Mysterious Britain & Ireland

Country and County: Gwynedd

Ancient Sites

Pen-y-Dinas Hillfort

The remains of the prehistoric, Iron Age, Pen-y-Dinas hillfort stand on a prominent peak (230 metres high), overlooking the coastal plain of Dyffryn Ardudwy. Its shape is oval, following the shape of the hill that it stands upon, and it measures approximately 60 metres by 50 metres. The wall of the hillfort is better preserved on the west side, which is where the entrance to the fort used to be.

Ancient Sites / King Arthur / Legends / Wells

King Arthur’s Well

King Arthur’s Well is so called, because of the myth connected with it, that the waters derive from King Arthur’s kitchen, and the fat from the meat that was cooked there, floats to the surface at the well. In 1853 a physician from Caernarfon named A.

Ancient Sites

Y Gyrn Lower Cairn (North)

This is the remains of one of a pair of ancient cairns that bestride the mountain path descending Y Gyrn from the west heading towards the Bryn Cader Faner ancient monument.

Ancient Sites

Y Gyrn Upper Cairn (South)

This is the remains of one of a pair of ancient cairns that bestride the mountain path descending Y Gyrn from the west heading towards the Bryn Cader Faner ancient monument.

Ancient Sites / Stone Circles

The Llyn Eiddew Bach Stone Circle

This stone circle is located close to Bryn Cader Faner, just to the east of the path that leads to this more famous ancient monument. The circle is difficult to find in the Welsh mountain moorland, chiefly because the stones are low to the ground and have been overgrown by the moor.

Ancient Sites / Burial Mounds

Gwern Einion

Gwern Einion is a representative cromlech, found on Gwern Einion Farm in the district of Llanfair, Meirionnydd. It has been damaged over the centuries, the burial chamber has historically been used as a shed, and the cairn has been robbed of its stone to build dry stone walls. It has actually been incorporated into a dry stone wall of the garden of a now derelict cottage on the farm.

Fairies / Folklore / Folktales / Welsh Fairies / Welsh Folktales

‘The Baby of Y Dolydd’

Y Dolydd is a long vacated, derelict cottage with an interesting Tylwyth Teg (Welsh Fairy) legend associated with it. Many years ago the cottage was the residence to a poor young widow, who one day encountered a charismatic Tylwyth Teg who asked her to bring up a child for him. The widow agreed to this, and several days later she found a beautiful baby boy on her doorstep.

Hauntings

The Talyllyn Railway ‘Ghost Train’

Rheilffordd Talyllyn (the Talyllyn Railway) is a narrow-gauge railway running for just over 7 miles from Tywyn to Nant Gwernol. It opened in 1866, being laid down to carry slate from the quarries at Bryn Eglwys down to the coast at Tywyn, and it was the first narrow gauge railway in the United Kingdom to be authorised to take passengers under steam haulage by an ‘Act of Parliament’.

Apparitions / Hauntings

Portmeirion

Sir Bertram Clough Williams-Ellis, CBE, MC (28 May 1883 – 9 April 1978), was an English-born Welsh architect, who created this popular tourist attraction in the style of an Italian village between 1925 and 1975. The village is a popular wedding venue and hotel, with each cottage and building being a room or suite.

King Arthur / Legends

Carreg Arthur (Arthur’s Rock)

Carreg Arthur is the name given to a hefty volcanic boulder estimated to be about 450 million years old that stands in a scenic area of North Wales to the south of Llanrug.