Ty Uchaf

Rhiwddolion, near Betws-y-coed

Overview

Ty Uchaf stands at the head of the valley in the lee of woods rich in mosses and lichens, looking across sheep pastures. 

  • Dogs AllowedDogs Allowed
  • CotCot
  • Mobile signalMobile signal
  • Fire or StoveFire or Stove
  • Open SpaceOpen Space
  • Logs availableLogs available
  • Parking AvailableParking Available
  • BathBath
  • RemoteRemote

Beds 1 Double

Sleeps
2
3 nights
£351 equivalent to £58.50 per person, per night

A bedroom beneath a former crog loft

Rhiwddolion (pronounced ‘Rutholeon’) is a remote upland hamlet at the head of a valley above Betws-y-Coed. For a time there was a slate quarry and community here, but long before that Rhiwddolion was on the Roman road that runs from Merioneth to the Conwy valley, called Sarn Helen after the mother of Emperor Constantine. By the early twentieth century the mines and quarries had closed and the miners drifted away to find employment elsewhere. Their cottages and chapel were left abandoned until we rescued two cottages and their chapel.

Remote and peaceful with a sense of light and space

Ty Uchaf stands at the head of the valley, in the lee of woods rich in mosses and lichens. A datestone for 1685 was found in the tumbledown pigsty. We have kept part of the crog loft to make a bedroom beneath it, and the living-room is open to the roof timbers with a large fireplace under its original bressummer. Timbers and walls are all limewashed to enhance the sense of light and space in this modest dwelling. A separate entrance leads into the former barn, with a lobby large enough for all the walking gear you will bring to explore this remote and peaceful place.

Now you share Rhiwddolion only with the sheep, a small scale landscape of oak trees and rocks surrounded by forest, silent and tranquil but for the sheep and the sound of its streams. It is not possible to get a car to any of our three Landmarks here. Instead, leaving your car by the forestry track, you walk up the valley (ten minutes, some say longer) on a path of enormous half buried flagstones, just as your predecessors did.

See all our Landmarks at Rhiwddolion

Floor Plan

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Map & local info

Ty Uchaf stands at the top of the valley looking across the sheep pastures. Rhiwddolion is a remote, tranquil upland hamlet at the head of a valley of waterfalls, oak trees and rocks, above the small and charming town of Betws-y-Coed. 

The landscape around Ty Uchaf is breathtaking. The Snowdonia National Park Visitor Centre at Betws y Coed has lots of local information and walks to help you discover more of this spectacular area of Wales. There is an excellent walk to Lake Elsi, allowing you to enjoy the views at your leisure. 

Swallow Falls are very nearby, the highest set of waterfalls in Wales. Gwydir Forest is home to a celebrated landscape of lakes, forests and mountains. Enjoy walks, cycle rides and picnics around this beautiful area. 

Ty Mawr Wybrant and Conwy Valley Railway Museum both provide something to do on wet weather days. Ty Mawr Wybrant is a traditional stone 16th century farmhouse where you can learn about life in this remote area centuries ago. 

For children, the Fairy Glen is always a delight. Tree Top Adventure Park provides an exciting day out for all the family. 

Take a look at our Pinterest Map for more information and ideas for things to do during your holiday at Ty Uchaf. Discover local walks for dogs with our friends at Walkiees.co.uk, the dog walks community.

Please Note: The Landmark Trust does not take any responsibility and makes no warranties, representations or undertakings about the content of any website accessed by hypertext link. Links should not be taken as an endorsement of any kind. The Landmark Trust has no control over the availability of the linked pages.

See all our Landmarks at Rhiwddolion

Clear directions
Essential info
What you need to know about this building
  • Yes. You are welcome to bring up to two dogs. A charge of £20 per stay is made for each dog.

