Craig y Mor

Craig y Mor is a house overlooking Treaddur Bay on Anglesey, Wales. The house dates from the early 20th century and has always been privately owned. It is a Grade II listed building.

History

Treaddur Bay developed as a seaside resort in the 19th century. By the 20th century, it had become popular with the wealthy middle-classes from Liverpool. William Smellie, the builder of Craig y Mor, was born in Glasgow in the 1870s, and rose to become chairman and managing director of Meade-King, Robinson, a manufacturing company based in Liverpool which developed a highly-profitable relationship with Lever Brothers, principally in the production of soap. In 1911, Smellie determined to build a holiday home on Anglesey and engaged the architect Frederick George Hicks. Hicks, born in England, had moved to Dublin in the late 19th century, and developed a successful career becoming president both of the Architectural Association of Ireland and of the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland. Construction on Craig y Mor was interrupted by the First World War and the house was not completed until 1922.
William Smellie died in 1955 and his widow six years later. The house remains a private home in the possession of the family and is not open to the public. It is rented for film and photographic shoots.

Craig y Mor was designed by Hicks in a Neo-Georgian style. It is "large", and constructed of snecked rubble with a tiled roof. Richard Haslam, Julian Orbach and Adam Voelcker, in their 2009 edition, Gwynedd, of the Pevsner Buildings of Wales series, consider the double-height bay window "overlooking the sea, its boldest feature".
The house is a Grade II listed building, the Cadw listing record describing it as "ambitious in scale, dramatic in massing, and refined in detail."