Historic background

This character area describes the rocky elevated headland at the southern tip of the westernmost promontory of the Llyn peninsula at Uwchmynydd. Aberdaron Bay lies to the east and the headland faces Ynys Enlli, 3km. to the south west. Four conspicuous peaks rise above the rocky shoreline form north-west to south-east. These are: Mynydd Anelog at 190m OD, Mynydd Mawr at 150m OD, Mynydd y Gwyddel at 90m OD and Mynydd Bychestyn at 100m OD. The margin between the sea and the anciently cultivated fields of Uwchmynydd is narrowest at around 100m between Mynydd y Gwyddel and Mynydd Bychestyn and at its most extensive at Mynydd Anelog at 700m and Mynydd Mawr at around 500m. A corridor of uncultivated land runs from Mynydd Bychestyn and Pen y Cil to the harbour of Porth Meudwy.

There has been activity on the rocky headlands of Mynydd Anelog, Mynydd Mawr and along to Pen y Cil for millennia. Mesolithic flints and cores have been found on the headland overlooking Ffynnon Fair and near the destroyed chapel of St. Mary below Mynydd y Gwyddel. Flint tools and worked flakes have also been found on Mynydd Bychestyn (PRNs 1225, 4350, 7063, 1224, 1667) and Porth Meudwy. A Neolithic stone axe was recorded near the summit of Mynydd Mawr, in the area of medieval cultivation (PRN6613).

Hut circle settlements and house platforms are visible on the north flank of Mynydd Anelog, between the summit and the sea (PRNs 769and 2969) and on the south flank of Mynydd Mawr (PRN 777, 1671) and at Mynydd Bychestyn (PRN 1227, 1663). These hut circles are likely to be of late prehistoric or early medieval date. Medieval or later rectangular house platforms have also been recorded in the same areas (PRNs 771, 780, 1228). The very rare find of a Roman anchor stock was made just off the headland of Mynydd Bychestyn.

At the small rocky headland of Trwyn Maen Melyn there is an inlet of the sea and an embayment with the name of Ogof Aber-gath-wen (‘the cave of the outflow of the white cat’s stream’). Here a stream falls to the rocky shore below, Ffynnon Fair, and is associated with the medieval chapel of St. Mary on the plateau above. St. Mary’s chapel is now totally ruinous but its foundations and enclosure can still be recognised. St. Mary’s chapel was the last in a string of pilgrimage chapels to Bardsey. Its function must have included a facility for sailors’ invoking protection against the often hazardous crossing of Bardsey Sound (Pennant, vol, 2, 373)

Evidence of medieval or post-medieval fields and boundaries can be identified within the area of common land but the evidence is difficult to date. Notwithstanding, encroachment did take place and it would be surprising if it did not. The best evidence is late, where at least six late eighteenth- or early-nineteenth-century cottages, four with identifiable crogloffts, had made intakes from the common land of Mynydd Anelog. There is map evidence also for a similar process at Pen y Cil. An Inclosure Act was drawn up in 1811 but was not enacted until some years later (see historical introduction for the process of enclosure).

Key historic landscape characteristic