Welcome to Perthi. Our family’s connection to these valleys stretches back over two centuries.
1. Medieval Monks & Royal Conflict (1199–1536)
Before it became a private farm, Perthi’s high ground sat at the centre of a fierce royal conflict. Prior to 1200, local Welsh nobility (uchelwyr) rebelled against Llywelyn the Great, Prince of Wales. Llywelyn crushed the rebellion and dismantled the nearby hillfort of Dinas Emrys—the legendary site where Merlin revealed the fighting Red and White dragons.
(Note to guests: Llywelyn the Great was the grandfather of Llywelyn the Last, the tragic prince from Beddgelert’s famous “Gelert’s Grave” hound myth down by the river).
In 1199, Llywelyn granted the valley to the Cistercian Monks of Aberconwy Abbey as a secure farming estate. Recorded in the charter as Wernos dec, the monks farmed Perthi and neighbouring Wernlasdeg as a single block for over 300 years until Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries in 1536. Today, Perthi’s 300 acres still follow these ancient monastic boundaries.
2. Family Origins & Absolute Honesty (1785–1815)
Our family history here began in the late 18th century. In 1785, our ancestor David Williams was born at Ffridd, a rugged farm near Rhyd Ddu. In 1799, his parents secured the tenancy of Hafod y Rhisgl in the neighbouring Nant Gwynant valley. As no roads existed through the mountain passes, neighbours physically carried the family’s furniture over the steep ridges on their backs. Our family still owns and farms Hafod y Rhisgl today, marking an unbroken connection of over 225 years.
David apprenticed as a livestock drover, but when the economic bubble burst after the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, agricultural prices crashed and he lost all his capital overnight. While many rival drovers declared bankruptcy, David refused to do so. Over the following years, he successfully paid back 100% of his debts to everyone who had trusted him on credit, earning a nationwide reputation for absolute honesty.
3. The Move to Perthi & The Droving Years (1817–1849)
In 1817, David married Jane Williams of the neighbouring Hafod y Llan estate, and the young couple moved right here to Perthi Llwydion (The Grey Bushes), running the farmstead under the ownership of the Sygun Estate.
David ran a massive droving operation out of Perthi for over 40 years, walking 500 cattle and 20 horses over Offa’s Dyke to England every single year. Before the gruelling three-week, 300-mile walk to the fattening grounds of Kent, every animal had to be fitted with customised iron shoes (ciwiau) to protect their hooves from the hard roads.
4. The Building of Beddgelert & Local Education (1830s)
In the 1830s, the Sygun Estate capitalised on the influx of wealthy Victorian tourists. They took Perthi Farm’s lower riverside pasture to launch a development that expanded Beddgelert village. Two major landmarks were built directly on Perthi land:
- The Prince Llewelyn Hotel: Built in the mid-1830s as a substantial coaching inn, it still operates as a prominent village pub and hotel today.
- Waterloo House: Built simultaneously as a premium Regency townhouse and tea rooms, today it serves as a holiday let and antique shop.
David was also a passionate advocate for local education. In 1820, with no formal school in the parish, he hired a schoolmaster to teach local children inside the Methodist chapel. To keep the school running, David provided the master with free board and lodging right here at Perthi Farm.
5. The Railway Age & Coming Full Circle
David Williams died at Perthi in September 1849, and the ancient practice of droving on foot quickly ended. Following the opening of the Britannia Bridge in 1850, the railway reached Bangor. David’s son, Rhys Williams, took the first seven truckloads of cattle by train from Bangor to London, cutting a three-week trek down to just 21 hours.
Family records from 1794 identify David and Jane’s fathers as founding spiritual pillars of the Methodist movement in the Beddgelert valleys. Long before chapels existed, our ancestors held illegal religious gatherings using secret, moveable wooden pulpits out of sight of the authorities.
In the mid-20th century, Perthi temporarily left family hands. However, about 20 years ago, Iola (from the Nant Gwynant side of the family) and her husband Richard Till bought Perthi back, successfully reuniting the historic ancestral farmsteads.
6. Your Historic Accommodation
The traditional stone buildings you are staying in today are the exact structures where this history unfolded:
- Tŷ Felin: The original 17th-century stone watermill. The historic iron cogs from its original milling machinery are preserved and mounted on the wall outside.
- Tŷ Pren: Our modern mountain lodge, sitting on the historic upper pastures above Dinas Moch, a small smallholding (found in the woods below Tŷ Pren) recorded as part of Perthi since 1536 that housed farm shepherds.
- Tŷ Hebog: A beautifully restored 17th-century Grade II listed field barn (beudy maes). Built from massive hillside boulders, it used a split-level design where the livestock’s body heat on the ground floor kept the winter feed dry in the loft above. It also doubled as a spiritual safehouse for illegal Methodist gatherings. Today, it features a cosy mezzanine crog loft bedroom nestled under the historic timber beams.
