Trawsfynydd and Mawddach
Mawddach is situated in the modern county of Gwynedd, and the historic county of Meirionnydd. It includes Barmouth and the mountains immediately fringing the estuary on the northern side, stretching from the mouth of the estuary inland to Penmaenpool, and extends on the southern side up to the mountain ridge of Cadair Idris. It includes a variety of different terrains and habitats, and of different historic landscape types, from the mudflats of the estuary to the magnificent heights of the Cadair range, and includes heavily-wooded valley sides, low-grade agricultural land, 17th-century farm settlements, small, modern villages and beaches. It is particularly noted for its wealth of extensive relict archaeological remains along the line of Ffordd Ddu on the southern side above the estuary and below the heights of Cadair Idris.
Barmouth is the largest town here, but there are also the smaller settlements of Llwyngwril, Fairbourne, Arthog and Friog (which date mainly from the 19th-century onwards). There are few significant industrial archaeological landscapes in the area, the main exception being the gold mining remains north of Bontddu (on the northern side), and mining and quarrying remains above Arthog on the south. The area also contains three registered parks and gardens, Abergwynant, Panoroma Walk and Glan-mawddach on the shores of the estuary. The area was divided into twenty five character areas, based on the very wide-ranging principal themes of medieval shipping (Barmouth); the coming of the railway and the development of tourism in the 18th and 19th centuries (Barmouth again, and Fairbourne and Arthog); open, unenclosed mountain land (north and south of the estuary, particularly on the north-facing slopes of Cadair Idris); relict prehistoric upland landscapes (above Arthog, particularly around Cregennan); and an important concentration of 17th-century farmsteads and outbuildings, along with some contemporary field patterns, below the Cadair ridge.
There are two principal nucleated settlements in the area, of very different characters: Barmouth has its origins as a port and landing place in the sixteenth century, and was visited by dozens of nineteenth century personalities, from Wordsworth to Ruskin. Opposite it, on the southern shore of the Mawddach, Fairbourne was developed during the early years of the twentieth century as a holiday resort for wealthy Midlands industrialists. Along the banks of the estuary are grand houses of the Victorian period, while the uplands contain farmhouses which date back to the sub-medieval period. The opening of the Cambrian Railway in 1867 brought immense changes to the settlement patterns of the coastal strip.
There are few distinctive field patterns as such here, mainly due to the underlying topography, although those around Cregennan and Cefn-yr-owen display some antiquity in their patterns and constructions. The remainder of boundaries are typical nineteenth-century, linear arrangements which in places seem to defy gravity. Much of the hill slopes above the estuary are wooded, and there is a small concentration of quarries (mostly slate but also metalifferous) above Ffriog. One of the most significant characteristics of the area, though, is the wealth of relict archaeological remains which stretches along the shoulder of the lower reaches of the Cader range between Llwyngwril and Llynnau Gregennen.
The area has a range of interesting management scenarios which include possible re-flooding of parts of the estuary, and the recent afforestation around Cyfannedd.
The study has demonstrated that early post-medieval settlement is to be found around the western side of the modern lake and in the narrow valley which runs north-south to the east of the modern road and just below the Roman road, where Rhiw-Goch is located. Although all of the rural settlement pattern appears to have been in place by the middle of the nineteenth century, most of this would appear to be late eighteenth/early nineteenth encroachments of former waste.
There are several important cultural associations with the area, including the fourth branch of the Mabinogi (Tomen y Mur), the poet Hedd Wynn and Saint John Roberts.
David Thompson