HLW (Gw) 7

Aberglaslyn  

2001  

Outstanding  

Designated  

The area comprises Traeth Mawr, or the former tidal estuary at the mouth of the River Glaslyn which flows south from Snowdonia into Tremadog Bay. The area represents probably one of the most ambitious 19th century land reclamation schemes, certainly in Wales, if not in Britain. It includes the Porthmadog Cob embankment, which was once described as the wonder of Wales, the planned Georgian town of Tremadog, and Porthmadog, once one of the largest ports on Cardigan Bay. The reclamation of Traeth Mawr and the building of Tremadog is an excellent example of the product of landlord initiative and conscious landscape creation in pursuit of part i c u l a r economic objectives in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The area includes all the reclaimed land up to the base of the cliffs or slopes surrounding the former estuary as far as Aberglaslyn, the planned town of Tremadog, Porthmadog, the Penrhyndeudraeth peninsula to the south which includes the location and setting of the architecturally exotic, planted, Italianate village of Portmeirion designed by Clough Williams-Ellis. The creation of Tremadog represents the fulfilment of the dreams of William Madocks, MP for Boston in Lincolnshire, who had a vision of improving this part of south Caernarfonshire. His scheme also included land reclamation, road building and the introduction of rural industry, as well as securing the means by which the Ffestiniog slate quarries could expand with the provision of harbour works at Porthmadog. All these features survive in the present landscape. Plans to reclaim Traeth Mawr had been put forward as early as 1605, by Sir John Wynn of Gwydir, but it was not until the beginning of the 19th century that work started. With a fortune he had inherited, Madocks purchased a number of farms at the upper end of Traeth Mawr, including Ynys Fadog, and in 1800 brought in a Lincolnshire engineer to construct an earth embankment to reclaim about 400ha of marsh and sands for grazing. The second stage of the grand design involved the laying out of the town of Tremadog, on the west side of the land that had been reclaimed. The settlement was intended as a staging post on the proposed main route to Ireland which crossed into Lleyn here on its way to Porth Dinllaen. Work began in 1805 and the town was laid out on a T-shaped plan, with the top formed by the aptly-named main road, Dublin Street, which held the coaching inn, town hall and market house. Off this opened Market Square, around which were houses, shops and smaller inns, while a church and a nonconformist chapel were built either side of the road to the south of the town. In order to generate employment, a five-storey, water powered woollen mill was built to the east of the town and an ancillary fulling mill and a corn mill erected nearby. The dams and leats of the water supply system survive on the slopes to the north east of the town. A canal ran from just west of the town out to sea north of Porthmadog, with a basin to allow ships to load and unload. A nursery was created to the east of the church ,supplying trees to other parts of the Madocks estate. Early in 1808, work began on the greatest undertaking of all in the grand scheme, namely the Great Embankment or, as it is now known, the Porthmadog Cob. This extended from Ynys Tywyn to the south side of the estuary, a distance of just over a kilometre, and intended to carry the post road from London to Porth Dinllaen via Tremadog, and to reclaim a further 1200ha of land. Construction necessitated diverting the River Glaslyn from its mid-estuary course and an artificial channel was cut through Ynys Tywyn to facilitate this, with sluice gates to control the flow of water. Although the embankment was completed in 1811, it was breached six months later and had to be repaired at great cost. The diversion of the River Glaslyn led to the scouring out of a new harbour alongside the rocky Ynys Tywyn, and a harbour licence was obtained in 1821 which initiated the development of Porthmadog. The harbour was built and a new quay rented to Samuel Holland, the slate quarry owner, and the resultant growth of the slate trade achieved in effect, the last phase of Madocks’s grand plan. A narrow gauge tramway (the present Ffestiniog Railway) was built across the Cob connecting the harbour with the Ffestiniog quarries in 1836, although Madocks himself had died in 1828. At the peak of slate production in 1873, an estimated 1,000 ships moved 116,000 tons of slate out of Porthmadog. Porthmadog grew steadily in the mid-19th century, though without Madocks’s controlling influence, the town lacked the planning and architectural unity of Tremadog, with side streets running off the axial High Street, a plan common to many industrial towns of the age. The chapels are perhaps the only buildings of note in the town, and possibly the Cornhill area with its warehouses and terraced housing. The growth of Porthmadog is at least partly responsible for the fossilization of Tremadog, for the Cambrian Railway built in 1867 chose to pass through the former on its way to Pwllheli. The Penrhyndeudraeth peninsula on which Portmeirion stands is a smaller planned landscape chosen by Clough Williams-Ellis (whose house, Plas Brondanw, also overlooks and is included in this area) as the ideal site for his cherished dream of a fantasy village where he could indulge in the styles of architecture which attracted him. The village creates its own discrete, yet highly distinctive, landscape, but apart from being a popular and internationally famous architectural tourist attraction, it is associated in most minds today as the place where The Prisoner was filmed, a 1960s television series that became a cult.