Cadw Report on Penmaenuchaf Grounds and Gardens

From the first and second editions of the 25 in. Ordnance Survey map it can be seen that the house was slightly enlarged between 1888 and the turn of the century, and it may be at this time that it acquired its present appearance (there had been a house on the the site since early, in the eighteenth century at least). It certainly cannot have been before this that the oriel windows were added, as they are on the extended part of the house. The formal gardens were laid out during the same period.

A crest over the house door is that of J. [John] Leigh Taylor, who owned the estate by 1902, but from 1865 until, presumably he acquired it, it belonged to Charles Reynolds Williams, who enlarged the house and created the gardens at Dolmelynllyn a few miles to the north at Ganllwyd. Charles Williams obviously enjoyed adding to houses as well as garden planning, as can be seen from the photographic record of his activities at Dolmelynllyn, and there is a striking similarity, between both the houses and the gardens. Penmaenuchaf also seems to have undergone a change of name about the time he acquired it, to The Cliffe, but was Penmaenuchaf again by Leigh Taylor's time. All these things tend to suggest that Williams, rather than Leigh Taylor, was responsible both for enlarging and updating the house, and laying out the gardens.

Though mentioned in documents from early in the eighteenth century, Penmaenuchaf seems never to have been a house of much importance and was let for much of its history, the owners preferring to live elsewhere. The original owners, a branch of the Vaughan family, lived at Penmaen (after the building of Penmaenuchaf sometimes known as Penmaenissa), an older and more low-lying house to the west. Penmaenuchaf seems to have remained with the Vaughans and their relatives, still usually let, until it was sold in 1860, following the death of Hugh Jones. The purchaser was a Reverend John Harvey Ashworth, living in Kensington, who inherited a sitting tenant and seems to have used the estate only for raising mortgages, two of which were with Charles Reynolds Williams, who eventually bought the estate from him in 1865. The name 'The Cliffe' is used on the sale documents.