Historical background
Although there had been some intermittent development probably
from the end of the eighteenth-century, associated with the
prosperity of the slate workings at Cloddfa'r Coed, the village
is largely a development of the period 1850 and 1870, built
to house slate quarrymen and their families on the lands of
Coedmadog farm, laid out along the course of the turnpike roads
and of the Nantlle Railway. The village is associated with
the preacher John Jones and with the bard Robert Williams Parry.
Key historic landscape characteristics
Quarry settlement, speculative builder
Tal y Sarn essentially consists of two convergent ribbon patterns
of development, one along the turnpike built in the 1840s at
the foot of the slope alongside the railway, the other along
the hen lôn higher up. These join at the eastern end of the
village, in what was an early focus of settlement near Cloddfa'r
Coed and the area known as Pen y Bont.
Though there are a number of traditional vernacular buildings,
the dominant house-type is the standard two-up two-down design,
albeit built out of local stone. Some buildings are constructed
from quarry rags, though most are constructed of field stones,
at least where the construction material is visible, with possibly
some use of rags or poorer quality stone in side-walls and
back-walls. Many have been rendered or pebble-dashed. Several
impressive chapels survive, though all are now closed or face
immediate closure. The Nantlle Vale Hotel, a substantial building
erected in the 1860s (SH49045320), vies for prominence with
the chapels (e.g. Capel Mawr [CM] – SH 49215319). Tal y Sarn
is an excellent example of a speculative builder's village.
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