Aberdwyryd - shifting sands

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.

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.   

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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.

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.

Cranberries come from Shrewsbury?

Autumn is here, the leaves are turning and the blanket bog up the mountain has ripe cranberries ready for harvesting.

A while ago I had assumed that cranberries would have come from a bush or a shrub, like bilberries do. But no, they grow on thin trailing vines, with leaves a bit bigger than the size of thyme, resting on mounds of sphagnum moss, with the fruits almost buried by the moss.

Each year we go for the harvest and at first sight there seem to be none. But then you get your eye in, and pretty soon you have a couple of cups full, enough for the sauce for Christmas dinner. Rain-washed berries, sugar, water and 15 minutes of boiling is all it takes to make a jar full and, in a good year, there is maybe enough for one of the neighbours too - living ‘off the fatta the lan’.

This is how and where people would have got their cranberries in the past but these days there are special flooded fields in North America where commercial crops are harvested by huge machines.

Their name in Welsh is ‘llyg aeron’, which translates to shrew berries. Could this be from where Shrewsbury got its name?

New Jersey Cranberries

Codi Cerrig – Raising Stone – Blaenau Ffestiniog’s Slate Heritage

Blaenau’s slate industry is all but gone but its heritage has been preserved to help project its image into the future. So, if you’re visiting Blaenau to experience one of the many adventures, such as the Downhill Biking, or if you’re riding a train or walking the mountains, there is no mistaking Blaenau for anything but the Victorian slate capital of the world.

The town centre has been revamped, with a great deal of European money, and in pride of place are the 4 giant slate splitters’ chisels. Each is made from 15,000 roofing slates laid at an angle of 30⁰ - that’s the angle at which the slate beds go into the mountains.

Walking between the giant chisels, each 7 ½ metres tall, you cross the road to the River of Slate. It’s a pavement mosaic with a river running down the middle and on either side are the names of the 350 slate quarries in Wales. Each quarry has its name chiselled into a block of slate which is the same colour as the slate it produced. I never realised there were so many colourful shades of slate.

In this film called Codi Cerrig, the artist Howard Bowcott explains the inspiration behind the designs and their significance.

Champagne at Campbell's - perfect after a long day's walk

Each year we host a walking weekend for a few friends and this year began with an atmospheric explore of Tre’r Ceiri. The name means town of the giants and it’s an iron age hill-fort about 450 metres above sea level on the north coast of the Llŷn peninsula. Within the walls of the fort are the ruins of about 150 houses.

From here we continued along the coast before descending through the remains of the Nant Gwrtheyrn quarry which produced setts used for building roads until the 1940s. These days the workers’ village is a Welsh Language Centre.

Champagne at Campbell's

On the Saturday we set off from the house, through the loop, along the old line of the railway and then up the Wrysgan incline near Tanygrisiau. Inclines were used to lower wagons of dressed slate down the mountain to connect with the railway and from there to the sea at Porthmadog. This incline is particularly steep and at the top end it disappears into the mountain, for the final 30 metres or so until you emerge close to the quarrymens’ barracks.

Having explored the old workings and a couple of chambers we made it to the top of Moel yr Hydd. From here we strode out to Moelwyn Mawr, then across the ridge of Craigysgafn and up our local mountain, Moelwyn Bach.

Instead of returning by the steep side we took the gentle stroll towards the coast and enjoyed tea and cake at Tan y Bwlch station before boarding an up train. At Blaenau there was just enough time to nip into the Co-op to buy the Saturday papers and some milk before catching the last down train of the day. 

Taking a breather at Bryn Cader Faner

As the train slowed coming in to Campbell’s Platform, I could see we were in for a surprise. Sue had set up a table with a white tablecloth on which stood a bottle of Champagne in an ice bucket and six flutes. An ideal setting for a pre-dinner drink.

On the third and final day before our friends headed off down south, we did a ramble in the Rhinogs past lots of stone age relics and finishing with a wild swim in Llyn Eiddew Bach.

A great weekend was had by all.

