About

Approximately 3 miles west of Bangor City centre, Parc Menai is strategically located adjacent to junction 9 of the A55 (Euroroute E22) and the A487(T). 

The business park has been developed to retain the area’s natural beauty, whilst providing a flexible range of high-specification offices and clean production or research and development accommodation. 

Parc Menai won 1st prize in the Semi-Natural Landscapes category in the 1992 Landscape Institute Maintenance Awards. 

Parc Menai forms part of the Vaynol estate, a country estate dating from the Tudor period, which was formally owned by the Duff family. Sir Michael Duff as Lord Lieutenant of Caernarfonshire, officiated at the investiture of the HRH Prince of Wales. The Vaynol Estate has been made famous over the last few years because of Bryn Terfel's great music festival & more recently the Radio 1 Big Weekend however the estate has a very long and fascinating history.

History

The Vaynol Estate has a very long, fascinating history.

Vaynol Old Hall was the centre of the estate from around the 1550s until the New Hall was built in 1800. Vaynol Park is all that remains of the once vast Vaynol Estate which, at its height covered over 35,000 acres of land stretching from the Menai Straits into Snowdonia and down into the Llyn Peninsula. 

The first record of the estate as we know it today came when High Sheriff Thomas Wyn ap William (Thomas Williams) took ownership in 1572. The Williams family remained a potent force in North Wales throughout the 17th century, taking full advantage of the benefits given to the Welsh gentry after the Act of Union with England in 1536.

In the 19th century, the estate fell into the hands of the Assheton Smith family, who exploited the rich deposits of slate quarried on the land. The Vaynol remained in their possession until 1980, when the final Assheton Smith, Sir Michael, died and the land was sold at auction.