The village of Aberangell straddles the Gwynedd-Powys border, about eight and a half miles north east of Machynlleth and nine miles south east of Dolgellau. The name ‘mouth of the river Angell’ derives from the river Angell, which flows through the village. 

One of the main sources of employment for residence of Aberangell in the nineteenth and early twentieth century was the remote Hendre Ddu slate quarry which operated from the 1850s to the 1940s.   

The six-inch map published by the Ordnance Survey in 1887 shows that amenities in the village included a saw mill and a Calvinistic Methodist chapel which was built in 1835. Aberangell also a railway station on the Mawddwy Narrow Gauge Railway. By the time the 1902 6inch Ordnance Survey map was published, Aberangell had acquired a school. Hebron Calvinistic Methodist Chapel had been joined by another chapel at the northern edge of the village – Horeb Independent Chapel, built in 1899. There was also another Calvinistic Methodist chapel – Capel Bethania, which was built in 1833 but is not named on the historic OS maps. 

By the twenty-first century, Aberangell no longer had a school or a railway station and the village’s post office closed in 2008. However, Aberangell does have a village hall, and in 2018 a defibrillator was acquired to go on the exterior wall. Bethania chapel was still open in 2011, and Horeb chapel appeared to still be open in 2017.   

Sources: historic OS maps; Coflein online database; BBC news website; Cambrian News; Addoldai Cymru website. 

M. Ryder, RCAHMW, 1st May 2020