Abergwyngregyn
Aber Falls (size shown by people below)
Abergwyngregyn Location withinGwynedd
Area	29.70 km2 (11.47 sq mi)
Population	240
• Density	8/km2 (21/sq mi)
OS grid reference	SH653726
Community	Aber
Principal area	Gwynedd
Preserved county	Gwynedd
Country	Wales
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	LLANFAIRFECHAN
Postcode district	LL33
Dialling code	01248
Police	North Wales
Fire	North Wales
Ambulance	Welsh
UK Parliament	Bangor Aberconwy
Senedd Cymru – Welsh Parliament	Arfon
Website	community council
List of places UK Wales Gwynedd 53°14′02″N4°01′08″W / 53.234°N 4.019°W /53.234; -4.019 Map of the community

Abergwyngregyn (Welsh:[abɛrɡwɨnˈɡrɛɡɨn]) is a village andcommunity of historical note inGwynedd, a county andprincipal area inWales. Under its historic name ofAber Garth Celyn it was the seat ofLlywelyn ap Gruffudd. It lies in thehistoric county ofCaernarfonshire.

It is located atgrid referenceSH653726, adjacent to theA55, five miles (8 km) east ofBangor, eight miles (13 km) west ofConwy.

The Aber community, which covers an area of 2,970 hectares (11.5 mi²), has a population of 240 (2011).^[1]

Abergwyngregyn, generally shortened to Aber, is a settlement of great antiquity and pre-Conquest^{[Unclear which conquest]} importance on the north coast of Gwynedd. Its boundaries stretch from theMenai Strait up to the headwaters of theAfon Goch andAfon Anafon. Protected to the east by the headland ofPenmaenmawr, and at its rear bySnowdonia, it controlled the ancient crossing point of the Lafan Sands toAnglesey. A pre-Roman defensive enclosure,Maes y Gaer, which rises abovePen y Bryn on the eastern side of the valley, has far reaching views overIrish Sea with theIsle of Man visible on a clear day. TheRoman road fromChester (Deva), linking the forts ofCanovium (later name Conovium) andSegontium, crossed the river at this point.

This was the seat ofLlywelyn ap Gruffudd, the last native Prince of Wales, whose daughterGwenllian of Wales was born here in June 1282. His wife,Eleanor de Montfort, died here as a result of the birth on 19 June 1282. In June 1283 Dafydd ap Gruffudd, Llywelyn's brother, who assumed the title of Prince of Wales after Llywelyn's murder in December 1282, was captured at Bera Mountain above the present village.

Abergwyngregyn was one of ten sites chosen for the Welsh Cultural Heritage Initiative in 2009.^[2]

Y Mŵd is an earthen mound on the valley floor in the middle of the village, atSH656726. The mound is circular, 22 feet (6.7 m) high with a level oval top 57 by 48 feet (17 by 15 m). It has been regarded as the base of aNormancastle, and on that basis was renamed 'Aber Castle Mound' by theAncient Monuments Board. E. S. Armitage, inThe Early Norman Castles of the British Isles, suggested that it might have been constructed byHugh d'Avranches, Earl of Chester. The wordmŵd in early Welsh means 'vault' or 'arched area', and though there are traces of a ditch on the south side, no further defensive features have been identified.^[3]

Other similar mounds have been found especially in northern and western Britain, such as the one on which thePillar of Eliseg near Llangollen stands, and the one atScone in Scotland.

A large structure on the valley bottom between Y Mŵd, the smithy and the water mill was excavated in 1993 and again in 2010. It appears to be the remains of a high-status building from the 14th century, possibly built before 1283 under the last independent princes of Wales, or after 1283 under aking of England, in the early decades after theConquest by Edward I. No defensive structures have been found. The floor plan has been interpreted as a medieval hall, 11.2m by 8.0m internally, with large wings at the ends. A separate enclosure may have been used for large ovens or for metalworking. The 1993 dig found a bronze brooch, some medieval pottery, and a coin from the years before the conquest.^[4] TheRoyal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales suggests that this site could be associated with the medieval royalllys (princely court).^[5]

Aber community's population was 240, according to the2011 census;^[6] an 8.2% increase since the 222 people noted in2001.^[7]

The 2011 census showed 48.5% of the population could speakWelsh, a rise from 44.0% in 2001.^[8]

The parish church was recently closed.

