Tywyn
Encyclopedia
Tywyn is a town
Town
A town is a human settlement larger than a village but smaller than a city. The size a settlement must be in order to be called a "town" varies considerably in different parts of the world, so that, for example, many American "small towns" seem to British people to be no more than villages, while...

 and seaside resort
Seaside resort
A seaside resort is a resort, or resort town, located on the coast. Where a beach is the primary focus for tourists, it may be called a beach resort.- Overview :...

 on the Cardigan Bay
Cardigan Bay
Cardigan Bay is a large inlet of the Irish Sea, indenting the west coast of Wales between Bardsey Island, Gwynedd in the north, and Strumble Head, Pembrokeshire at its southern end. It is the largest bay in Wales....

  coast of southern Gwynedd
Gwynedd
Gwynedd is a county in north-west Wales, named after the old Kingdom of Gwynedd. Although the second biggest in terms of geographical area, it is also one of the most sparsely populated...

 (formerly Merioneth: ), in north Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

. The name derives from the Welsh tywyn ('beach, seashore, sand-dune') and the town is sometimes referred to as Tywyn Meirionnydd. Extensive dunes are still to be found to the south towards Aberdyfi
Aberdyfi
Aberdyfi , or Aberdovey is a village on the north side of the estuary of the River Dyfi in Gwynedd, on the west coast of Wales....

, and in Tywyn itself the beach
Beach
A beach is a geological landform along the shoreline of an ocean, sea, lake or river. It usually consists of loose particles which are often composed of rock, such as sand, gravel, shingle, pebbles or cobblestones...

 and the extensive promenade are key attractions. To the north lies the mouth of the Afon Dysynni, to the north-east the rich farmland of Bro Dysynni, and to the east the hills of Craig y Barcud and Craig Fach-Goch. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the town was sometimes called Towyn-on-Sea. In Welsh the name is pronounced ˈtəwɨn or [ˈtəwin], whereas the English pronunciation tends to be ˈtaʊ.ɪn. At the time of the 2001 census
United Kingdom Census 2001
A nationwide census, known as Census 2001, was conducted in the United Kingdom on Sunday, 29 April 2001. This was the 20th UK Census and recorded a resident population of 58,789,194....

, 40.5% of the population were Welsh-speakers.

Church of St Cadfan

The town is noted for its Norman
Norman architecture
About|Romanesque architecture, primarily English|other buildings in Normandy|Architecture of Normandy.File:Durham Cathedral. Nave by James Valentine c.1890.jpg|thumb|200px|The nave of Durham Cathedral demonstrates the characteristic round arched style, though use of shallow pointed arches above the...

 parish church
Parish church
A parish church , in Christianity, is the church which acts as the religious centre of a parish, the basic administrative unit of episcopal churches....

 of Saint Cadfan
Saint Cadfan
Saint Cadfan, ; , Abbot of Tywyn and Bardsey was a Breton Saint who lived in 6th century Wales. A Breton nobleman, he was the son of Eneas Ledewig , and Gwen Teirbron, a daughter of Budic II, a King of Brittany.- Associations & Legacy :...

 housing St Cadfan's Stone dating from the eighth or ninth century and inscribed with the oldest known written Welsh
Welsh language
Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...

. The church was sacked by Vikings in 963 and, during the 12th century was the subject of a memorable poem by Llywelyn Fardd. The earliest parts of the building date to the 12th century, and it originally had a central tower, although this fell down in 1693. The church houses two 14th century effigies
Effigy
An effigy is a representation of a person, especially in the form of sculpture or some other three-dimensional form.The term is usually associated with full-length figures of a deceased person depicted in stone or wood on church monuments. These most often lie supine with hands together in prayer,...

, one of an unknown priest and the other a church monument
Church monument
A church monument is an architectural or sculptural memorial to a dead person or persons, located within a Christian church. It can take various forms, from a simple wall tablet to a large and elaborate structure which may include an effigy of the deceased person and other figures of familial or...

 of a military figure thought to be Gruffudd ap Adda (died ca 1350) of Dôl-goch and Ynysymaengwyn.

Notable residents

Many of the most notable residents of the parish have been linked to Ynysymaengwyn
Ynysymaengwyn
Ynysymaengwyn was formerly a gentry house near Tywyn, Merioneth, North Wales, situated near the south bank of the River Dysynni.- Early history :...

