Bettws y Coed, Carnarvonshire

Historical Description

Bettws-y-Coed, a village and a parish in Carnarvonshire. The village is 4 miles S of Llanrwst, and has a station on the Bettws-y-Coed and Festiniog branch of the L. & N.W.R., 238 miles from London. It has a head post office (R.S.O.) The village is situated on the south bank of the river Llugwy, near the confluence of that river with the Conway, and from the beauty of its surroundings is a favourite resort of artists and tourists. It stands on the Holyhead Road, and is about a mile long. High, thickly-wooded hills rise at the back of the village. A picturesque ivy-clad bridge of five arches, called Pont-y-Pair, crosses the Llugwy in front of the village; and ½ a mile to the S is the Waterloo Bridge over the Conway, a handsome iron bridge with a single span, erected in the year of the Battle of Waterloo. There are several good waterfalls in the neighbourhood. The Swallow Falls (Rhaiadr-y-Weunol), about 2½ miles NW of the village, close to the Capel Curig Road, are formed by the waters of the Llugwy, and present a very striking appearance; other falls are those at the Fairy Glen, at the junction of the Lledr and the Conway, and the Conway Falls, near the junction of the Conway and the Machno, and the Machno Falls. The rivers in the neighbourhood abound with salmon and trout, and are the resort of anglers and artists. The parish comprises 3633 acres; population, 740. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Bangor; gross value, £107. Patron, the Bishop of Bangor. The old church, which 13 situated beyond the railway station, is now disused, except for weddings and interments; it contains a monument of Gruffydd, nephew of the great Llewelyn. There is a handsome modern church in the Gothic style, on the south side of the road in the village, built in 1873 at a cost of £7000. There are Calvinistic Methodist and Congregational chapels.

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.

Land and Property

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

Maps

Online maps of Bettws y Coed 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