Penmaenuchaf

Penmaenuchaf occupies a shelf of hillside above the Mawddach estuary, one of the loveliest stretches of water in Wales and a favourite of Darwin and Ruskin. The house was built in the 1860s for a Lancashire cotton magnate and has spent most of the last four decades as a country hotel; it was bought in 2022 by Zoe and Neil Kedward of the Seren group and has been steadily reworked since.

The restoration has kept the panelling, the stained glass and the open fires while lifting the bedrooms out of chintz into something calmer. The garden-room restaurant, Llygad yr Haul, looks out over the lawns towards the Cadair Idris range and cooks tightly seasonal Welsh produce, much of it from a few miles away.

Twenty-one acres of grounds include terraced gardens, rhododendron walks and woodland. The Mawddach Trail runs along the old railway line at the foot of the hill, giving a level nine-mile walk or cycle to Barmouth and the sea.