Pengwern and Dduallt

Dduallt is one of several houses in the Vale of Ffestiniog that has been tree ring dated. At least eight houses in the area began construction within 30 years of 1530, presumably on the back of increased farming prosperity.

At Dduallt there were Lloyds or Llwyds in residence all the way through from the 1560s to 1903 but one of the unanswered questions is whether the Lloyds of the 1700s were the same family as the Lloyds of the 1800s.

The last reference to the early Lloyds was the baptism in Maentwrog of William Lloyd of Dduallt in 1793 who was the third son. The next reference was the 1832 Ffestiniog Railway Act which lists in the appendix the landowners against whom compulsory purchase orders could be served. The section of railway around Dduallt was owned by the trustees of the late William Lloyd. By 1842 Dduallt was owned by Lord Robert Ponsonby Tottenham, Bishop of Clogher, and rented out to a Richard Lloyd.

We recently found a new piece of the jigsaw from The Cambrian, the English language newspaper published from 1804 to 1930. 

It mentions that on 5th May 1814 William Lloyd, Esq. of Dduallt in the County of Merioneth attained his 21st year and that his friends and tenantry were sumptuously entertained at the Pengwern Arms in Ffestiniog.

Another connection is of course that Mel’s grandfather lived at Dduallt in the 1930s.