    Please contact booking enquiries if you have an assistance dog, for which there is no charge.
  • Via a forestry track from the main road. (Access is on foot only – you have to walk the last 750m along the track which can be slippery).
  • Betws-y-coed – 2 miles.
  • There is parking for one car in the layby at the bottom of the track.
  • There are Rointe heaters and a solid fuel stove.
  • Fuel may be purchased and delivered under a private arrangement. Further details will be provided with your booking confirmation.
  • To check up-to-date mobile network coverage in the area, visit signalchecker.co.uk.* Due to the location and structure of many of our buildings, signal strength may differ to those indicated.
    * Links to other sites are provided for information purposes only.  We do not endorse any such websites and we are not responsible for the information, material, products or services contained on or accessible through those websites.  Your access and use of such websites remains solely at your own risk.  For further information, visit our website terms of use.
  • The majority of properties do not offer WiFi but many now have mobile coverage. Facilities in some properties rely on WiFi to function and we are currently piloting guest use of WiFi at a few of our buildings. We are going to extend the pilot across more properties and review customer feedback in 2025.
  • The kitchen is fully equipped with all plates, cutlery, fridge etc. There is also an electric cooker.
  • There is one bathroom with a bath.
  • There are no internal stairs.
  • There are open grounds with many unfenced streams.
  • Yes access is on foot only – you have to walk the last 750m along the track.
Booking and Payment
  • If the weather is bad, please contact our booking office who will be able to tell you whether the Landmark is accessible. If the housekeeper can safely get to the building to prepare it then we consider that it is open and available for guests. However if we cannot undertake a changeover then we will do our utmost to transfer your stay to another Landmark, depending on what we have available. It may not be of a similar size or in the same part of the country as your original booking. If the building is accessible but the customer cannot travel due to poor weather in his/her local area then please be aware that Landmark will not provide a refund. However the customer may be able to claim on his/her own travel insurance. We recommend that all guests take out travel insurance when they first secure a booking.
  • We accept Maestro (if issued in the UK), Visa, MasterCard, direct transfer and sterling cheques drawn on a UK bank. Cheques should be made payable to the Landmark Trust except for Lundy stays and boat/helicopter tickets which should be payable to The Lundy Company Ltd. All payments must be in sterling.
  • The key arrangements will be included in the Further Infomation document which will be sent to you prior to your stay.
  • If your stay starts more than two months from the date you make the booking, you are required to pay a deposit of one third of the cost of your stay (or £100 per booking, if greater) at the time of booking. Camping on Lundy and The Bunk House at Llwyn Celyn must be paid for in full at the time of booking.
  • If you wish to cancel or change your booking, please contact our Booking Office on 01628 825925
  • At the moment we only accept payment in sterling.
  • Our housekeeper will leave the key in a suitable place, the details of which will be sent to you prior to your stay.
  • It depends. Some of our most popular Landmarks are booked up a long time in advance, but many can be booked at short notice. We will always have Landmarks free for the coming weekend so it’s always worth checking our availability list.
  • No, Landmarks are available to be booked for anyone.
  • No, all the information you need can be found on our website, although we’d like you to buy one anyway as it will be a pleasure to own!
Staying at a Landmark
  • Some of our Landmarks are suitable for people with disabilities or limited mobility. However, many Landmarks have steep or narrow staircases, uneven floors and thresholds, changes of level, low ceilings or beams, as well as indistinct colours on steps and in corridors. We recommend that you call Booking Enquiries on 01628 825925 if you would like to find out the suitability of a particular Landmark for anyone with a specific disability.  Further information on access when visiting Lundy can also be found here.
  • Yes, Landmarks are only available as self-catering accommodation. We do not offer bed and breakfast.
  • Landmark does not provide catering, but we can recommend Greycoat Lumleys who can arrange for expert and well-trained staff to cater for one evening or for your entire holiday. Their cooks and chefs are able to work with you to meet your specific requirements
  • You may bring up to two dogs to properties where dogs are allowed (please see specific property details for exemptions however dogs are not permitted on Lundy except assistance dogs). They must be kept off the furniture and under proper control. A charge of £20 per stay is made for each dog. Please contact booking enquiries if a registered assistance dog is supporting one of the guests, for which there is no charge.
  • Apart from two dogs (see above) no other pets are permitted.
  • Arrival is from 4pm and departure is by 10am.
  • We do not carry insurance for breakages. However we appreciate that accidents do sometimes happen. If you have a breakage during your stay, please let the housekeeper know and if appropriate we reserve the right to invoice you accordingly.
  • Yes, most of our Landmarks are perfect for children, with gardens to play in and secret places to discover. Our furniture is surprisingly robust and we positively encourage families to stay. However, some of our buildings may not be suitable for small children; for example, some of them have steep or uneven spiral staircases. We recommend that you call the Booking Enquiries team if you would like to find out the suitability of any of our Landmarks for young children.
  • Unfortunately, most of our Landmarks are not licensed for weddings. However, you may get married on Lundy.
  • All our larger Landmarks are perfect for gatherings of family or friends. You may invite an additional two guests to visit you during your stay, however they must not stay overnight. This is very important because our fire regulations specifically note the maximum number of people in any one building. In addition our properties are prepared, furnished and equipped for the number of people specified and greater numbers cause damage and excessive wear and tear to vulnerable buildings. Should this condition be ignored we shall make a retrospective charge per person per day (whether or not they stay overnight) for each guest over the permitted limit, the charge being pro-rated on the total cost of your booking.
  • We deliberately do not provide televisions and find that most people appreciate this.
  • One of the challenges of restoring unloved buildings is gaining access to them. We frequently have to negotiate rights with our neighbours and share tracks with them. In many cases tracks do not belong to us and we have no right to maintain them. Wherever possible we work with our neighbours to provide you with a good quality surface, but where this is a problem then you will be warned at the time of booking.
  • Yes, we have standard electricity sockets for UK appliances. If you are coming from outside the UK, you will need to bring your own adaptor plug(s). If you are visiting one of our European properties we have standard European electricity sockets. If you are visiting from the UK, you will need to bring your own adapter plug (s).
  • Landmark’s electrical systems have not been designed to provide continuous power from one socket over several hours.  If an ordinary socket is used to charge an electric vehicle, there is significant risk of an electrical fire and consequent danger to life.  Therefore, we are unable to allow electric vehicle charging from most of our Landmarks at present.

