page_title: Plas yn Rhiw
section_title: Modern history
hierarchical_section_title: Plas yn Rhiw / History / Modern history
caption_attribution_description: English: Rhiw: Plas yn Rhiw. Manor house and garden on the Ll&#375;n Peninsula, cared for by the National Trust
context_page_description: Plas yn Rhiw is an early 17th-century manor house in Y Rhiw, Gwynedd in northwestern Wales. The estate consists of a small house of Tudor/Georgian style, a garden of just under one acre in size, and many wooded acres. Located at the base of Mynydd Rhiw, the estate overlooks the beach of Porth Neigwl, Cardigan Bay, and the Llyn Peninsula.
  The history of the manor's estate predates construction of the house to some 4000 years of the neolithic period. After the house's construction in the early 17th century, the manor house witnessed many historical family saga, which finally ended in the 1940s when the three sisters donated it to the National Trust in memory of their parents, Constance and William Keating. Before that, they had refurbished the garden and restored the manor house to its old glory. The three sisters, who lived in the house until each of their deaths, are buried in a church yard near Porth Ysgo, about 5 kilometres from their Plas yn Rhiw. Plas yn Rhiw is the only organic National Trust garden in Wales. The original garden was expanded by the trust to include 150 acres of surrounding woodland.
context_section_description: The house originally built by Meirion Goch in the 10th century to prevent incursions by Vikings into Porth Neigwl was rebuilt. A French window in the present house, which was remodelled in 1820, has an inscription dated 1634 and attributed to John Lewis, presumed to be the owner of the house at that time. His son, Richard Lewis, was married to Rector Richard Glynn's daughter. The hierarchy that followed consisted of two sons of Richard Lewis, the second son inheriting the property after his father's death, who lived with his wife Jane in the house. They had a daughter, also named Jane, who married William William and they had a son who was also named William William who was married to Mary Jones, the daughter of the Rector of Llaniestyn. They had only a daughter named Jane Ann who became the sole heiress of the property, in 1816. She married an army gentleman by the name of Lewis Moore Bennet. It was during this time that the house underwent further expansion.
  The Bennet's only child was also a daughter who became an heiress and married a very ambitious attorney, Cyril Williams, who was the son of the Rector of Llanbedrog. They had a son but the mother died soon after child birth. In 1846, Cyril Williams became the Mayor of Pwllheli but his ambitious plans to develop the place and to build a railway line from Worcester to Porth Dinllaen via Ludlow, Tremadog and Pwllheli, and then linking it to a ferry service to Ireland, did not come to fruition as he could not muster enough support for his plans in the House of Commons. Cyril Williams remarried and had many children. His daughter, Anne Elizabeth Williams, had in fact inscribed her name on a diamond ring and placed it on glass in one of the rooms on the first floor of the house, which is closed now. After Cyril William's death in 1859, his son William Lewis Williams, an army officer, inherited the property but he died a bachelor, and the house, along with the estate, was sold for £8000.
  The property was purchased by Thomas Edward Roberts of Hendre, Abererch, who lived in the manor house with his wife and children. But his son did not have interest to live in the house as he was residing in Harlech. He, therefore, released the house and the land to Lady Strickland of Sizergh Castle and Garden, Cumbria, who lived in the manor house for two summers. She was instrumental in fixing a modern bathtub in the house; it is now a water display item in the garden. After her, one of the daughters of Williams lived in the house for some time and then moved to Abergele in 1922. Then the house was deserted and remained untended till the Keating sisters bought it who, as children, had moved with their mother to Rhiw in 1904 and taken residence in a rented house.
  In 1939, the Keating sisters, Eileen, Lorna and Honora, along with their mother, Constance, who traced their ancestry to the original owners of the manor, purchased the manor house. They embarked on a serious refurbishing process in which they improved the garden setting, acquiring more land to enhance the environmental setting of the house and brought back the old glory of the manor.
caption: Plas-yn-Rhiw
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