HLW (Gw) 2

Ardudwy  

2002  

Outstanding  

Designated  

The Rhinog Mountains form a rugged chain of mountains south of the Snowdonian massif, extending from the estuaries of the Rivers Dwyryd and Glaslyn in the north to the estuary of the river Mawddach in the south. Their craggy outlines dominate the surrounding landscape with Y Llethr, the highest summit, reaching a height of 754m above OD. To the west, their gentler, seaward-facing flanks are dissected by glacial valleys occupied by the Rivers Artro, Cwmnantcol and YsgethIn .The lower slopes d rop to the coast where the cliff lines of a former coastline lie land-locked behind two extensive areas of coastal flats and sand dunes at Morfa Harlech and Morfa Dyffryn . Ardudwy has retained a natural integrity as a territory, probably since prehistoric times, because topography has strongly constrained both access and settlement in the area. It also has an exceptional wealth of relict archaeological remains, from the prehistoric period to the recent past, reflecting recurrent human activity in an area with juxtaposed resources of lowland and upland and, not least, the easy availability and survival of stone as a building material. Much of the area has already been studied by both historians and field archaeologists, but the potential to further study settlement evolution and land use changes in detail is enormous. Submerged peat and forest deposits, with some potential for producing Mesolithic cultural material, are periodically exposed by the tides along the foreshore at Morfa Dyffryn. On the land, the key features of the succeeding Neolithic period are a cluster of burial chambers, including a well-preserved pair sited close together at Carneddau Hengwm. Concentrations of Bronze Age ritual and funerary monuments occur in a number of places, but principally along, or near to, ancient trackways which straddle the area from the coast over the mountains to the east. The concentration of monuments in the north along the Fonllech Hir trackway and its continuation past Moel Goedog and across Bryn Cader Faner is particularly notable. The area has several, generally small, but nevertheless representative, examples of Iron Age hillforts evenly distributed on the higher slopes and spurs throughout the district.These forts are often nodal points in extensive relict systems of huts, fields and enclosures surviving on the surrounding slopes. There are remarkable, still traceable, systems at Moel Goedog and Muriau Gwyddelod in the north, and at Cors y Gedol in the south. On the higher slopes, isolated clusters of huts with smaller paddocks or enclosures occur in frequent numbers. A similarly extensive pattern is evident in the medieval period with groups of rectangular buildings scattered among, often quite large and extensive, field systems on the lower slopes, and dispersed clusters of slighter structures and smaller paddocks or folds on the higher slopes. Their remains are often superimposed upon, or incorporated into, some of the earlier, late prehistoric patterns. The Cors y Gedol and Egryn areas are particularly rich in such remains, although none has been excavated and precise dating is lacking. In the medieval period, Ardudwy was a commote in the ancient kingdom of Dunoding, with the manor or maerdref containing the prince’s court and administrative offices at Ystumgwern. After the English conquest, however, Ystumgwern was supplanted by the creation of the Edwardian castle-borough of Harlech, once with access to the sea, but now land-locked by the Morfa. Changes wrested in the landscape at this time can be plotted with more accuracy using historical documentary sources , and in the wake of the English conquest, it seems that impoverished economic conditions, the breakdown of the Welsh system of landholding and its replacement with a capitalist land market brought about the creation of a new order of late medieval gentry estates in the area such as Cors y Gedol, whose growth and expansion have been charted in some detail. The process of estate expansion and consolidation continued into the post-medieval period, in many cases with the illegal enclosure of common land, and several of the stonewalled fields and settlements at middle and higher elevations in the area belong to this period.At the same time, many of the older sites which had been temporary summer settlements, or hafotai, in a long-established system of seasonal transhumance between lowland and upland, became permanent settlements. As early as the 13th century, Nantcol seems to have been used as summer pasture for the maerdref of Ystumgwern, and in 1326, the inhabitants of Llanaber were recorded as having moved to the mountains with their animals in May. The enclosure of the Ardudwy landscape culminated in a final district-wide period of enclosure initiated in the 19th century by landowners with Parliamentary Enclosure Acts. The higher slopes and summits are criss-crossed with high stone (ffridd) walls, with some notable sections raised precariously across seemingly impossible gradients as a result of their lines being drawn on maps by absentee surveyors. The ridges behind Llanaber in the south are particularly remarkable in this respect. Morfa Harlech and Morfa Dyffryn on the coast were also drained and enclosed at this time. In 1840, the Cors y Gedol Estate ranked second in Merioneth to that of Nannau, comprising some 6490ha in 161 separate holdings, having doubled in size since 1808. As larger areas of the district became permanently enclosed, sheep farming increased to supply the expanding woollen industry. The old Drovers’ routes and pack horse trails, such as Roman Steps through Cwm Bychan, were abandoned, and the building of turnpike roads in the late 18th century and the coastal railway line in 1867 saw their final demise. The area is not without its industrial remains such as the number of water powered 19th century woollen mills, whilst manganese was quarried at a number of sites, some of which have associated structural and other remains. Harlech in ancient Ardudwy features as one of the courts of Bendigeidfran, son of Llyˆr, and roost to Rhiannon’s Birds in one of the four branches of the early Welsh Mabinogi tales. A short distance away at Lasynys, Ellis Wynne, the Sleeping Bard, dreamt and conjured up an equally potent imagery to describe corruption in the Church at the turn of the 17th–18th centuries in his most famous work, Gweledigaetheu y Bardd Cwsc.