Pen y Bryn is amanor house, recorded from theJacobean period and with earlier lower stonework, on a promontory some two hundred yards to the east of the village centre.^[9] It overlooks the village and the Menai Straits towards Anglesey. With its adjacent buildings and ground works it forms a double bank and ditch enclosure now known as Garth Celyn. This is also claimed to be the site of the pre-Conquest royalllys.^[10] ANeolithic burial urn was discovered when a driveway was being made to the house in 1824.^{[citation needed]}

The valley provides access to one of Wales's greatwaterfalls, the Aber Falls, where the Afon Goch falls precipitously some 120 feet (37 m) over a sill ofigneous rock into a marshy area where it is joined by two tributaries. The enlarged stream, Afon Rhaeadr Fawr, heads towards the Menai Strait and the sea. Part way down it becomes known as Afon Aber.

The single barrel-vault bridge atSH662720 spans Afon Aber, providing a roadway across the river, some 25 ft (7.6 m) in width. The date of construction is unknown, but its existence was marked on theOrdnance Survey map of 1822. The bridge provided a safe crossing for drovers leading animals on adrovers road up the valley. Large stones in the river under the bridge mark the site of an earlierford.

Aber is the coastal crossing point for the ancientdrovers and the laterRoman road that led across the Lafan Sands toAnglesey. The Roman road from Chester crossed the river Conwy south ofTal-y-Cafn, connected with the fort at ConoviumCaerhun by a short branch, then led up via Rowen andBwlch-y-Ddeufaen, the Pass of the Two Stones, as an engineered overlay on top of the earlier British trackway, into Snowdonia.

The Roman road descends down Rhiwiau, the valley between Llanfairfechan and Aber, follows the coastal route west, crosses the river by means of a ford, passes by the church and leads towards the major Roman fort atSegontium,Caernarfon.^[11]

The drovers' road from Anglesey came into the settlement on the west bank of the valley bottom, where provision was made for the animals to be penned and shod, and the feet of the geese to be coated in pitch, and then followed the valley to join the Roman road.

ThreeRoman milestones have been discovered in the area. Two of these, found in 1883 in a field called Caegwag, on the farm Rhiwiau UchafSH679727, are now in theBritish Museum, London.

This is a defensive enclosure, built on a hill that forms the western end of a spur overlooking the valley atSH663725. It is approx 730 ft (220 m). above O.D. The walls of the enclosure are pear shaped and protect an area 400 ft (120 m) long and 220 ft (67 m) wide of about 1.5 acres (6,100 m²). Maes y Gaer has a steep drop on all sides except the east, where there is a more gentle slope leading to the pasture land. The entrance is on the south-east, now badly ruined but originally 11 ft (3.4 m) wide, with a passageway to the interior 20 ft (6 m) long.

This is the summer pastureland of Garth Celyn, on openmoorland rising to 800 ft (240 m) above Ordnance Datum atSH676713. The small building on this site, now in ruins, was rebuilt in the 18th century on the ruins of an earlier building that extended further to the west.

Llyn Anafon is the most northerly of the Carneddau lakes, lying betweenLlwytmor,Foel Fras andY Drum. It has a maximum depth of 10 feet (3.0 m). A dam was built across the lake in 1930 to enable water to be supplied to the nearby coastal villages. There arebrown trout in the lake and by long held custom people who lived in the village had the right to fish both the lake and the river. Half a mile below the lake there areprehistorichut circles and other signs of early human inhabitation. There is an arrow stone on the lower slopes of Foel Ganol, and another leading down to Cammarnaint Farm. Agold cross, five inches (130 mm) in height, was found on the summit of Carnedd y Ddelw above the lake in 1812.

The earliest name for the vale was Nant Mawan ('Record of Caernarfon', 1371, Bangor University Archives). Mawan, a personal name, contracted over time. Llyn Nant Mawan, became Llyn Nan (Mafon) and then Llyn (N)anafon.

Nearby is an area known as Buarth Merched Mafon ('enclosure of Mafon's daughters').

