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Congratulations to Susan Chidley from Tudweiliog on winning the Barnacle Ball which was kindly donated as a raffle prize by Matt Sanderson, designer of the Urchin Cafe. Seen here being presented with her prize by Nia Jones.

The Countryside Protection for Rural Wales has awarded Plas Glyn y Weddw a second award in 10 years. See the award citation by CPRW Chair Frances Lynch Llewellyn below.

Image above - Matt Sanderson and Gwyn Jones receive the award from Frances Lynch Llewellyn. Image by Gareth Jenkins.

The new cafe at Plas Glyn y Weddw is now an award winning structure. On Friday the 10th of November the cafe won the prestigious 'Little Gem' award at the Royal Fine Arts Commission Trust Building Beauty Awards Ceremony in London.

The artistic genius behind the design Matt Sanderson was accompanied by Austen Cook of Fold Engineering and Seb Walker from Mark Wray Architects to receive the award in person from renowned poet Sir Ben Okri.

The awards were sponsored by the Ballymore Group and we would like to thank the panel of judges for choosing our cafe for the Littlegemaward.

Plas Glyn-y-Weddw is very proud to have received the gold award for outstanding visitor experience, and also the quality food and drink award from Visit Wales.

The sculpted new cafe which has been developed to an unique design was opened officially on the 18th of March by Lord Mervyn Davies, Lady Jeanne Davies of Abersoch and Gareth Wyn Edwards, Chair of the John Andrews Charitable Trust.

The objective of the café redevelopment was to replace the failing C20 conservatory with a visually striking and environmentally sensitive cafe. A key aim was to provide a fully equipped kitchen to improve efficiency, achieve better working conditions for staff and create more space for seating and events to increase footfall and income. It was also important that the new café connected into and complemented the historic Grade II* listed mansion built in 1856-57 for Lady Elizabeth Love Jones-Parry as a Dower House by the Bangor-based architect Henry Kennedy. As the oldest art gallery in Wales, it is perhaps not surprising that the trustees of the charity chose to think about the redevelopment in a creative way like the artists whose work they display in the gallery. The result is an artist-led solution that combines the requirements for a larger café with site-specific art.

In developing the design the artist MatthewSanderson researched influences in society and architectural precedent at the time the original neo-Gothic mansion was built. It was a period when the nation was gripped with scientific fascination, obsessive exploration, collecting and interpretation into the decorative arts: Charles Darwin’s book, ‘Onthe Origin of Species’, was published in 1859 and his contemporary Ernst Haeckel, the marine biologist and artist, was discovering, illustrating and naming thousands of new species.

The sculpted café is inspired by the site’s historical precedents and the adjacent marine life present today. The beautiful southeast-facing Llanbedrog bay is part of a Special Area of Conservation, host to many species, some of which are special and unique to the area. One such organism, the sea urchin is the inspiration for the eleven-metre-wide, self-supporting structure. The outer shell is the most dramatic element of the design with a colony of 89,000 ‘acorn barnacles’, individually punched and pressed components,welded to their subframe that scatter natural light to minimise internal solar gain. Their highly recycled marine grade 316 stainless steel material is resistant to the chemical and physical weathering present in this coastal location.

Within the urchin structure, a central ‘oculus’ spills natural light into the space below and opens to passively ventilate the café during warm weather. The funnel-shaped chandelier is a separate but integral sculpture inspired by the microscopic zooplankton ‘Litharachnium Tentorium’. 12 sculptural beams that follow Fibonacci’s spiral radiate from the occulus to meet equivalent columns that are joyfully connected to four-pointed arches that echo the style of the Gothic house. Each arch
frames a portal view to the surrounding coastal and woodland views.

The project brings other enhancements to the centre, including the creation of new toilet facilities within the historic mansion approached from the café via an open colonnade allowing flexible and fully accessible use of the whole centre.

Click here to view a film documenting the development

We are delighted to announce that the development of the new cafe and kitchen has begun, and we look forward to opening to the public early next summer.

While the development work is carried out, we have created a temporary cafe on the first floor of the gallery.

We are extremely grateful to all the funding bodies and individuals for enabling us to bring our plans to reality. Whilst we have sourced sufficient funds for the development work, the fundraising campaign continues for the fit-out stage.

