During this period Dwygyfylchi remained a rather poor parish where little changed until a new parish church was built in 1760 and new landowners, the Smiths, took over the estate later known as Pendyffryn about the same time.

From 1770 improvements to roads through the parish led to further changes within the parish . Penmaen Mawr and Penmaen Bach had always posed problem to travellers along the North Wales coast. There were tracks in the uplands to avoid the promontories but coaches and wagons had to go along the sands when the tide was out. In 1772 a turnpike road was opened between Conwy and Bangor via the Sychnant with an improved road across the face of Penmaen Mawr. As a result the village of Capelulo was born and the Smiths attempted to create an exclusive watering place in the centre of the parish with the building of three substantial mansions (plasdai).

Further improvements were made by Telford in 1825/6 when he cut the first road across the face of Penmaen Bach and vastly improved the road around Penmaen Mawr.

Pebbles from the shore below Penmaen Mawr had been carried as ballast by coasters returning from North Wales to Merseyside ports in the 18th century. These hard smooth stones were used for street paving in the expanding industrial towns of N. W. England. From 1830 onwards two quarries were opened on the slopes of Penmaen Mawr and Graiglwyd to produce dressed stone or sets to replace the uneven cobbles. Inclines were built to bring the stone down to jetties on the shallow shore for transportation by sea. After 1850 railway transport was also used.

As the quarries expanded so did the quarry village of Penmaenan with row upon row of terraced houses , chapels, a church, school, shops, public houses and public halls all vying for space on the steep hillsides. The workforce and their families formed choirs, a brass band, the Territorials, soccer teams and numerous societies including one of the first Co-operative societies in North Wales which started as a ‘flour club’ in a cottage.

By the end of the century nearly a thousand were employed in the two quarries where the end product had become predominantly crushed stone for railway ballast and road surfacing. From the 1870s the Darbishire family of Plas Mawr who owned the Graiglwyd quarry were increasingly influential in the political , social and commercial life of the town.

The town’s rapid growth between 1850 and 1900 as a fashionable resort was due to the coming of the railway and the patronage of William Gladstone four times Prime Minister of Great Britain.

He first came here in the mid 1850s and his frequent visits in the following twenty years attracted the attention and curiosity of others who came to share his genuine love of Penmaenmawr.

One of the largest hotels ever built in North Wales, The Penmaenmawr Hotel (later known as the Grand) was erected in the 1860s overlooking the station with smaller hotels and boarding houses soon following.

A number of large mansions were also built by individuals as holiday accommodation throughout the parish.

By the end of the century the town had achieved the reputation as a resort for the genteel and a retreat for the middle classes who enjoyed the combination of sea and mountain air despite the regular sound of blasting from the nearby quarries.