Hugh Ellis-Nanney

Sir Hugh John Ellis-Nanney, 1st Baronet, DL, JP (16 February 1845 – 7 June 1920) was a Welsh landowner, magistrate and political candidate.

David Ellis (Nanney), Owen's uncle (childless) married Henrietta Watts, daughter of Rev.

[1][2][3] Owen Ellis-Nanney was a contemporary on personal terms with Barons and political candidates in the North Wales constituencies, including politicians such as Thomas Wynn, 1st Baron Newborough of Glynllifon, Charles Griffith-Wynne and Sir Robert Williams, 9th Baronet.

[4] Owen Ellis-Nanney was a Conservative party politician who briefly held the seat of the Caernarfon constituency in 1833 against Charles Paget (son of the Baronet of Plas Newydd, Anglesey).

They had two children, daughter Mary Elizabeth (1877 – 1947) and son Owen Gerald (born 1879, died 1887 in Bournemouth).

[11] Ellis-Nanney stood unsuccessfully for the Conservative party (Tory) in the former Welsh, UK parliamentary constituency of Caernarfon.

He was defeated in his four local elections, the final two times by the future Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, David Lloyd George, losing by only 18 votes out of a total of almost 4,000 in the 1890 by-election.

Upon the return to Criccieth, the newly created Baronet and his wife had a meeting to commemorate the occasion with the most prominent people in the area.

[19][20] The location of Gwynfryn is on the Llŷn Peninsula overlooking Wales' highest mountain range, Snowdonia (Eryri) with views of Cadair Idris, and also to the south, Cardigan Bay.

[21][22] Designed by George Williams from London, the mansion was constructed over 10 years between 1866 and 1876, its total cost was £70,000 (equivalent to £8,300,000 in 2023).

[28] Since February 2021, a professional member of Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors working in coordination with the Welsh Government, Cadw and Coflein made a proposition for a renovation and conversion to turn Plas Gwynfryn into apartments, similar to Blencowe Hall in Cumbria, which also features a collapsed tower, now with an inserted glazed structure.

After the baronet's death, his personal properties of Gwynfryn, Talhenbont (Plas Hen), and Brynhir were left to his only surviving child, his daughter, Mary Elizabeth Lewis.

[6][11][34] The local family church was St. John the Baptist Churchyard, Llanystumdwy, which is where the Ellis-Nanneys were buried from the 19th century onwards.