Look on a map and
you’ll not find it as a place name but many stories can be told about the mouth
of the Dwyryd. My favourite way to approach it is in a Chariots of Fire slow
motion run in the waves, northwards along Harlech beach with dunes to the right,
Snowdon ahead and the Llŷn arcing towards Ireland.
A feature of our
coastline is the 'long shore drift', a process whereby the sand is nudged
northwards by the angled direction of the waves, creating sandbars and
beautiful estuary mouths.
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| Looking across the Dwyryd to Portmeirion |
The estuary is in
constant flux with tides racing in and out revealing the routes of streams and
the river flowing from the Vale of Ffestiniog. Across the waters to the north
is Portmeirion, most remembered as the location for filming The Prisoner, with
the huge bouncing balloon rolling over the mudflats.
In the middle of the
estuary slightly upstream, is Ynys Giftan sticking out defiantly. It’s opposite
the village of Talsarnau which translates to 'head of
the roads' and has been a major route for crossing the Dwyryd for thousands of
years. The Ordnance Survey map shows a public right of way from the south but
warns of estuary tides. This was not always the easily-accessible side, in 1816
a major storm surge caused the main flow of the river to switch to the north of
the island.
There was a small
trackway along the southern tip of the estuary to reach isolated properties but
in 1927 it was swept away by a massive tidal wave. A neighbour of mine, who
lives a few miles inland at the Crochendy Maentwrog (Pottery), showed me the
high water mark carved at waist height onto a slate pillar in his barn. A Welsh
Tsunami.
A ferry service carried
people from the southern banks of the estuary to Ynys Cyngar above Porthmadog,
until the railway came in 1867. The railway crossed the Dwyryd over Pont Briwat,
with Briwat being derived from Preifat, and that’s why you had to pay a toll to cross
it! But that's all history now as the old wooden bridge had been replaced with a modern, free of charge bridge.
The village of Ynys
is aptly named, sitting like an island above the high tide mark surrounded by
estuary, sea and the great marsh, but since 1806 the marsh has been drained
with a network of ditches flowing out through locks into the estuary at low
tide. If you look at the lock outside y Warws (the warehouse) and use your
imagination it is easy to see that this was the route taken by boats to supply Harlech Castle. Forget the romantic vision of
ocean going ships sailing to the foot of the castle, the goods arrived along y
Gamlas, the canal.
.
Following on from the
drainage a racecourse was established, y Ffridd Rasus, and this is where rich
families such as the Oakeleys and the Vaughans would race their horses. The
Oakeleys even held polo matches on the beach! Nowadays the site is used for
much less glamorous purposes being the landfill and recycling centre for the
area.
The high
point of Ynys is Llanfihangel y Traethau, the church of St Michael
of the Beaches to differentiate it from all the other St Michael’s – back in
olden times Michael (Mihangel) was as common as the Jones’s. It is shrouded in
yew trees and the walls of the graveyard are rounded, most probably reflecting
pre-Christian use. In many cases the transition to Christianity built upon and
adapted existing places of worship making the conversion more palatable. Gravestones
mark out the resting places for people with remarkable spirit.
One of these is for
Richard Hughes, the author of High Wind in Jamaica, first published in 1929. There
is also a beautiful stained glass window presented by his children. Richard and
his family had a long association with North Wales
and for many years lived at Mor Edrin, nowadays a holiday cottage looking north
across the estuary and where Richard died in 1976.
Richard was a keen
sailor and loved messing around with boats big and small. On one occasion he
helped fit out a slate brig called the Rosetta and subsequently was a member of
the six man crew to sail it from Porthmadog to Belfast. The experiences from this voyage
feed into the description of the pirate ship in High Wind in Jamaica.
Another gravestone is
to the memory of Lord Harlech who was a Cabinet Minister before becoming the
British Ambassador to the United
States during which time he played a
significant role in the Cuban Missile Crisis. He subsequently went on to be the
founder of Harlech TV.
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| Looking at the Moelwyns from Ynys Church |
Up until the mid 1800s
the estuary was a bustling freight route with 2-man boats rowing slate downstream
to meet waiting ships at Borth y Gest. There were about fifty boats and a
hundred boatmen plying the waters, loading up at the several quays as far
upstream as Maentwrog, going out with one tide and back on the next. Within
fifteen years of the Ffestiniog Railway opening, the slate boats became a thing
of the past, but an old one has been found pickled in the mud and is awaiting
retrieval and restoration.
This idyllic peaceful
location also has its memories of war. Tank traps and wire fences can still be
made out, this was considered a likely landing point for an invasion from Ireland
and was the base for a military camp behind the dunes. Castell Deudraeth, the five
star hotel, was the evacuation home for a girls boarding school.
Summer storms in 2007
rearranged the sand to reveal an American fighter plane that crashed in 1942.
The plane was towing a target for the rest of the squadron to practice on, but
the pilot failed to switch from the reserve to the main fuel supply, and the
engines lost power. Landing in two feet of water he survived the crash but a
few weeks later was “lost in action” in a raid over North
Africa. The plane, a Lockheed P-38 Lightning, has been nicknamed
the Maid of Harlech and is incredibly well preserved with minimal corrosion. Within
a few months of being revealed the sands moved again and it is once more
covered, protected from the elements and souvenir hunters, awaiting rescue for
display in the RAF
Museum.
