Llanuwchllyn is a small village situated 13 km (8 miles) south west of Bala, on the shores of Llyn Tegid. The name loosely translates as ‘the settlement with a church above the lake.’ The settlement’s church, dedicated to St Deiniol, was first recorded in 1291. The medieval church was replaced by the present, Grade II listed building in 1873 (NPRN 43869). The Independents built their first chapel in the community in the 1740s. Known as Hen Gapel, it was situated approximately a mile and a half north west of the main village nucleus.

In 1781, a disastrous flood ‘swept away the greater part of the village, and the replacement houses and large meeting house were built of stones brought down by the flood, after they had been blasted and broken. The lake was covered by the debris of the earlier village which took 3 years to clear away.’  

By the time the tithe maps were produced in 1849, few buildings are shown in Llanuwchlyn. These buildings include the church, Ty’n Llan (NPRN 28841), Plasdeon (‘to the south-east, over the river’), Plasdeon Homestead (on the opposite side of the road) and ‘Factory homestead’ (NPRN 40916) Most of the parish was owned by Sir Watkin Williams Wynn, 6th baronet of Denbighshire. The road layout depicted remains unchanged today.

The six inch Ordnance Survey map published in 1887 shows that Llanuwchllyn had amenities such as a railway station on the Bala and Dolgellau Section of the Great Western Railway (NPRN 41326), a school, a Methodist chapel (Glan-Tegid, NPRN 11643), the church and a smithy. Little had changed by the time the 1900 edition is published, although another chapel is recorded – Capel Glanaber (NPRN 8534).

Today, Llanuwchllyn still ‘has the appearance of a mid-19th-century workers’ settlement, dominated by terraced rows. The majority of the tightly-packed housing is located on the main street that runs roughly north-south through the centre of the village, and reflects a tradition of planned development of non-agricultural dwellings during that period. Otherwise, the only other main concentrations are an irregular but tight cluster around the church and a later one around the train station to the south-east. The stone building style is, in the main, quite traditional, and in the vernacular tradition: some buildings have windows and doors which retain an aura of the gothic.’ There are also many modern buildings surrounding the old nuclei of the settlement.

Amenities in Llanuwchllyn in the twenty first century include the church and Yr Hen Gapel (NPRN 8528), a football club, a petrol station and a public house called ‘The Eagles.’ The railway station is now part of the Bala Lake Railway tourist attraction. There is still a primary school in the village, Ysgol O. M. Edwards (named after the local educator and ‘man of letters’ Sir Owen Morgan Edwards). It educates approximately 110 children through the medium of Welsh.

Sources: Gwynedd Archaeological Trust ‘Historic landscape characterisation of Bala & Bala Lakesides’ (Report no. 638, March 2007); The Chapels Heritage Society ‘Local Information Leaflet: Llanuwchllyn (no. 78, October 2015); Dictionary of Welsh Biography; Estyn Report January 2018; historic Ordnance Survey maps; Google maps

M. Ryder, RCAHMW, 9th November 2020