Plas Dinas | |
---|---|
General information | |
Type | Country house Hotel (since 1990s) |
Location | Bontnewydd, Gwynedd |
Country | Wales |
Coordinates | 53°06′31″N 04°16′32″W / 53.10861°N 4.27556°W |
Construction started | Early 17th century |
Listed Building – Grade II | |
Official name | Plas Dinas |
Designated | 29 May 1968 |
Reference no. | 3809[1] |
Plas Dinas is a Grade II listed building in Bontnewydd, Gwynedd, near Caernarfon in North Wales, between the Welsh coast and the Snowdonia mountains.[2][3] It is a large country house which retains significant features of an early 17th-century house at its core.
Since 1915 the estate has been in the hands of the Armstrong-Jones family. Antony Armstrong-Jones, 1st Earl of Snowdon spent much time there, including with Princess Margaret during their marriage from 1960 to 1978.
Since the 1990s the mansion has been a country house hotel, now called Plas Dinas Country House.
Plas Dinas is a large country house incorporating an early 17th-century house.[4] It had a later 17th-century addition as well as major 19th-century additions.[4] From its mid-17th century expansion it has a reset gritstone tablet dated 1653, with a coat of arms and inscribed with "T . W I . W" for Thomas and Jane Williams.[5][4] Thomas Williams was a son of Sir Thomas Williams of Vaynol, and was Sheriff of Caernarvonshire from 1647 to 1648.[4]
The house was enlarged in the Victorian era.[5] It was the home of Owen Roberts, land agent to the wealthy Thomas Assheton Smith family.[5][4] In the early 20th century his son, barrister and education pioneer Sir Owen Roberts, lived at Plas Dinas when he was not occupied in England.[6][5] Upon the death of Sir Owen Roberts in 1915, Plas Dinas passed to his daughter Margaret Elizabeth,[5] who in 1893 had married Sir Robert Armstrong-Jones, a Welsh psychiatrist.[7]
In the 20th century[8] Plas Dinas was owned by three generations of the Armstrong-Jones family, including Sir Robert Armstrong-Jones's son Ronald Armstrong-Jones, Q.C., who was the father of Lord Snowdon.[4] When the Armstrong-Jones family moved to the London area, they retained Plas Dinas as their country home.[9] Upon the death of Ronald Armstrong-Jones in 1966, the Plas Dinas estate was bequeathed to Snowdon's much younger half-brother Peregrine Armstrong-Jones.[10][11]
At the entrance to the drive is Plas Dinas lodge. During the Second World War, there was prisoner of war camp in the field across the drive from the lodge.[5] In 1946, at the age of 16, Lord Snowden was holidaying at Plas Dinas when he contracted polio.[12][13]
The home was designated a listed building on 29 May 1968.[1]
Princess Margaret, who was married to Lord Snowdon from 1960 to 1978, spent many weekends at Plas Dinas with him,[14] particularly after Snowdon was appointed Constable of Caernarfon Castle in 1963, and later was designing and organising the investiture of Prince Charles as Prince of Wales,[15][16][17] which was held at Caernarfon Castle in 1969.[18]
In the 1980s, the Armstrong-Jones family leased out the house as a nursing home, before it was converted to a hotel in the 1990s.[16] Proprietors have been running it as Plas Dinas Country House, a 5-star country house hotel, since the mid 2000s.[16] It still contains many Armstrong-Jones family portraits, memorabilia, and original furniture.[9][2] The hotel includes a restaurant, The Gunroom, which contains the original early 17th-century stone fireplace that the mansion was built around over the centuries.[19] In 2022 the restaurant was added to the Michelin Guide after inspectors were impressed with the food and its presentation.[18]