The village of Groeslon is situated about four miles south of Caernarfon, just off the A487 road. It is 'a nineteenth-century village which takes its name from the point where the Llandwrog to Moel Tryfan road (Lon Cefn Glyn) crosses the Porthmadog to Caernarfon road and the Nantlle railway and its successors. The earliest buildings appear to have been a smithy and a public house/railway station, established in the 1840s or 1850s, shortly followed by other buildings along the road. In the 1870s and 1880s more substantial buildings were constructed according to the specification of the Newborough estate, mainly on the Lon Cefn Glyn.'
According to the Dyffryn Nantlle website, 'the village grew around the LMS train station which opened on the 2nd September 1867, but there was a narrow gauge railway here before this which ran from Nantlle to Caernarfon, and which opened in 1828.' When the railway station closed in 1964, the disused railway line became a road for lorries / work traffic and later on for bicycles and walkers when Lon Eifion was opened.'
Gwynedd Archaeological Trust have noted that 'The earlier buildings are largely stone-built. The later ones include some brickwork, variously yellow, red or polychromatic, either as quoins or as chimneys or in some cases as the major building material. Particularly marked are the impressive late nineteenth-century yellow-brick shops, 'Gladstone House' and 'Rathbone House' (SH47495586). The work of the Dolydd-based architectural practice is evident here in the later nineteenth-century buildings. There has been considerable modern estate development. The construction of the by-pass relieved the former main road of much of its traffic.'
Today the village has a public house called 'Tafarn Pennionyn'; a village hall; a primary school and a post office. The four chapel buildings are still standing - Ramoth Welsh Baptist chapel (NPRN 6913); Gosen Welsh Independent chapel (NPRN 6908); Bryn-rhos Welsh Calvinistic Methodists chapel (NPRN 6917) which had fallen into disuse by 1997; and Brynrhos Calvinistic Methodist chapel vestry (NPRN 97093), which was refitted in 1988.
Source: Gwynedd Archaeological Trust 'Historic Landscape Characterisation - Caernarfon-Nantlle,' March 2001 and www.nantlle.com
M. Ryder, RCAHMW, 14th September 2018.