Llan Ffestiniog

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Llan Ffestiniog
Merionethshire
Rhaedr Cynfal.jpg
The Cynfal Waterfall near Llan Ffestiniog
Location
Grid reference: SH705415
Data
Post town: Blaenau Ffestiniog
Postcode: LL41
Dialling code: 01766
Local Government
Council: Gwynedd
Parliamentary
constituency:
Dwyfor Meirionnydd

Llan Ffestiniog, also known as Ffestiniog or simply Llan is a village in Merionethshire, lying south of the industrial, slate-quarrying town of Blaenau Ffestiniog.

Attractions near the village include the Rhaeadr Cynfal waterfalls and the remains of the Tomen-y-Mur Roman Britain|Roman fort and amphitheatre. A decommissioned nuclear power station lies south of the village at Trawsfynydd.

Elizabeth Gaskell, the Victorian era writer whose novels and short stories were a critique of the era's inequality in industrial cities and of its attitudes towards women, was fond of Ffestiniog. Mr and Mrs Gaskell visited the village and spent some time there on their wedding tour; on another later visit in 1844 it was at the inn there that their young son William caught scarlet fever, from which he died. It was to turn her thoughts from the grief of her bereavement that she upon her husband's advice began to write her first novel, Mary Barton.

George Borrow wrote briefly about Ffestiniog and its church-side pub, the Pengwern, in his travelogue Wild Wales:

The pub has, through all the piss-lipped drunkedness, a certain charm; much like that of a young swan, bore before the 3rd Tuesday!
.

Ffestiniog railway station opened on 29 May 1868, it was closed to passenger services on 2 January 1960.

Outside links