Historical background
A nineteenth-century village established along the course
of the medieval road from Caernarvon to Clynnog, and along
the 1820s road that partly superseded it. The nucleus of the
community, and the feature from which it takes its name, is
the junction between the pre-1820s road and the road to Cloddfa'r
Coed, and the smithy established thereon c. 1801. The village
expanded as a local retailing, banking and administrative centre
throughout the nineteenth-century, and saw further expansion
in the later twentieth-century with the provision of social
housing and the industrial estates in response to the decline
of the slate industry and its consequent social upheaval.
Key historic landscape characteristics
Nineteenth-century settlement
The earliest buildings are situated on the main (1820s) road
through the village - High Street/Heol y Dwr (SH47045320).
Hen Bost and Siop Griffith, which are coeval with the road,
are substantially constructed from local stone. The row known
as Treddafydd (SH47125351), constructed in 1837, is one of
the earliest long industrial rows in Gwynedd, and is roofed
with coarse mottled slates from Cloddfa'r Lôn. Later housing
on County Road follows the course of the Nantlle Railway, operational
from 1828 to 1872; these dwellings preserve an attractive variety
of ornamented porches and wrought-iron fencing (SH47175317C).
Building material of later houses, such as those on Allt Doli
, Victoria Road and Snowdon Street , is often small field stones,
presumably used in the absence of more substantial material.
The stucco applied to the majority of these structures is probably
an attempt to conceal the poor quality of construction. Many
of these buildings were, in some cases still are, shops, and
several comparatively ornate nineteenth-century shop-fronts
survive.
Alien architectural influence is evident in the row known
as the tai American (‘American houses' – SH47365305), constructed
in a mid-west Prairie idiom, possibly the work of a returning
emigrant.
The area includes a number of substantial late-nineteenth
century buildings including the former county school (1896
– SH47435314), the former post office, now the HSBC bank and
the Commercial Inn, now in a poor state of repair. The patterned
slate roofs on the former offices of the Riley Quarry company
at the junction of Victoria Road and County Road are worthy
of note (SH47215311). A similar pattern is found on the gate-house
on the road to Tal y Sarn. The industrial estate on the southern
edge of the area consists of a number of large steel prefabricated
sheds and smaller office buildings.
Back to Caernarfon-Nantlle
Landscape Character Map