Nothing is known about Mawan, but his son Llemenig is mentioned in several early Welsh sources. His name is mentioned in twoenglynion at the end of a 'Cynddylan' fragment in the Middle Welsh poetry known asCanu Llywarch Hen (XI. 112b.113b).

When I hear the thundering roar,[it is] the host of Llemenig mab Mahawen [read Mawan].Battle-hound of wrath, victorious in battle.

InTriad Ynys Prydain no. 43, his horse is described as one of theThree pack-Horses of Ynys Prydain.Ysgwyddfrith ('Dappled-shoulder')the horse of Llemenig ap Mawan.

Coedydd Aber is situated in an area of scenic beauty. The steep sided wooded valley, Nant Aber Garth Celyn, leads to the foothill of Y Carneddau. The river has the steepest fall of any in Wales and England. There is a wide variety of habitats in the valley including a diversity ofwoodlands, open farmland and scrub. A range of birds can be found here, includingraven,buzzard,peregrine falcon,sparrowhawk andchough on the sea cliffs,tree pipit andredstart along thewoodland edge, andpied flycatcher andwood warbler in theWelsh oak woods.By the shore, a hide has been erected on the edge of the Menai Strait, providing clear views of theseabirds on the Lafan sands. As a young man,Sir Peter Scott used Twr Llywelyn, part ofPen y Bryn, as a place to position his telescope, to watch the birds flying in off the Irish Sea.According to a sign,red squirrels were last seen in 1978.

Since the beginning of theQuaternary, 2.6 million years ago, theuplands ofNorth Wales have been subject to several phases ofglaciation. The Aber valley provides physical evidence of the two most recent phases of glaciation which occurred between about 28,000-16,000 and 12,970 - 11,770 years ago. The Carneddau have a notable range of glacial andperiglacial features that have been studied bygeologists, includingCharles Darwin, for well over a century, and plays a key role not only into research into landforms, but also intoclimate change and vegetation history.

Like most of the United Kingdom, Aber has anoceanic climate with warm summers, cool winters, few extremes of temperature and moderate rain all year round.Aber held the UK record for the warmest January day, 18.3 °C (64.9 °F) set on 27 January 1958 and 10 January 1971, a record that it also shared with Aboyne and Inchmarlo in Scotland.^[12] However, on 28 January 2024, a temperature of 19.9 °C (67.8 °F) was recorded at Achfary in the Scottish Highlands, surpassing that figure.^[13] Between 1959 and 2002, the highest recorded temperature in Aber was 33.4 °C (92.1 °F) on 2 August 1990 and the lowest was −8.2 °C (17.2 °F) on 1 February 1972.^[14]

• Saunders Lewis playSiwan
• Thomas Parry playLlywelyn Fawr
• Edith Pargeter novelThe Green Branch
• Edith Pargeter novelThe Brothers of Gwynedd
• Ellis Peters novelThe Summer of the Danes
• Barbara Erskine novelChild of the Phoenix
• Sharon Penman novelHere be Dragons
• Sharon Penman novelFalls the Shadow
• Sharon Penman novelThe Reckoning

• Aber and Inver as place-name elements
• Arllechwedd (electoral ward)

• Caernarvonshire Historical Society Transactions 1962 ArticleAber Gwyn Gregin Professor T. Jones Pierce
• Y Traethodydd 1998Tystiolaeth Garth Celyn
• Gwynfor Evans (2001) Cymru O Hud Abergwyngregyn
• Gwynfor Evans (2002) Eternal Wales Abergwyngregyn
• John Edward Lloyd (1911) A history of Wales from the earliest times to the Edwardian conquest (Longmans, Green & Co.) see pp. 670–71 forGwern y Grog
• O. H. Fynes-Clinton (Oxford 1912)The Welsh Vocabulary of the Bangor District
• Harold Hughes and Herbert North (Bangor, 192)The Old Churches of Snowdonia, pp. 152–155.

Wikimedia Commons has media related toAbergwyngregyn (village).

• www.geograph.co.uk : photos of Abergwyngregyn and surrounding area
• www.abergwyngregyn.org.uk : official village website with information on the village, the community, the local area and history, events and activities

• Abergwyngregyn
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• Villages in Snowdonia

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