. 'Sir' Arthur ap Huw, the grandson of Hywel ap Siencyn of Ynysymaengwyn, was vicar of St Cadfan's between 1555 and 1570, and was a notable patron
Patronage
Patronage is the support, encouragement, privilege, or financial aid that an organization or individual bestows to another. In the history of art, arts patronage refers to the support that kings or popes have provided to musicians, painters, and sculptors...

 of the poets
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...

 as well as being a translator of Counter-Reformation
Counter-Reformation
The Counter-Reformation was the period of Catholic revival beginning with the Council of Trent and ending at the close of the Thirty Years' War, 1648 as a response to the Protestant Reformation.The Counter-Reformation was a comprehensive effort, composed of four major elements:#Ecclesiastical or...

 literature into Welsh. The Ynysymaengwyn family were important patrons and many of the poems to them have been preserved in a manuscript
Manuscript
A manuscript or handwrite is written information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...

 of cywyddau (British Library
British Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, and is the world's largest library in terms of total number of items. The library is a major research library, holding over 150 million items from every country in the world, in virtually all known languages and in many formats,...

 Additional MS 14866) copied by a native of the Tywyn area, David Johns (fl. 1573-87), who was himself the great-grandson of Hywel ap Siencyn. Later additions to this manuscript contain several 18th-century Welsh poems, some of which relate to the Owen and Corbet family of Ynysymaengwyn and to the Rev Edward Morgan of Tywyn. Edward Morgan, the brother of the poet John Morgan
John Morgan (poet)
John Morgan was a Welsh clergyman, scholar and poet.-Life:...

, was vicar of St Cadfan's from 1717 and was one of the 18th-century owners of David Johns's manuscript. The poet and scholar Evan Evans (Ieuan Fardd, 1731–88) was curate
Curate
A curate is a person who is invested with the care or cure of souls of a parish. In this sense "curate" correctly means a parish priest but in English-speaking countries a curate is an assistant to the parish priest...

 of St Cadfan's between 1772 and 1777. During his time at Tywyn he was the bard
Bard
In medieval Gaelic and British culture a bard was a professional poet, employed by a patron, such as a monarch or nobleman, to commemorate the patron's ancestors and to praise the patron's own activities.Originally a specific class of poet, contrasting with another class known as fili in Ireland...

ic teacher of David Richards (Dafydd Ionawr)
David Richards (Dafydd Ionawr)
David Richards , better-known by his bardic name Dafydd Ionawr, was a Welsh-language poet, born near Tywyn in Gwynedd, north-west Wales....

 (1751–1827), a native of the parish.

During the 18th century, the Corbet family of Ynysymaengwyn played a leading role in the Tywyn area. They were responsible for draining much of the morfa or salt marsh
Salt marsh
A salt marsh is an environment in the upper coastal intertidal zone between land and salt water or brackish water, it is dominated by dense stands of halophytic plants such as herbs, grasses, or low shrubs. These plants are terrestrial in origin and are essential to the stability of the salt marsh...

 between the town and the Dysynni river, which greatly increased the land available for farming in that part of the parish. In Samuel Lewis's A Topographical Dictionary of Wales (1833) it is reported that popular horse races were held on land by the Dysynni every September. The raven
Raven
Raven is the common name given to several larger-bodied members of the genus Corvus—but in Europe and North America the Common Raven is normally implied...

 was the Corbet family emblem (the name 'Corbet' is thought to come from the Norman French for 'raven') and the bird is still used as emblem of Tywyn. The name Raven was once that of a public house
Public house
A public house, informally known as a pub, is a drinking establishment fundamental to the culture of Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. There are approximately 53,500 public houses in the United Kingdom. This number has been declining every year, so that nearly half of the smaller...

 in the centre of the town. One notable landlord was Griffith Owen (1750–1833), who was both butler
Butler
A butler is a domestic worker in a large household. In great houses, the household is sometimes divided into departments with the butler in charge of the dining room, wine cellar, and pantry. Some also have charge of the entire parlour floor, and housekeepers caring for the entire house and its...

 and harp
Harp
The harp is a multi-stringed instrument which has the plane of its strings positioned perpendicularly to the soundboard. Organologically, it is in the general category of chordophones and has its own sub category . All harps have a neck, resonator and strings...

ist to the Corbets before he moved to the Raven. A portrait of him by Benjamin Marshall
Benjamin Marshall
Benjamin Marshall was an English sporting and animal painter. He was a follower of George Stubbs and studied under Lemuel Abbott for a short period of time. After 1792, he began painting animals, settling at Newmarket in 1812 near the racetrack. He returned to London in 1825 and died in 1835....

