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The top left hand picture is an artist impression of how the two winged Manor Hall may have looked, may be this is how Llewelyn would have known it. Some say it would have looked similar to Penrhyn Old Hall ( above right) but would have followed designs similar to Haddon Hall, the larger Penhurst, or the earlier Stokestay. It is of interest to note that the plan of Penrhyn is typically English, as the hall is flanked by two-storeyed blocks. Two recently excavated local examples of what might be regarded (tentatively) as a Welsh plan form, at Cefn y van and Gogarth have a two-storeyed block at one end of the hall only. Would this Manor house have been called a Ty Hir (Tall House). Would the daughter of King John have been at home here? Did she have a bed chamber here? Was Gwenllian born here. Vested interests would have you believe it was Llewylyns kitchen, kitchen to what. Why would you build a large two winged hall just as a place to eat. This building would have been an impressive building in it’s day. We can only surmise how the Aber Manor would have looked, but I would suggest that with the coming of a new sense of stability that the manor was less fortified and more becoming a man who wanted to be known as the political ruler of his Country, not as a fighting warrior. His Country was becoming less of fortified territory more a country ruled by consensus. The two winged Hall was called Garth Celyn, and we know there is still a house up in the Valley called Hafod Garth Celyn, that Henfaes would have been the Manor farm and that what is now Pen y Bryn would have been the home farm. The Tower by Pen Y Bryn may just have been any one of a number of “Llewelyn Towers” this one as a watch tower to survey the length of the low lands for enemy invasions. You could probably see from Tal y Bont to Penmaenmawr with out much trouble
to see the excavations of the hall in more detail
Manor Farms
As we have seen there were probably at least two farm in the Manor, Henfaes and what would have been called the home farm now Pen y Bryn other land were allowed for use by the tenants of the Manor. The men of the maerdref had of course their own lands in the manor from which were supplied the prince's precept as well as their own needs. But where were those lands situated. There can be little doubt that the more substantial portion of the tenants' lands (those which produced the wheat mentioned in the extent) were situated near the village where the coastal plain spreads out into the fields of the present farms of Henfaes and Pen-y-Bryn. From conditions found elsewhere it can be assumed that the holdings of the maerdref tenants in the open fields of Aber consisted of uniform strips of land, in which, subject to periodical reallocation, each tenant had an equal share and it may well have been that here as at Aberffraw the demesne too (and possibly the lands of the cottagers) was made up of scattered strips intermingled with those of the villagers. But the latter also held land in another part of the manor. One of the small items of rent paid in money, we are told, was assessed on the " upper land " or " superior terra ": and since the item in question is linked in the extent with renders of barley and fodder oats, in contrast with the second cash item which is related to the render in wheat, the location of the " upper land " must be sought somewhere in the valley portion of the manor which would be suitable for this kind of arable farming. Such sites exist at Meuryn Isaf, Nant Rhaiadr, and Ffridd Ddu, and all three supply evidence of a long tradition of cultivation. It cannot be without significance therefore that land lying very close to the site at Nant which was the subject of an earlier excavation, as well as the land on which part of the Meuryn hut group described in the R.C.A.M. Inventory stands, were in the nineteenth century still incorporated as distant detachments in the farms of Henfaes and Pen-y-Bryn
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