Pennal is a village and

community A community is a social unit (a group of people) with a shared socially-significant characteristic, such as place, set of norms, culture, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given g ...

on the A493 road in southern

Gwynedd Gwynedd () is a county in the north-west of Wales. It borders Anglesey across the Menai Strait to the north, Conwy, Denbighshire, and Powys to the east, Ceredigion over the Dyfi estuary to the south, and the Irish Sea to the west. The ci ...

, Wales, on the north bank of the

River Dyfi The River Dyfi (; ), also known as the River Dovey ( ), is an approximately long river in Wales. Its large estuary forms the boundary between the counties of Gwynedd and Ceredigion, and its lower reaches have historically been considered the b ...

, near

Machynlleth Machynlleth () is a market town, community and electoral ward in Powys, Wales and within the historic boundaries of Montgomeryshire. It is in the Dyfi Valley at the intersection of the A487 and the A489 roads. At the 2001 Census it had a po ...

. It lies in the historic county of

Merionethshire Merionethshire, or Merioneth ( or '), was Historic counties of Wales, one of the thirteen counties of Wales that existed from 1536 until their abolishment in 1974. It was located in the North West Wales, north-west of Wales. Name 'Merioneth' is a ...

() and is within the

Snowdonia National Park Snowdonia, or Eryri (), is a mountainous region and National parks of the United Kingdom, national park in North Wales. It contains all 15 mountains in Wales Welsh 3000s, over 3000 feet high, including the country's highest, Snowdon (), which i ...

Roman fort

It was the site of a small Roman fort, known as Cefn Caer in Welsh, probably guarding a ford or ferry crossing of the Dyfi on the Sarn Helen

Roman road Roman roads ( ; singular: ; meaning "Roman way") were physical infrastructure vital to the maintenance and development of the Roman state, built from about 300 BC through the expansion and consolidation of the Roman Republic and the Roman Em ...

. The remains of the fort lie under the 14th-century house of Cefn Caer, overlooking the village.

Price Family of Esgair Weddan

Just outside Pennal is the farmstead of 'Esgair Weddan' which from the 14th century until the mid 18th was the home of the Price (ap Rhys) family of Esgair Weddan, patrilineal descendants of

Dafydd ap Llywelyn Dafydd ap Llywelyn (c. March 1212 – 25 February 1246) was List of rulers of Gwynedd, King of Gwynedd from 1240 to 1246. Birth and descent Though birth years of 1208, 1206, and 1215 have been put forward for Dafydd, it has recently been p ...

, son of Llywelyn fawr (the great) Prince of Wales (1240–1246). Their home was called Plas yn y Rofft in Elizabethan times and was located in a field behind the present farmhouse above the village of Cwrt, (originally Pont y Cwrt), meaning "court", near to Mynydd Esgairweddan.

Owain Glyndŵr

Pennal is known for its historical association with

Owain Glyndŵr Owain ap Gruffydd (28 May 135420 September 1415), commonly known as Owain Glyndŵr (Glyn Dŵr, , anglicised as Owen Glendower) was a Welsh people, Welsh leader, soldier and military commander in the Wales in the late Middle Ages, late Middle ...

. In Pennal Owain composed the Pennal Letter of 1406, a letter to the King of France setting out his plans for an independent Wales – the only document which stands as a policy document for an independent Wales in the Middle Ages. The letter was briefly returned to Wales from France for an exhibition at the

National Library of Wales The National Library of Wales (, ) in Aberystwyth is the national legal deposit library of Wales and is one of the Welsh Government sponsored bodies. It is the biggest library in Wales, holding over 6.5 million books and periodicals, and the l ...

in 2000, and a campaign has started for it to be returned permanently to Wales and be put on show at the

National Assembly In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the repr ...

building in

Cardiff Cardiff (; ) is the capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of Wales. Cardiff had a population of in and forms a Principal areas of Wales, principal area officially known as the City and County of Ca ...

Anwyl Family of Llugwy

Just outside Pennal, on the banks of the Dyfi opposite the hamlet of Morben, is " Llugwy", the home of the Anwyl family since 1682. This family have patrilinear descent from Rhodri Mawr through Anarawd, his eldest son, and

Owain Gwynedd Owain ap Gruffudd ( – 23 or 28 November 1170) was King of Gwynedd, North Wales, from 1137 until his death in 1170, succeeding his father Gruffudd ap Cynan. He was called Owain the Great () and the first to be styled "Prince of Wales" and th ...

(king of

c.1137 – 1170) to the present day.

Recent history

Baguley 774 at the Narrow Gauge Railway Museum - August 2018 - 02

In the early 19th century there were quays on the Dyfi where

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. It is the finest-grained foliated metamorphic ro ...

from the quarries around Corris, Aberllefenni and Abergynolwyn was brought by packhorse for loading onto seagoing vessels. This trade died out when the Corris Railway to Machynlleth and the

Talyllyn Railway The Talyllyn Railway () is a narrow-gauge railway in Wales running for from Tywyn on the Mid-Wales coast to Nant Gwernol railway station, Nant Gwernol near the village of Abergynolwyn. The line was opened in 1865Drummond 2015, page 17 to carr ...

Tywyn Tywyn (; ), formerly spelled Towyn, is a town, community, and seaside resort on the Cardigan Bay coast of southern Gwynedd, Wales. It was previously in the historic county of Merionethshire. It is famous as the location of the Cadfan Stone, a ...

were built. The Cwm Ebol quarry operated a mile north west of the village between 1868 and around 1906. A gauge tramway (later converted to gauge) operated between the quarry and the village. Between 1918 and 1920 part of the tramway was reused in another gauge railway, serving timber felling operations at Cwm Dwr, two miles north of the village. The early internal combustion locomotive Baguley 774 was used on the line. The village also has a place in music history, as it was at nearby

Bron-Yr-Aur ; ) is a privately owned 18th-century cottage in Gwynedd, mid-Wales, on the outskirts of Machynlleth, best known for its association with the English rock band Led Zeppelin. In 1970, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant went there and wrote many of the ...

cottage that

Robert Plant Robert Anthony Plant (born 20 August 1948) is an English singer and songwriter. He was the lead singer and lyricist of the rock band Led Zeppelin from its founding in 1968 until their breakup in 1980. Since then, he has had a successful solo ca ...

was living when he wrote the

Led Zeppelin Led Zeppelin were an English rock music, rock band formed in London in 1968. The band comprised vocalist Robert Plant, guitarist Jimmy Page, bassist-keyboardist John Paul Jones (musician), John Paul Jones and drummer John Bonham. With a he ...

classic, "

Stairway to Heaven "Stairway to Heaven" is a song by the English rock band Led Zeppelin, released on 8 November 1971 on the band's untitled fourth studio album (commonly known as ''Led Zeppelin IV''), by Atlantic Records. Composed by the band's guitarist Jimmy ...

References

External links

Description and photos of the ChurchCefn Caer website – occasional residence of Owain Glyndŵrwww.geograph.co.uk : photos of Pennal and surrounding area
{{Gwynedd Communities in Gwynedd Villages in Gwynedd Villages in Snowdonia