 (1768–1835) was formerly at Ynysymaengwyn.

In 1826, Edward Jones of Tywyn published Marwolaeth Abel, a Welsh translation of Der Tod Abels by the Swiss
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

 poet Solomon Gessner
Solomon Gessner
Solomon Gessner was a Swiss painter and poet. His writing suited the taste of his time, though by some more recent standards it is “insipidly sweet and monotonously melodious.” As a painter, he represented the conventional classical landscape.-Biography:He was born in Zürich...

.

Anwyl of Tywyn Family

Since around 1860 the Anwyl of Tywyn Family
Anwyl of Tywyn Family
Anwyl of Tywyn are a Welsh family who trace their descent to Owain Gwynedd. They claim direct patrilinear descent from Owain, who was King of Gwynedd from 1137 - 1170 and a scion of the royal House of Aberffraw...

 have lived outside the town at Ty-Mawr. Their ancestral home was at Parc
PARC
PARC or Parc may refer to:* PARC , the Palo Alto Research Center * PARC Management, a theme park and entertainment venue operator...

 near Penrhyndeudraeth
Penrhyndeudraeth
Penrhyndeudraeth is a village and community in the Welsh county of Gwynedd. It is located between Traeth Mawr , the now largely reclaimed estuary of the Afon Glaslyn, and Traeth Bach , the estuary of the Afon Dwyryd. The village is close to the mouth of the Afon Dwyryd on the A487 from...

. The Anwyl's are direct male line descendants of Rhodri ab Owain Gwynedd
Rhodri ab Owain Gwynedd
Rhodri ab Owain Gwynedd was prince of part of Gwynedd, one of the kingdoms of medieval Wales. He ruled from 1175 to 1195.On the death of Owain Gwynedd in 1170, fighting broke out among his nineteen sons over the division of his kingdom...

 and as such are members of the House of Aberffraw
House of Aberffraw
The House of Aberffraw is a historiographical and genealogical term historians use to illustrate the clear line of succession from Rhodri the Great of Wales through his eldest son Anarawd....

 and represent a surviving fragment of medieval Welsh royalty.

John Corbett

Ynysymaengwyn
Ynysymaengwyn
Ynysymaengwyn was formerly a gentry house near Tywyn, Merioneth, North Wales, situated near the south bank of the River Dysynni.- Early history :...

 was bought by John Corbett
John Corbett (industrialist)
John Corbett was an English industrialist, philanthropist and Liberal Party politician of the Victorian era. He is particularly associated with salt mining in Droitwich Spa, Worcestershire.- Family background :...

 of Chateau Impney
Chateau Impney
Chateau Impney is an imposing 19th century house built in the style of an elaborate French château near Droitwich Spa in Worcestershire, England...

, Droitwich in 1878. He was not related to the previous Corbet family, but the similarity of the names certainly attracted him. Although not a permanent resident, Corbett spent long periods and even more money in Tywyn, and some of the town's key features are the product of his investments. He developed the water and sewerage
Sanitary sewer
A sanitary sewer is a separate underground carriage system specifically for transporting sewage from houses and commercial buildings to treatment or disposal. Sanitary sewers serving industrial areas also carry industrial wastewater...

 system and also constructed the promenade at a cost of some £30,000. He gave land and money for the Market Hall, built to celebrate Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee
Golden Jubilee
A Golden Jubilee is a celebration held to mark a 50th anniversary.- In Thailand :King Bhumibol Adulyadej, the world's longest-reigning monarch, celebrated his Golden Jubilee on 9 June 1996.- In the Commonwealth Realms :...

 in 1897. It was his money that enabled Brynarfor to be opened as Towyn Intermediate School in 1894. He rebuilt the Corbett Arms Hotel (from then-on spelled with two 't's), and also contributed to the Assembly Room (1893), now Tywyn Cinema. Plaques commemorating his generosity may still be seen on the north end of the promenade, on the Market Hall and on Brynarfor which has now been demolished and no longer can be seen there(where his portrait was hung when the school first opened). Despite the fact that his involvement transformed Tywyn, he was not much loved, and upon his death on 22 April 1901, the Cambrian News
Cambrian News
The Cambrian News is a weekly newspaper distributed in Wales. It was founded in 1860 and is based in Cefn Llan Science Park, Aberystwyth. Cambrian News Ltd was bought by media entrepreneur Sir Ray Tindle in 1998.- History :...

noted that "he had more than the usual reserve of the Englishman".

