Post-medieval landscapes

hosiery trade houses, 18th-19thcenturies

Following the Act of Union in 1536, Harlech was established as the county town of Merioneth, but the great sessions, which met twice annually, were shared between Harlech and Bala, and the first recorded meeting of the quarter sessions was held at Bala in 1546. At this time Merioneth was still regarded as one of the most lawless parts of the country (Carr, 2001, 704). Its economy was still suffering from the depradations of the Glyndwr rebellion and the Wars of the Roses, and the burgesses regarded the sessions meetings as their only economic lifeline, since such meetings brought in revenue. Later sessions were divided between Dolgellau, Llanfor and Dinas Mawddwy, but for judges travelling from England and for JPs from the eastern part of the county, Bala was evidently more convenient.

Enclosure of common land was a frequent practice from the 16th-century onwards, mainly for sheep grazing (there were frequent protests of 'sheep eating up men') (Thomas, 2001, 207), although there are a few references to earlier enclosures in official documents of the period 1569 to 1591 (J G Jones, 2001). There was a remarkable increase in population throughout Wales after 1550, and by 1670 the population of Merioneth had increased by 85% (Smith, 2001 (b)). Uplands which had been abandoned because of depopulation caused by the Black Death and intermittent warfare were again restocked. Grazing rights on common land which was attached to freeholds in hendrefi were important to an economy of graziers, and as early as 1573 in some areas there were complaints of overgrazing of commons by intrusive settlers who had built cottages on the commons and claimed a right to graze the land. Freeholders from a number of counties, including Merioneth, gave evidence to the sheriffs of the four mid-Wales counties at this time that overstocking by strangers, deemed to be Englishmen, affected the number of cattle and sheep they were able to keep and find winter fodder for: it was maintained that this problem had arisen since the Acts of Union. Williams-Jones has put forward the idea that farms in 17th-century north Wales probably encompassed '8 to 20 acres of normal farming land' (Thomas, 1968, 34).

Industrial activity, when it came to Merioneth, was geared to the cloth industry which began to flourish before the end of the 17th century, reaching its halcyon days in the 18th, and this was centred on Bala and Dolgellau. This was based on the raising and movement of large numbers of sheep.