of Minllyn.

External Links

• Cadwr Listing
• Wikidata Q29499798

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

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