The iron barque Moel Tryvan was built in 1884 at the yard of William Doeford and Sons of Sunderland, for the Gwynedd Shipping Company, being named after one of the higher mountains of Snowdonia. She was intended for use as a general cargo transporter and is recorded as serving all around the world in this role until 1901, when she capsized and foundered whilst under tow in a gale, twenty-five miles North West of Alderny. Of the crew, ten drowned and eight were saved and taken to Cherbourg.
The panels are reputedly from a house in North Wales, in the vicinity of Porthmadog, in which presumably the owners of the vessel or one of her captains resided.