Historic background
The four and a half acres of wild headland
known as Dinas Oleu was gifted to the National Trust (the Trust's
first property, in fact) in 1895 by Mrs Fanny Talbot, a Barmouth
resident and great benefactor. Mothers would take children
with whooping cough up on to Dinas Oleu to benefit from the
sea air. There is reputed to be a late prehistoric defended
enclosure here (hence the name), but traces of it are very
difficult to make out.
Key historic landscape characteristics
Rocky headland, National Trust property
This character area corresponds almost exactly
with a SSSI (CCW ref. SSSI Barmouth hillside' 31WMP), first
designated in 1953 and since revised, which extends to 66ha.
It is a nationally important geological site which exposes
an almost continuous rocky section from the upper part of the
Rhinog Grits, through the Hafotty Formation, Barmouth Grits
and into the Gamlan formation, all of which are rocks which
belong to the Harlech Grits Groups and which date from the
lower-middle Cambrian period.
The locality is of particular interest for
its clear demonstration of the above, thick clastic sequence,
while approximately a third of the area is covered by woodland,
including an area of sessile oak on the western seaboard.
Back to Mawddach
Landscape Character Map