This Victorian mausoleum was built in the 1870’s for the Assheton-Smith family. Thomas Assheton Smith was the Member of Parliament for Caernarvonshire from 1774 to 1780 and later the MP for the English borough of Andover. In 1806 he was instrumental in getting Parliament to pass an act which allowed him to gain an extra 2,600 acres of land in North Wales, which allowed his businesses to mine for slate. He was the owner of Dinorwic Quarry, which at its peak was the second largest slate quarry in the world, employing 800 men and producing 20,000 tons of slate per year. The Faenol Estate was inherited by Assheton Smith from his Uncle in 1762, making him the 3rd largest landowner in the county of Gwynedd.
Thomas died before the mausoleum was built and was actually buried in Hampsire, England. Captain Robert George Duff, was one of the first people to be laid to rest at Faenol after his body was brought over from the Isle of Wight in 1890. His eldest son, George William Duff Assheton-Smith, died in 1904, aged 58. His coffin, draped in white silk, was carried from the house to the mausoleum on his favourite driving car, drawn by two horses.
The estate passed to George’s younger brother Charles Gordon Duff, who was buried at the estate’s 16th-century chapel when he passed. His widow, Laura, was buried at the mausoleum in 1940, and their daughter Enid in 1959.
Welsh architect Henry Kennedy designed the now Grade II listed building in an Early French gothic style. Stone and wood carver Robert Evans of Menai Bridge provided the ornamentation. Unsurprisingly the building has a slate roof. Below ground lies the crypt with its tall stone tunnels.
Sources: Wikipedia, HistoryPoints.org, BritishListedBuildings.co.uk.