history

The origins of Tan-yr-allt are unclear, but we do know that there was a cottage with attached barn or a row of cottages when William Alexander Madocks came here circa 1800.

The early house forms what is now the kitchen, hall and library downstairs and two service rooms plus Shelley’s Theatre upstairs, the room in which the old structure is most evident. At this time the house faced the cliff for protection from the weather. Madocks built new rooms onto the back thereby making it the front facing the view! He built two parlours downstairs, now the Drawing Room and Dining Room, and three bedrooms above, now Madocks, Miss Hilda and their bathrooms. Madocks’ agent, John Williams, found the property for him as it was ideal, looking out across the Traeth to his great engineering work – The Cob. Details of this venture and the creation of the house, the village of Tremadog and the Manufactury are to be found in Elizabeth Beazley’s excellent, now out of print, book ‘Madocks’ and the Wonder of Wales.

Madocks built his own house in the ‘new’ style which was revolutionary in an area where all buildings continued to be built in the vernacular style. Madocks was a great entertainer and soon had to build on to Tan-yr-allt to accommodate increasing numbers of guests, although this addition was pulled down to make way for the extant Victoria block which doubled the size of the house in order to accommodate the growing family of John Whitehead Greaves.

Madocks was always on the verge of bankruptcy and shortly after completing the work he asked John Williams to find a suitable tenant for the house which proved to be a difficult task. An unsuitable tenant in the figure of young radical poet Percy Bysshe Shelley was found and, despite being advised against the decision, Madocks let the house to the Shelleys. For the most part because Shelley was impressed by Madocks endeavour with The Cob and because Madocks believed that Shelley’s fame would help him raise more capital, as indeed it did. Shelley’s finances were, as it turned out, even more precarious than Madocks’ and after a shooting incident in the middle of the night the Shelleys fled to Ireland with their rent unpaid. This shooting incident has led to much myth and rumour with varying stories including unpaid bills, an assignation with a farmer’s wife and the secret service who were always interested in Shelley due to his radical views.

Whatever the truth Shelley was much troubled by the ‘spectre’ that attacked and shot him at Tan-yr-allt and his second wife, Mary, used the incident as the inspiration for her Frankenstein. For more details of Shelley’s tenure at the house see Richard Holmes: Shelley The Pursuit which has a chapter entitled ‘The Tan-yr-allt Affair’.

After the Shelleys left we have incomplete records until in 1843 a young slate prospector, John Whitehead Greaves, rented Tan-yr-allt from the Tremadog Estate having taken a lease on what is now the Llechwedd Quarry in 1846. After fifteen years of digging and on the verge of bankruptcy and his few remaining staff working for free a messenger arrived at Tanyrallt declaring that the ‘Old Vein’ had been struck. Greaves fortune was made. He married Ellen Steadman in 1842 and they had eight children born at Tan-yr-allt: John Ernest, Edward Seymour, Richard Methuen, Edith Mary, Helen Constance, Ellen Mabel, Frances Evelyn & Mary Hilda. Two further sons were born in 1857 & 1860 but both died.

John Ernest and Richard ‘Dick’ took over the running of the quarry building grand new houses for themselves: Bron Eifion at Criccieth and the Wern outside Porthmadog. Ellen Mabel, known as Aunt May and Nain Tannyrallt, married The Reverend John Clough Williams-Ellis whose children included the famous architect and creator of Portmeirion Clough Williams-Ellis. Hilda Greaves remained a spinster and devoted her adult life to restoring Tan-yr-allt which by this time was in decline.

The Greaves’ modernised and extended Tan-yr-allt in the second half of the 19th century pulling down Madocks’ extension and doubling the size of the house with the set back block one can see today. It is also likely that the they added the bays to the Drawing Room and Dining Room and put in a new staircase, doors and architraves to the Library, Cellar and what is now the kitchen.

Hilda was a cultured and literary woman who lavished her time and money on Tan-yr-allt decorating and furnishing it in the Regency style. She commissioned and erected the Shelley memorial which still sits on the library lawn and lived here until her death in 1926. Her sister Mrs Williams-Ellis returned to Tan-yr-allt until her death. Hilda did much of her restoration work with the assistance of her nephew Clough including the Dining Room murals, now covered, and the corner cupboards in the Dining Room and Drawing Room. Tan-yr-allt was still being rented in 1921 when the whole Tremadog Estate was sold, the sale catalogue is available for viewing in the library. Prior to this point Hilda held a 21 year lease from May 1901 at the sum of £100 per annum. Lot 82, ‘Tan-yr-allt’, Tremadog was bought by John Earnest Greaves so that his sister could continue to live there.

John Ernest Greaves died in 1945 leaving Tan-yr-allt to his grand-daughter Cicely Livingstone-Learmonth with the proviso that his sister (Mrs Williams-Ellis) be allowed to live out her days in the house. When she died the house was inherited by her daughter Jeannie Nagy whose father, Captain Livingstone-Learmonth, lived here until his death in 1984. The ‘Captain’ was a well known and loved local figure and magistrate with a charming love of ghost stories about the house which he often shared with his friend and frequent visitor the painter Sir Kyffin Williams. Upon his death the house was sold when it became a Rudolph Steiner School. Flourishing for some years the school went into decline at the turn of the century and was sold to the present owners in 2002.

The story of how it came to be bought is one of coincidence and luck: Nick Golding, one of the current owners, knew the Livingstone-Learmonths and often visited the house in the early 80s. He and his partner, Michael Bewick, visited the house when it became a school and Michael also fell under its charms. Imagine therefore Nick’s surprise on finding out - when admiring a picture of Tan-yr-allt in a friend’s kitchen - that it was: “up for sale”. From then the result was inevitable.
 
Obtaining the necessary permissions to restore and modernise a Grade II* listed house and the subsequent work has taken the best part of three years but finally one can echo Shelley’s words from Queen Mab “all things are recreated”.