Historic Landscape Characterisation
Llŷn - Area 18 Llanengan and
Abersoch PRN 33488
Abersoch
St Engan’s Church
Llanengan with the hillfort, Castell, on the hill and traces of the old
mine workings
Abersoch, Bennar headland
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Historic background
Flints have been found at Abersoch (PRN 5074)
and a stone axe, north of Sarn Bach at Deugoch lead mine (PRN
4004). Two Iron Age hillforts look out across the Neigwl plain
from the higher ground above the bend of the Soch. One near
Llangian and a second on a spur at 60m OD south of Llanengan.
The immediate vicinity of both hillforts has suffered from
quarrying the adjacent rock. At Pen y Gaer (Creigir Uchaf)
the ore was ironstone and little work was carried out during
the first half of the nineteenth-century. At Castell, near
Llanengan, the ore was lead, worked by the Port Nigel (Porth
Neigwl) mine in the late nineteenth century.
During the Middle Ages, Llanengan was a free
township occupied by the two gwelyau, Madog ap Sawyll’ and
the Wyrion Utot (=the grandchildren of Utot). Llanengan also
included a hamlet at Penygogo (or Penygogof = head of the cave)
which was occupied by a third gwely, holding their land by
bond tenure. The freemen and the bondmen, all, had to mill
their corn at the lord’s mill at Towyn, on the Soch,
at the eastern end of the Neigwl plateau. The hamlet of Penygogo
lay 1km south of Llanengan Church and partly on the Neigwl
plain.
St Engan’s church has early masonry
surviving but the appearance and fabric of the church is predominantly
sixteenth century. Ffynnon Engan, a holy well, is located 100m
to the north-west.
The major occupation in this area, between
the Cilan peninsula and the Soch at Abersoch, remained farming-related
until the middle of the nineteenth century. There had been
some trials in the search for mineral ore around Pen y Dinas
in the 1830s or so but not a great deal of progress was made.
Farmers, farm labourers, animal dealers, carters, domestic
servants and some blacksmiths, joiners and other craftsmen
occupied this predominantly rural landscape. During the later
part of the century the Penrhyn Du lead mines at Marchros were
operational again and new workings were established; some large
and some very small. The Port Nigel (Porth Neigwl) mine at
Llanengan was opened, on the hill where the old Iron Age fort
stood, at Castell. The ruins of some of the mine-working buildings
can still be seen at Tan yr Allt. An engine house was installed
and a tall and impressive chimney was set on, and through,
the brow of the hill above. The chimney, restored in the 1990s,
is a local landmark. Jobs were created on a large scale.
There was an influx of workers, many from
existing mining localities, particularly Cornwall. Wives and
children came with their husbands. New services and new accommodation
would inevitably be required. Rows of workers’ cottages
were built. At Bay View Terrace on the north side of the Soch,
nine of the ten houses were occupied by lead miners. Of all
the mining families living in Bay View Terrace, only one miner
was born locally. The others came from Cornwall, Dinas Mawddwy,
Minera, Dolgellau and Shropshire.
Llanengan, a small village in 1800, was beginning to grow. Hyde Hall
recorded nine new houses at Llanengan between 1800 and 1810 although
it was likely that a number of these were being built on the Bennar
headland, as Abersoch was also beginning to expand. By 1860 there were
fifteen families at the core of the village of Llanengan. Twenty years
later there were 29 families in residence and, with the addition of
lodgers the village supported 133 individuals. Twenty-four of these
had come to Llanengan to work in the mines, bringing their families
with them.
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North of Llanengan, in the bend of the Soch,
there were six farmers and 18 sons of the farm or hired agricultural
workers. Eleven lead miners and three stone masons, lived or
lodged in the same area. East of Llanengan there were three
farms working 267 acres with one of the farmer’s brothers
and 12 hired agricultural hands. In that same area there were
15 lead miners. On Cors Llyferin the only occupied cottages
were taken by lead miners.
The mines closed at the end of the century and there has been very
little serious development since. The impact on the wider landscape
was not untouched by these developments at Llanengan and Abersoch.
Abersoch
The headland of Bennar (now, Penbennar) was little developed before
the beginning of the nineteenth century. It rises above the Soch
estuary. The name is an ancient one, meaning a steep-sloped headland.
In the 1770s there were only two properties on the headland, the
house now known as Bryn Tirion, 400m south of the river, and a second
house close to the present post office, at the north end of the headland.