    We are working to provide Type 2 Electric Vehicle charge points at our properties where there is private parking.  Where this is available, please request this facility when booking the property to ensure the outlet is enabled on your arrival.  There is a small charge to cover the cost of electricity provided.  Please book this facility in advance.
  • No, we do not allow smoking in any Landmark.
Facilities
  • A welcome tray with tea and sugar awaits your arrival and you will find a pint of milk in the fridge. We also provide toilet rolls and a bar of soap per basin, but no other toiletries. Hairdryers are provided.
  • The majority of properties do not offer WiFi but many now have mobile coverage. Facilities in some properties rely on WiFi to function and we are currently piloting guest use of WiFi at a few of our buildings. We are going to extend the pilot across more properties and review customer feedback in 2025.
  • Mobile coverage varies. Some Landmarks have an excellent signal, but others have none at all. You can find those with 4G and 5G signal on our Landmarks with mobile signal page and each building has a link to signal checker in the Essential Information so you can check individual service providers' coverage in the area.
  • Logs are provided at many of our Landmarks for an additional cost.
  • Yes, our kitchens are well equipped with cookers and fridges. There are freezers and dishwashers (in larger buildings) and, where space allows, microwaves as well as a wide and standard range of utensils. A full equipment list is available at time of booking.
  • Sometimes our kitchens and bathrooms have to be imaginatively fitted into the available space in buildings where before there were none, but they are all planned and equipped to a high and modern standard.
  • Yes, Landmarks are fully equipped with sheets and towels. All the beds are fully made up for your arrival. Except for the Llwyn Celyn Bunkhouse.
  • We do not provide Christmas trees or decorations. However, you are welcome to bring your own. We kindly ask that you remove them at the end of your stay.

Do you have other questions?

Our Booking Enquiries team can help with information about each building.

Booking Enquiries
01628 825925
[email protected]

Opening hours
Monday to Friday 9am – 5pm


History

The Rhiwddolion valley

At least until late medieval times the upper Conway valley was inaccessible, sparsely inhabited and plagued by lawless bands who found the oak forests a useful hideout. But with the arrival of peace came the desire for permanent homes, so that many of the earliest houses in the district date from the 16th century. These are often found in small upland pockets of fertile land watered by a stream, where they lie sheltered and hidden.

Of the three Landmarks in the Rhiwddolion valley, Ty Uchaf (’Upper House’) is the oldest; on the evidence of a datestone surviving in the ruined pigsty it was built in 1685. It is typical of its time: single-storeyed with an end chimney, and two main rooms with extra sleeping space provided in a loft which originally extended over two-thirds of the cottage (the croglofft) accessed by a ladder. The room to the right of the door, with the big fireplace, would have been the principal living and cooking room, and the smaller, unheated one on the left either a service bay or a primitive parlour; the two rooms were originally separated by a partition. The byre beside the house was probably added in the late 18th century, and may have replaced an earlier structure – the farm would always have required at least one building to act as cow byre, stable and hayloft. The house roof would have been thatched, but it is possible that the byre was slated from the first, and that the house section was re-roofed in slate at the time that the byre was added on.

The roofless structures at either end of the house-and-byre range are 19th-century additions: the one on the left seems to have served as a store, and that on the right may have been a dairy or brewhouse. The dry-stone walls in front of the house and the now-ruined pigsty are of about the same date. Various pens, enclosures and other structures, some now only identifiable as footings, can be seen near the house; of these, the only other roofed structure is the ty bach (little house), which is probably late Victorian.