Transport

Agriculture
Agriculture
Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...

 and, since the arrival of the railway, tourism
Tourism
Tourism is travel for recreational, leisure or business purposes. The World Tourism Organization defines tourists as people "traveling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes".Tourism has become a...

 have been the most important industries in the area. The railway arrived in the mid-1860s, and had a significant effect on the town's development. Slate
Slate
Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. The result is a foliated rock in which the foliation may not correspond to the original sedimentary layering...

-quarrying in the Abergynolwyn
Abergynolwyn
Abergynolwyn is a village in southern Gwynedd, Wales, located at the confluence of the Nant Gwernol and the Afon Dysynni.Historically, the village was part of Merionethshire and its main industry was slate quarrying and the village was founded in the 1860s to house workers at the nearby Bryn...

 area led to the building of the Talyllyn Railway
Talyllyn Railway
The Talyllyn Railway is a narrow-gauge preserved railway in Wales running for from Tywyn on the Mid-Wales coast to Nant Gwernol near the village of Abergynolwyn. The line was opened in 1866 to carry slate from the quarries at Bryn Eglwys to Tywyn, and was the first narrow gauge railway in Britain...

 in 1865, a narrow-gauge line designed to carry slates to Tywyn. This was the first railway in the world to be taken over and run by a volunteer-led preservation society, which took over the line in 1950 after the death of the previous owner, Sir Henry Haydn Jones.

The town's main line railway station
Tywyn railway station
Tywyn railway station serves the town of Tywyn in Gwynedd, Wales. The station is on the Cambrian Coast Railway with passenger services to Barmouth, Harlech, Porthmadog, Pwllheli, Aberdovey, Machynlleth and Shrewsbury. The line was built by the Aberystwyth and Welsh Coast Railway in 1863 and became...

 is served by the Cambrian Line
Cambrian Line
The Cambrian Line is a railway from Shrewsbury to Welshpool, Aberystwyth and Pwllheli. The railway runs first through the central part of Wales and then along the coast of Cardigan Bay....

.

Facilities

The main schools in Tywyn are the primary school, Ysgol Penybryn, and the secondary school
Secondary school
Secondary school is a term used to describe an educational institution where the final stage of schooling, known as secondary education and usually compulsory up to a specified age, takes place...

, Ysgol Uwchradd Tywyn. Former pupils of the secondary school (formerly Towyn County School) include Geraint Goodwin (1903–41), author of The Heyday in the Blood (1936
1936 in literature
The year 1936 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* Life magazine is first published.* The Carnegie Medal for excellence in children's literature is established in the UK.-New books:...

), and Lord Gwilym Prys-Davies.

Tywyn was a major training ground for the amphibious warfare
Amphibious warfare
Amphibious warfare is the use of naval firepower, logistics and strategy to project military power ashore. In previous eras it stood as the primary method of delivering troops to non-contiguous enemy-held terrain...

 landings in the Second World War and had a strategic war base. Abandoned pillboxes may still be seen on the coast to the south of the town,

The Marconi Company
Marconi Company
The Marconi Company Ltd. was founded by Guglielmo Marconi in 1897 as The Wireless Telegraph & Signal Company...

 built a Long Wave
Longwave
In radio, longwave refers to parts of radio spectrum with relatively long wavelengths. The term is a historic one dating from the early 20th century, when the radio spectrum was considered to consist of long, medium and short wavelengths...

 receiver station in Tywyn in 1914, working in duplex
Duplex (telecommunications)
A duplex communication system is a system composed of two connected parties or devices that can communicate with one another in both directions. The term multiplexing is used when describing communication between more than two parties or devices....

 with the high-power transmitter station near Waunfawr
Waunfawr
Waunfawr is a large village on the outskirts of the Snowdonia National Park, Gwynedd, in North Wales, south of Llanrug. Its population is roughly 1,500...

