Proposed Mansion: The Flagstaff

The Flagstaff, formed a 37-acre estate situated on high ground above Colwyn Bay. At the end of the nineteenth century the land was purchased by a Manchester surgeon, Dr Walter Whitehead, who commissioned the architect Dan Gibson to design a house and the landscape architect Thomas Mawson to lay out the gardens. The gardens were made in 1898-99, along with the gatehouse, outbuildings, and glasshouses. But the grand mansion planned was never built, and Whitehead lived in retirement in the gatehouse.

The site now forms the Welsh Mountain Zoo.