Historical background
A flat valley floor, much altered and restricted by the extensive
dumping of slate waste in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
The area has traditionally been in the hands of a number of
lesser local landowners, and represented the lowland holdings
of farms situated just above the break of slope. The lower
part of the area is dominated by the hill-fort of Caer Engan,
associated with Caer Dathyl in the fourth branch of the Mabinogion .
The upper part includes the Baladeulyn of the Mabinogion ,
and forms the foreground setting for Richard Wilson's painting
of Snowdon .
Key historic landscape characteristics
Canalised river, road
A mixture of pasture and marsh, with smaller fields on the
sides of the hill-fort at Caer Engan. The only major dwelling
in the area is Ty Mawr, a farmhouse recently reconstructed
after a fire on an inappropriate scale and in an inappropriate
manner. The principal historical interest in this flat area
of irregular pasture fields are the various communication routes.
The river was extensively canalised in the early twentieth
century. The area includes the diverted Pen y Groes to Nantlle
road and the substantial reinforced concrete bridge at Tal
y Sarn, completed in 1929, as well as the course of a tramway
and a number of permissive footpaths.
Back to Caernarfon-Nantlle
Landscape Character Map