There is a great opportunity to sponsor the development by having a name of your choice engraved on a stainless steel disk that will be incorporated into the cafe's external cladding. You can choose up to maximum of 25 letters (minimum of 10 letters), for £10 per letter. Call at the gallery or otherwise telephone or email if you wish to receive a sponsorship form.

Modern toilet facilities have been developed at Plas Glyn-y-Weddw during the winter of 2020-21 resulting in a huge improvement in accessibility. The new development was much needed due to the old toilets being small and dated. The improvements also includes a new electrical supply and improvements to the drainage facilities.

Further improvements are now taking place over the winter of 2020-21 with the development of a new cafe and kitchen facilities.

We wish to extend our thanks to the Welsh Government's Museums, Archives and Libraries department for funding from their Transformation Capital Grant scheme and also to the John Andrews Trust for enabling us to realise the first phase of the redevelopment project.

New museum facilities were officially opened by Dafydd ap Tomos on 11th June 2018 - the developments include new interpretation resources on the history of the house and the local area, improving environmental conditions to enable the display of historical objects, creating better arts workshop provision and specialist art storage facilities.

The project to improve museum provision at the Plas has been realised through funding from the Welsh Government’s Museums, Archives and Libraries Division and the Friends of Plas Glyn-y-Weddw.

Two rooms formerly used as offices have now been transformed into museum spaces for the interpretation of the Plas and the local history resulting in the southern wing of the first floor being entirely dedicated to historical display and interpretation.

The former main office is now called ‘The Madryn Room’ where you can learn about the history of the house and the family who built Plas Glyn-y-weddw. The main focus is a portrait of Sir Thomas Love Duncombe Jones Parry (1830-1891), the son of Lady Love who built the house. This portrait was restored in recent years thanks to funding support from the Friends of Plas Glyn-y-weddw.

Another former office, now called the ‘Ap Tomos Room’, is devoted to the history of the house from 1939 to the present day, with special focus on the Dafydd and Gwyneth ap Tomos era, the couple who saved Plas Glyn-y-Weddw from dereliction when they purchased the Plas in 1979. In time, aspects of the local history will also be introduced, focusing on the garden, woodland, Mynydd Tir y Cwmwd, Llanbedrog village, and the heraldry which forms an important part of the internal architecture of the house.

Both rooms have been equipped with air conditioning systems and secondary glazing to enable the environmental conditions reflect the required parameters for the display of museum objects on loan from other institutions. A digital screen has also been installed in each museum room allowing visitors to browse digitised old photographs, video interviews, films and documents.

A dimmable track lighting system has been installed in the new Madryn Room, enabling us to keep the light within the required levels for the display of portraits. New LED lights have also been installed in the Swansea and Nantgarw porcelain display cabinets in the Andrews Room resulting in the visual transformation of this important collection.

On the other side of the first floor a room has been upgraded to hold children and adult art workshops; to facilitate all of the improvements, staff offices have now been relocated to the ground floor at the rear of the building to a room which was formerly used as shop storage in the back annexe.

Our art storage facilities have been significantly improved through the installation of a new museum grade mobile racking system coupled with air conditioning and secondary glazing for environmental control. Visitors are now invited to view the works of the Gallery's artists in storage (which can be up to 200 pieces) as they are easily accessible and can be viewed on the new racking system.

The funding has also enabled the upgrading of the gallery security through the installation of new high definition cameras and additional funding was secured to upgrade the intruder alarm system to the highest available specification.

Nearly 200 trees have been planted in the woodland at Plas Glyn-y-Weddw during the early spring of 2018. The trees include a mixture of native species including oak, rowan, birch and willow and were received through the Woodland Trust's Free Trees scheme.

The only surviving horse-drawn tram which carried travellers between Pwllheli and Llanbedrog is now on display after being in storage for many years.

During 2015 the middle footpath, known as 'Solomon's Path' has been resurfaced and part of the woodland's boundary wall has been repaired.

Recently, the Friends of Plas Glyn-y-Weddw along with the Music Fund group of Plas Glyn y Weddw, raised £1,000 to buy a difibrillator for the Gallery.

Spring flowers are at their best at Plas Glyn y Weddw at the moment, giving a variety of colour to the woodland and gardens.