Across the river stood Melin Soch, the mill buildings and miller’s
house and three cottages and gardens.
Fields had been laid out from Bryn Tirion to the estuary but, along
the coastline, there was a large expanse of dune and sand. The census
of 1861 identified 25 families. A generation later there still remained
little but fields and dunes. The fields, however, had been subdivided
into smaller plots and around the estuary on both sides of the river
by 1890, developments took place. A row of cottages and gardens stood
close to the estuary, below the mill at Bay View Terrace. A school
had been built, a short distance to the east, on the north side of
the river. A lifeboat house stood near the shore below Bennar and a
hotel (St. Tudwal’s), a Nonconformist chapel and a small cluster
of houses stood on the south side of the river near the bridge. The
small village came to be known as Abersoch.
By the 1920s the number of houses and other buildings had doubled.
Bryn Hyfryd and St. Tudwal’s Terrace had been built in the late
nineteenth century, near Bryn Tirion. Houses were now being built on
the former fields on the headland. Abersoch was still a small village
with only about 50 houses and buildings on the south side of the river.
During the course of the twentieth century, however, the good beach
and sailing water saw Abersoch expand out of all proportion to a community
of around 500 or so houses on the south side and a further 100 north
of the river.
Key historic landscape characteristic
•The core of Lanengan village retains
a nineteenth-century character, dominated by the sixteenth-century
church.
•The Bennar headland and the estuary
of the Soch is a coastal landscape transformed from a small
community focussed on the mill and one or two houses in the
late eighteenth century to a busy tourist destination of
600 houses in the twentieth century.
•The predominantly rural landscape
of Llanengan was locally transformed by lead mining in the
later nineteenth century and the evidence of industrial activity
remains.
The estuary of the Soch enters the sea on
the north side of the prominent headland of Penbennar. This
character area includes the left bank of the Soch in its lower
reaches and on the west by the Soch, as far as Llanengan, then
following the scarp at Yr Allt, south-south-west to Penygogo
and Nant Farm. The southern boundary is coterminous with the
northern boundary of the Cilan character area and on the east
by the sea. The topography is a rolling landscape, transected
west to east by broad shallow valleys at around 20-30m OD to
the south of Llangian and south and east of Llanengan. Steeper
slopes predominate on the west side along a north-south escarpment,
which is followed at its base by the river Soch. Eastward,
the ground falls to the sea at between 10m and sea level at
Cors Llyferin.
The church of Llanengan stands at the focus
of the village, below the ridge which flanks the Soch on its
east side. The village is small but includes a number of buildings
of period character, including the nineteenth century school,
close to the church, and eighteenth and nineteenth century
houses on the south-east side of the church.
The church is exceptional. Early masonry
survives at the west end of the north wall, otherwise the church
is mostly of the early sixteenth century. The older church
was enlarged by extending its length eastwards and by adding
a second aisle to the south, with communication between the
two facilitated by six, four-centred arches. Four of these
arches gave access between the naves; the eastern arches occupy
the two chancel spaces. Highly decorated wooden screens signal
the divisions between nave and chancel. There are twelve roof
trusses in the north aisle and eleven trusses in the south
aisle. All are collar-beam trusses with arched braces but there
are variations between the north and south aisles and along
the length of each. The western tower is also of the first
half of the sixteenth century, as is the porch on the south
side, thought to have been built c. 1534. The perpendicular
style of the large east window in the north chancel is indicative
of the early sixteenth-century date of most of the church.
The surviving evidence ot later nineteenth century mining is still visible,
particularly on the south side of Llanengan village.
On the Bennar headland at Abersoch we can chart the development of this
landscape from eighteenth-century agricultural tenement and mill in the
hand of Vaynol estate through the development of a small village, largely
inhabited by sailors and those who have to do with the sea, to the 1860s
when a major occupation of the tenants and lodgers of Abersoch was lead
mining. By the turn of the century Abersoch began to encounter tourists,
but it was not until the second half of the twentieth century that Abersoch
became the popular tourist destination that characterises the village
in the present day.
There are few traditional buildings that survive
from the early nineteenth century. There are, however, significant
early twentieth century houses on the headland. These include
the neo-Georgian Garth, and the extensive Haulfryn with its
lodge, terrace partitioned tennis court. There are also interesting
features of siting such a those numerous modern cottages that
perch on platforms, carved out of the rock face of the headland
and the coastline opposite.
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