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                         Pen y Bryn, Garth Celyn, Aber

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            The Manor house built by the Thomas family among the 13th century Palace ruins.
            Watchtower (dated to c.1200 by Professor David Austin); later windows inserted
            into the structure.

Yn olau uwch Garth Celyn - hen obaith

Sy’n Abergwyngregyn,

Ac fe ddychwel Llywelyn

Yn barhaus i Ben y Bryn.

Tudur Dylan Jones (2001)

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'The Palace on the hille..'
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Aber Village Sketch c.1800

21 May 1862 Sir Richard Bulkeley Williams-Bulkeley, tenth Baronet of Penrhyn, sold, on behalf of himself ‘and others’, all the land and buildings within the Parish of Aber.The purchaser was Edward Gordon Douglas-Pennant; the purchase price was £88,200.'
Pen y Bryn' was part of this conveyance and the occupier and tenant farmer was
Evan Jones

'Three Days in Aber Village' August 1874

The castle of Llewelyn is but a few minutes walk from the centre of the village.

To reach it by the quickest and most picturesque road you have to traverse the nook at the back of the mill and to scramble over the loose stones that rise about the surface of the wide-spread stream. Once over the somewhat perilous brook, you have to pass a gate, then a field, still following the side of the water course. Mounting a steep rustic ascent you find yourself a few minutes more before a huge barbaric Round Tower, the principal and almost only vestige of Llewelyn’s Castle at the present day. Attached to this Tower is an interesting looking structure built entirely we are told of the ruins of the ancient palace. It is at present used as a farm house. This most picturesque house is well worth a visit, though from its private isolated character it is known to few out of its immediate neighbourhood.

The farmer’s wife, though little prepared for the intrusion, nevertheless kindly allowed us to traverse the house, contenting herself with showing us alone one particular room in the tower, a clothes press and four chairs, evidently as old as the building itself and quite as primitive.

She also favoured me with a bit of lighted candle and led me to the steps of a vast cellar or dungeon under the tower, telling me to inspect it if I wished, which I hastened to do - I beg pardon, I did not hasten, for the steps down to it were so slimy, damp, and shaky, that any over haste would have been accompanied with serious bodily harm, so needs was to be slow and cautious.

On descending into this cavern, as well as the faint light of the candle would permit of, I noticed several contiguous cells with prison - like apertures. Could these possibly have been dungeons? At least there were good reasons for the conjecture. At the further end of the cavern, or cellar, or prison, or whatever it was and had been, I could perceive the commencement of a subterranean passage, which led, I was afterwards informed, to some solitary spot in the glen - for what purpose, must be left to the imagination, for there are no printed memorials to the spot, nor any written ones, unless Lord Penrhyn, the owner of the property, happens to have any such in the archives of his Castle.

What struck me as most interesting in the foundations of this tower, with its cellars and caverns, was the heavy adamantine species of stone with which it had been constructed. One fragment, about the size of a child’s head - weighty as iron, much of which was doubtless mixed up with its formation, and intermixed with crystals - and I managed to procure, by dint of promises and prayers, from the good farmer’s wife. I value that fragment of Llewelyn’s Castle, (and a genuine fragment it is), in some respects as I would the Koh-i-noor, had I the good (or evil) fortune to possess that diamond of diamonds.

An oak-panelled room in the house cannot fail likewise to draw the attention. It would be a blessed room for an antiquary to inhabit, were not the wooden beams that support the ceiling so black and rotten that they threaten to fall and bury the occupant. This is very much the same with other parts of the dwelling, which did not prevent one adventurous family from lodging in the place, as the landlady informed me with a good natured smile, which had its meaning.

In this room she showed me an old clock, the date of which was 1668. It had been in her husband’s family, she told me, almost from the day of its construction. Her husband was born in the old dwelling, and her husband’s father, and grandfather, and so on back to the year 1620. The husband’s name - owner of the clock, and protem of Llewelyn’s castle - is RICHARD EVAN JONES, farmer, and one of Lord Penrhyn’s tenants and trusty yeomen.

Tracy Turnerelli, Esq., Tracy Lodge, Leamington. (1874)

Aber, Neu Aber Gwyn Gregin

O Aber! mae d’enw mor swynol i’m henaid,

O’m calon y’th garaf tra bwyf yn y byd,

Dy lethrau dryfrithir â gwaith ein hynafiaid,-

Gwrthgloddiau a chaerau a chestyll tra chlyd.

Eu-bannawg fynddau- noddfâu yr hen Gymry

Sy’n orwych ymgodi i’r cymyl di ri’,-

Y Llwydmor a’r Bere, mynyddoedd anwylgu,

Sy’n addurn i’r Aber i brofi ei bri,

Ac yno mae palas yr hen dywysogion

Fu’n llywio y Cymry er’s cannoedd cyn hyn,-

Llywelyn Fawr enwog – hen Gymro twym-galon,