 (Williams 1999). In 1921 the Tywyn and Waunfawr stations initiated transatlantic wireless telegraph service with a similar RCA
RCA
RCA Corporation, founded as the Radio Corporation of America, was an American electronics company in existence from 1919 to 1986. The RCA trademark is currently owned by the French conglomerate Technicolor SA through RCA Trademark Management S.A., a company owned by Technicolor...

 wireless transmitting station in New Brunswick
Somerset, New Jersey
Somerset is a census-designated place and unincorporated area located at the easternmost section within Franklin Township, in Somerset County, New Jersey. At the 2000 United States Census, the CDP population was 23,040...

, New Jersey, USA and RCA's receiver station in Belmar, New Jersey
Belmar, New Jersey
Belmar is a borough in Monmouth County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the borough population was 5,794. The Borough of Belmar is governed under the Faulkner Act system of municipal government....

. This new transatlantic service replaced Marconi's obsolete transatlantic telegraph station in Clifden
Clifden
Clifden is a town on the coast of County Galway, Ireland and being Connemara's largest town, it is often referred to as "the Capital of Connemara". It is located on the Owenglen River where it flows into Clifden Bay...

, Ireland
Irish Free State
The Irish Free State was the state established as a Dominion on 6 December 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty, signed by the British government and Irish representatives exactly twelve months beforehand...

 following its 1922 destruction during the Irish Civil War
Irish Civil War
The Irish Civil War was a conflict that accompanied the establishment of the Irish Free State as an entity independent from the United Kingdom within the British Empire....

.

Local places of interest include Craig yr Aderyn
Craig yr Aderyn
Craig yr Aderyn, , is a hill rising to a height of over above sea level on the south bank of the River Dysynni near Llanfihangel-y-pennant in the county of Gwynedd, north-west Wales....

 (Bird Rock), Castell y Bere
Castell y Bere
Castell y Bere is a native Welsh castle near Llanfihangel-y-pennant in Gwynedd, Wales. Constructed by Llywelyn the Great in the 1220s, the stone castle was intended to maintain his authority over the local people and to defend the south-west part of the princedom of Gwynedd...

 and Tal-y-llyn Lake
Tal-y-llyn Lake
Tal-y-llyn Lake, also known as Talyllyn Lake or Llyn Mwyngil, is a large glacial ribbon lake formed by a post-glacial massive landslip damming up the lake within the glaciated valley...

.

The Tywyn coastal defence scheme, a £7.6m civil engineering
Civil engineering
Civil engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including works like roads, bridges, canals, dams, and buildings...

 project, to provide a new rock breakwater
Breakwater (structure)
Breakwaters are structures constructed on coasts as part of coastal defence or to protect an anchorage from the effects of weather and longshore drift.-Purposes of breakwaters:...

 above the low-tide level, rock groyne
Groyne
A groyne is a rigid hydraulic structure built from an ocean shore or from a bank that interrupts water flow and limits the movement of sediment. In the ocean, groynes create beaches, or avoid having them washed away by longshore drift. In a river, groynes prevent erosion and ice-jamming, which...

s, and rock revetment
Revetment
Revetments, or revêtements , have a variety of meanings in architecture, engineering and art history. In stream restoration, river engineering or coastal management, they are sloping structures placed on banks or cliffs in such a way as to absorb the energy of incoming water...

 to protect 80 sea-front properties was officially unveiled by Jane Davidson
Jane Davidson
Jane Davidson, AM was the Labour Assembly Member for Pontypridd and the Minister for Environment, Sustainability and Housing in the Welsh Assembly Government. She lives in Gwaelod-y-Garth with her husband and three children...

, the Minister for Environment, Sustainability and Housing in the Welsh Assembly Government
Welsh Assembly Government
The Welsh Government is the devolved government of Wales. It is accountable to the National Assembly for Wales, the legislature which represents the interests of the people of Wales and makes laws for Wales...

, on 24 March 2011.

Places of worship

Other than St Cadfan's church, there are several places of Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

 worship in Tywyn, including Bethany (English Presbyterian), Bethel (Welsh Presbyterian), Bethesda (Welsh Congregationalist), Ebeneser (Welsh Wesleyan
Wesleyanism
Wesleyanism or Wesleyan theology refers, respectively, to either the eponymous movement of Protestant Christians who have historically sought to follow the methods or theology of the eighteenth-century evangelical reformers, John Wesley and his brother Charles Wesley, or to the likewise eponymous...

), St David’s (Roman Catholic), and Tywyn Baptist Church (English).

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK