HLW (Gw) 16

Bala and Bala Lakesides  

2001  

Special  

Designated  

Bala Lake, or Llyn Tegid, is Wales’s largest natural lake and the area described here includes the lake and its immediate catchment at the north east end of the Bala cleft, a major geological fault cutting north east to south west across North Wales. The cleft forms a narrow, but geographically and scenically distinctive, valley which is drained by the River Dee and its tributaries. The infant Dee is swelled by the Rivers Lliw and Twrch at Llanuwchllyn in the south west and then flows into the 5.5km long lake, before becoming a sizeable river at Bala. Here it is joined by another tributary, the Tryweryn, beyond which it continues to flow east and out of the area. The 1km wide, flat valley floor is at 160m above OD, while the surrounding sides rise fairly steeply to between 250m and 500m above OD, where there is a series of rounded hills, ridges and upland plateaux forming the foothills of the Arenig and Berwyn Mountains on either side. The valley provides a natural route corridor across North Wales and its strategic importance in the past explains the succession and concentration of defensive sites and settlements located in the area. There is little in the way of recognized monuments from the prehistoric period in this area, the main historical interest of which begins in the Roman period. A complex of Roman enclosures was identified in the immediate vicinity of Bala, at Llanfor, by aerial reconnaissance during the dry summer of 1976. There appeared to be a fort, containing a granary and barrack blocks, a stores compound with a second granary or storehouse, and a third enclosure, possibly the earliest of the three, perhaps a temporary camp. Subsequent geophysical survey, in advance of the Welsh National Eisteddfod being staged on the site in 1997, revealed further details of the complex, including a number of earlier, Bronze Age burial and ritual sites, and later traces of medieval settlement and fields. So far, the Roman remains at Llanfor are undated, but they might belong to the earliest phases of Roman conquest and control of this area, the base for which would thus have been strategically sited along one of the principal lines of communication into North Wales. The Roman road from Chester must have passed through the area of modern Bala, and presumably close to this complex at Llanfor, before running along the north west side of the lake to the Roman garrison at Caer Gai, which occupies a spur above the other end of the lake. Caer Gai could represent the consolidation of the Roman conquest of the area, being a permanent auxiliary fort, possibly replacing the temporary works at Llanfor. A vicus or civilian settlement is known to exist to the south and also possibly to the east of the fort, while there is evidence to suggest that the site persisted as a centre of activity in the post-Roman period. However, Llanfor continued to be of importance with the early foundation of the church there indicated by its 6thcentury Early Christian Inscribed Stone. The unusual oval earthwork north of the church may also be of early medieval date, possibly the centre of an early lordship in the area. In the medieval period, Caer Gai was probably superseded by Castell Carndochan to the south west: this site has been dated to the mid-13th century, despite the lack of any supporting architectural or documentary evidence, and described as ‘an important citadel of the lords of Penllyn’. It occupies a strong, commanding position on a high spur overlooking the entrance of the Lliw valley. This site was, in turn, eclipsed by the borough of Y Bala. In the 16th and 17th centuries, Caer Gai was the home of the Vaughan family, Royalist sympathisers who suffered when the house was sacked and burnt by Parliamentarian troops in 1645. One of the major foci of interest in this area, the town of Bala, lies along the course of the main road to Dolgellau, sandwiched between the north east end of Bala Lake and the River Tryweryn. Bala was probably the maerdref of the commote of Uwch Tryweryn in the cantref of Penllyn. Two mottes, presumed to be Norman, stand close by; Tomen y Bala at the north east end of the later borough of Bala, and Castell Gronw on the River Dee at the point where it leaves the lake. This latter earthwork must have been erected for the purpose of controlling the lake and commanding the crossing of the Dee, which was probably located a short distance above the site of the castle. There is no historical information about the castle, but it may have been founded by the Goronwy family of Whittington in Shropshire. Tomen y Bala appears only briefly in Welsh history; it was held by Elise ap Madog, Lord of Penllyn, who refused to back Llywelyn ab Iorwerth in his struggle against his kinsman Gwenwynwyn. His reward for this disloyalty was that in 1202 Llewelyn drove him from the site and destroyed the castle. It does not appear to have been refortified. Bala is undoubtedly the best example of a planned English borough in Meirionnydd. It was founded by Edward II to bring law and order to the surrounding commote of Penllyn for which it became the administrative centre. It was successful, with all but nine of its 53 burgages taken up within a year of its foundation, and the markets and fairs previously held at Llanfor were transferred here and the borough was given formal grant of privileges in 1324. Burgage plots were formally laid out along the Via Capitalis mentioned in 1350, the present High Street, with two parallel back lanes running along what are now Arenig Street and Plassey/Mount Street. Most of the original plots, however, have been obscured by later development. Although the 1324 charter made special provision for town defences, which would almost certainly have incorporated the earlier motte, Tomen y Bala, there is no evidence to suggest that any were ever built. Bala declined during the later Middle Ages as its military functions became superfluous, though it retained some administrative status and later attracted renewed commercial activities which caused it to assume a more urban character. During the 18th century, for example, a hosiery industry developed which led to much rebuilding in the town and to an expansion of building beyond the extent of the medieval borough. By the middle of the 19th century, however, the industry had to compete with the factories of the English Midlands, with the consequence that the area’s stocking trade gradually declined until it finally disappeared during the early years of the 20th century. During the 19th century, Bala also developed into an important and flourishing centre for Nonconformist religious movements in Wales, particularly during the ministry of Thomas Charles, the famous Welsh Methodist leader. From early on in the century, the town hosted the Methodist Preaching Festival, when thousands of people would gather on the Green to listen to famous preachers, and in 1837, the Methodists established a college in the town. This was followed in 1842 by a Congregationalist college. Connected with the town’s colleges and chapels were men influential not only in the area, but also much further afield. They include T. E. Ellis, the famous educationalist and Liberal politician, Michael D. Jones, the Congregationalist leader and protagonist for the Welsh colony in Patagonia, Argentina, and others, to whom there are several monuments and memorials in the town. Outside the town, the medieval population and land use of six townships in the area has recently been studied in detail. To the north of Bala, the Rhiwlas Estate has played a major part in shaping the landscape of the area. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, R. W. Price of Rhiwlas was committed to a policy of converting marginal pasture to meadow, and meadow to arable. It has been said that the Rhiwlas Estate at this time illustrated the amalgamation tendency. This prevented young farmers from setting up on their own land and led eventually to depopulation and a contraction of settlement distribution; by 1797 many cottages on lowland farms were uninhabited. Half a century later, the estate owned almost 16500ha of land in Merionethshire. One of the most colourful owners of the estate was R. J. Lloyd Price whose home it was from the mid-19th to the early 20th centuries. A writer, and the founder of many enterprises and industries on the estate, he was responsible for the first Sheepdog Trials, which took place when he accepted a challenge from a neighbour who claimed that his Scottish shepherds were better than the Welsh shepherds employed on the Rhiwlas Estate. There has been a succession of houses at Rhiwlas, and the present house was designed by the architect Clough Williams-Ellis to replace an earlier, rather grandiose castellated structure that was requisitioned by the military during the war and had deteriorated to the point that it had to be pulled down in 1951. The area also has important historic and cultural associations. It has been suggested that it was once rich in mythology and legend, little of which has survived, although Caer Gai is held in Welsh literary tradition to be the home of Cei mab Cynyr, Sir Kay in Arthurian romances. Llanfawr (Llanfor) and some of the local rivers are recorded in the early Welsh stanzas, Canu Llywarch Hen, which probably date to the 9th century, while the poet himself is remembered in the old name for the earthwork north of Llanfor church, Castell Llywarch Hen. Bala Lake was also a focus of legends and tales, many of these, perhaps not surprisingly, concerned with flooding and drowning. In recent times, the area regained its cultural pre-eminence in Wales as a centre of considerable religious significance, with Bala and its numerous Nonconformist colleges and chapels being once described as the Geneva of Wales. Fach-ddeiliog, overlooking the lake near Bala, was the summer retreat of the wellknown antiquary Richard Colt Hoare, while Coed-y-pry, Llanuwchllyn, was the home of the famous Welsh writer and publicist Sir O. M. Edwards.