The name Ty Coch means "red house", though there is no obvious reason for this; it may in a general way mean "warm", from the hospitality offered there, or it may be derived from the less cold colour of the stone compared with dressed slate slabs, or perhaps it had a red front door. It is probably a hundred years or so younger than Ty Uchaf, being built before the end of the 18th century. It seems however that it may incorporate the materials of an earlier structure, since it contains a cruck, formed from the trunk and branch of a single tree, spanning the fireplace. The structure may have been a barn, since cruck trusses continued to be used in agricultural buildings well after their use in domestic buildings had been abandoned. In its original layout Ty Coch was not very dissimilar to Ty Uchaf and once had a similar sleeping loft.

For centuries the pattern of farming life continued almost unchanged, but the revival in the area of lead mining and then of slate quarrying on an industrial scale transformed the valley. A row of miners’ cottages was built on Sarn Helen (the old Roman Road), and in 1860 a school and a chapel were provided. In 1869 the Bard Griffith Hugh Jones became headmaster and for the next 50 years the district was enlivened by his brass band, his choral union and his eisteddfodau. The chapel choirs sang hymns of his composition and the Rhiwddolion chapel sensationally acquired a harmonium to accompany them. In 1892 Ty Capel was enlarged and an open-air auditorium built alongside for special occasions.

A short history of our Landmarks at Rhiwddolion

The full history album for our Landmarks at Rhiwddolion

Restoration

The mines and quarries closed

By the early part of the 20th century the mines and quarries had closed, and employment possibilities declined. The few remaining villagers of Rhiwddolion, finding the Roman road of little use to them and the whole hamlet out on a limb, slipped away. The chapel was closed in 1956, and the Landmark Trust bought it in 1967. Ty Coch continued to be lived in after the quarrymen’s cottages had lost their roofs, but it became increasingly marooned from modern life and in 1968 it was also sold to the Landmark Trust. Ty Uchaf came into the hands of the Trust in 1998, acquired in order to preserve this unspoilt setting.

The previous owner had already begun a restoration of Ty Uchaf, of which various traces still remain. Its conversion to a Landmark took place under the guidance of architect Adam Voelker and was carried out by the Trust’s own workforce headed by Reg Lo Vel, who has worked on many of the Trust’s renovations. It is a soft and conservative restoration, faithful to the original simple plan form of house and byre and to the evidence of the croglofft.

Ty Capel, on the other hand, was in sound structural condition when the Landmark Trust bought it and obtained permission to turn it into a dwelling house. To give extra light to the big room a new window was made in the south wall, after which the slates were re-hung on the end, exactly as before. The kitchen and bathroom were fitted in at the other end, leaving plenty of space over for the sleeping gallery. The altar rails, originally at the south end with the Communion Table behind, were used to form the balustrade. The deal floorboards and the boards that line the walls and ceiling are all original and the varnished pine partitions, though new, are absolutely typical of chapel furniture. The simple colouring and the stencilling round the dado rail are also designed to be in keeping with the decoration of a small chapel, and the architect, the late Leonard Beddall-Smith, aimed to ensure that the feel of the whole building is highly evocative.

Ty Coch needed rather more work. The roof was in a bad state and had to be completely redone. Luckily there were some slates to be used up from the original roof of another Landmark, the Bath Tower in Caernarfon; they are the large ones on the front of the building. There was no room to fit a kitchen and bathroom into the existing building, so they were added on at the back. The stone for the extension came from Ty Isaf (Lower House), the ruined building between Ty Capel and Ty Coch. The local joiner designed and built the kitchen cupboards, and local slate flags were laid on the sitting-room floor. A low wall was built at the front, and the hillside dug back behind to help prevent damp.

So after all, the activity of the 19th century in this valley turned out to be no more than an interruption; Rhiwddolion has returned to its original pattern and the same simple sort of life can again be lived there, if a good deal more comfortably. The lack of a road to the front door emphasises the link with the past, for there can be few places left where the foot-boundness of that life can be so strongly realised. Above all, it looks today very much as it did for some hundreds of years before the quarries came and went, an upland pocket of habitation among the now encroaching conifers – which in time may themselves prove no more than an interruption in the natural landscape.


Supporters of Ty Uchaf

We are immensely grateful to those who supported the restoration of Ty Uchaf including membership subscriptions from the Friends of Landmark and a legacy donation from Mrs J David.

 

Availability & booking

Select a changeover day to start your booking...

What's a changeover day? and Why can't I select other dates?Explain MoreQuestion

A changeover day is a particular day of the week when holidays start and end at our properties. These tend to be on a Friday or a Monday but can sometimes vary. All stays run from one changeover day until another changeover day.