Historical background
An early nineteenth-century road junction and a late nineteenth-century
rail junction around a (probable but unlocated) medieval core.
The settlement appears to have developed after the rerouting
of the road in 1805, and subsequent development of the turnpike
and its associated infrastructure in the 1820s. The opening
of the Carnarvonshire Railway in 1866 and of the North Wales
Narrow Gauge Railway in 1878 (reconstituted as the Welsh Highland
Railway in 1922) led to further building to house railway staff,
and there has been some twentieth century suburban development.
Key historic landscape characteristics
Settlement, transport junction
The substantial taverns, the Mount (SH47715845), still open,
and Tafarn Hen (SH47815863), now a private house, form surviving
elements of the turnpike system. Other dwellings were constructed
to house railway workers. The re-opening of the Welsh Highland
Railway as a visitor attraction and as a local passenger facility
has been carried out by an organisation which scrupulously
respects the historic railway infrastructure. Gentry influence,
in the form of the Newborough family, is evident in the spire
attached to Glanrhyd chapel (CM – SH47585834) at their insistence.
There are some twentieth-century buildings, mainly of the suburban
villa type.
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Landscape Character Map
