Llanddeiniolen, Carnarvonshire

Historical Description

Llanddeiniolen, a parish in Carnarvonshire, including the upper part of the vale of the Cegid and some of the N spurs of Snowdon, 2 miles SE of Port Dinorwic station on the L. & N.W.R., and 5 NE of Carnarvon. It has a post office under Carnarvon; money order and telegraph office, Port Dinorwic. It includes Llandinorwig, a separate ecclesiastical parish including within its area the townships of Ebenezer, Clwt-y-Bont, and Dinorwig. The civil parish includes also the large villages of Bethel and Sarons, detached from the mother church and included in Llanfairisgair. Acreage, 9215 of land and 194 of water; population of the civil parish, 6164; of the ecclesiastical, 2286. The Dinorwig slate quarries here and in the contiguous parish of Llanberis employ a large proportion of the inhabitants. Llys Dinorwig was a palace of Llewelyn ap Grufydd, the last king of North Wales, and is now a ruin. Dinas Dinorwig camp is one of the largest ancient fortified posts in the county, is situated on an eminence a short distance SE of the church, and is of oval shape, surrounded by two ditches, with a lofty intervening-bank. The Ffynon Cegid Arthur Well is at the head of the Cegid river. There are vestiges of several ancient British fortifications and of a Roman road. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Bangor; net value, £196 with residence. Patron, the Lord Chancellor. The church is good, and near it are some yews 28 feet in girth.

Llanddeiniolen is so called after Deiniol, first known bishop of Bangor, in the 5th century. The affix en implies th& "little one," i.e., the little St Deiniol, being an offshoot of St Deiniol's Cathedral in the contiguous parish of Bangor, which goes far to prove that this church is one of the most ancient in the see of Bangor. The entire parish was, up to the reign of Elizabeth, Crown land; hence the benefice is a Crown living. The "virgin queen" made a present of it to Mr Wm. Williams, Vaynol, the remote ancestor of Mr G. W. Duff Assheton Smith, the present owner, who next to Lord Penrhyn is the largest employer of labour in North Wales. There are five churches and twenty-two chapels, and seven schools, most of which are indebted for sites, building, support, or endowment, to the Vaynol estate.

Administration

The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.

Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.

Civil Registration

For general information about Civil Registration (births, marriages and deaths) see the Civil Registration page.

For births, marriages, and deaths in Llanddeiniolen from 1837 to 1937 you should search for the Carnarvon Registration District.
For births, marriages, and deaths in Llanddeiniolen from 1937 to 1974 you should search for the Caernarvon Registration District.

Land and Property

The Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Carnarvonshire is available to browse.

Maps

Online maps of Llanddeiniolen are available from a number of sites:

• Bing (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
• Google Streetview.
• National Library of Scotland. (Old maps)
• OpenStreetMap.
• old-maps.co.uk (Old Ordnance Survey maps to buy).
• Streetmap.co.uk (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
• A Vision of Britain through Time. (Old maps)

Newspapers and Periodicals

The British Newspaper Archive have fully searchable digitised copies of the following newspapers online:

• Western Mail