Campbell's Platform in Country Life

If you flick through this week's Country Life there is an article about little known stations titled Pulling the stops out. It's all about remote request stops, most of which were introduced in the 19th century, unlike Campbell's Platform, which is a comparatively recent innovation.

Cregennan - the best lakes in Wales

The two Cregennan Lakes, between Cadair Idris and the Mawddach, are the best lakes in Wales with plants growing from a depth of over 8 metres beneath the surface. This is double the depth of the average lake due to the clarity of the water, the oxygenation and the lack of nutrients clogging up the natural order of the system.

The land was given to the National Trust by a man who lost both his sons in the first world war. It’s a beautiful scene, but the real magic is beneath the surface with a progression of different plants, such as water lobelia as you move from the shallows, through quillworts, pondweeds, bladderworts and eventually to different types of stonewort. Have a look at the film below to see some dive footage of what it looks like.

A key thing to look at in determining the quality of a lake is the level of nutrients and the level of dissolved oxygen. Excess nutrients come from sewage or agricultural run-off and cause algal blooms which reduce the oxygen levels. In a typical lake in the summer, the waters are divided into cold water at the bottom with very little oxygen and warm water at the top with lots of oxygen. But because of the wind and corresponding wave action at Cregennan, it is constantly mixing up the cold and the warm water. Coupled with the lack of nutrients, this means the entire lake is well oxygenated throughout the year.   

Pictorial Meadows in Campbell's Kingdom

Wild flowers come and go, mainly in the early part of the summer, but my mix from Pictorial Meadows just keeps on coming. It should still be blooming up till the first frost in November.

I seeded six sections of the veg patch at different times and with varying success. A length on rich soil behind a row of peas was the first to get going, it took off really fast. Was that because it was on a slight slope, angled away from the sun, and did that mean they didn’t go too thirsty?

Other sowings thrived but some were patchy. Seedlings close to stone walls and compost heaps were probably most vulnerable to slug attack. In some areas a mix of seedlings sprouted but only a couple of species went on to survive. Was that because the slugs didn’t like them? Areas that were initially devastated by slugs are still pushing up tiny seedlings and these look like they might survive. Are the slugs sick of the plants?

The seeds had to cope with initial drought and my sporadic watering through a hosepipe from the stream above.

The supplier had stressed the need for weed free beds, which they were when I sowed the seeds. But other seeds have been trespassing or rising out of the seedbank. So what I thought was going to be a low input project has turned into an obsessive, time consuming but satisfying labour of love. Next year I might plant narrower beds so that I can reach across and weed. With the current set up I need to use a scaffolding plank resting on stools – lying face down in a flower bed causes the occasional passer-by to ask if all is ok.

It was the new head gardener at Bodnant who gave me the idea. He had a border on one of those immaculate terraces which was plagued with a particularly pernicious weed; by sowing a mix of annual seeds he’d be able to inspire the visitors and keep the weeds in check ready for planting perennials next year.

If you’d like to have a go you should visit the Pictorial Meadows website. I got a bit carried away with ordering seeds and opted for 500g at a cost of just over £150. I chose the original Pictorial Meadows mix which is said to produce stunning displays until late October / November, starting out with white, blues, pinks and reds, turning to reds, orange and yellow in the autumn. The mix has been carefully balanced for colour and succession of display. Components include: Shirley Poppy, Pavader Rhoeas Californian Poppy, Eschscholzia Californica Cornflower, Centaurea Cyanus Fairy Toadflax, Linaria Maroccana Tickseed Coreopsis Tinctorial Red Orache Atriplex Hortensis and Larkspur. Delphinium Ajacis General Height: 60cm.

So far it’s done what it says it will do on the packet which is not always the case with my gardening attempts! Should I collect the seed at the end of the summer or buy more for next year? Needless to say the supplier strongly recommends buying new so that you get the mix in the right proportions.

Photos struggle to convey the effect, the swaying in the breeze and the buzz of the bees. This YouTube is better but still a poor substitute for the real thing.