Mapping Mountains – Significant Name Changes – 200m Twmpau

Ffridd Bellau Nant y Gwyrddail (SH 665 139)

There has been a Significant Name Change to a hill that is listed in the 200m Twmpau, with the summit height, drop and status of the hill being confirmed by a Trimble GeoXH 6000 survey which took place on the 17^th February 2018.

The criteria for the list that this name change applies to are:

200m Twmpau – All Welsh hills at and above 200m and below 300m in height that have 30m minimum drop, with the word Twmpau being an acronym standing for thirty welsh metre prominences and upward.  With an accompanying sub category entitled the 200m Sub-Twmpau consisting of all Welsh hills at and above 200m and below 300m in height that have 20m or more and below 30m of drop.

The hill is adjoined to the Cadair Idris range of hills which are situated in the south-western part of North Wales (Region A, Sub-Region A3), and it overlooks the double lakes of Llynnau Cregennan which are to its north-west and the small community of Arthog which is to its west north-west. 

Ffridd Bellau Nant y Gwyrddail (SH 665 139)

The hill appeared in the 200m P30 list on Geoff Crowder’s v-g.me website under the invented name of Bryn y Gregennen with an accompanying note stating; Name from lakes to the North-West.  During my early hill listing I thought it appropriate to either invent a name for a hill, or use a name that appeared near to the summit of the hill on Ordnance Survey maps of the day.  My preference was to use farm names and put Pen, Bryn or Moel in front of them, or as in this instance, use the name of two lakes.  This is not a practice that I now advocate as with time and inclination place-name data can be improved either by asking local people or by examining historical documents, through this form of research an appropriate name for the hill can usually be found, and as the summit of this hill comprises bounded land the details for it were examined on the Tithe map.

Bryn y Gregennen

280c

SH665139

124

23

Name from lakes to the North-West

The term Tithe map is generally given to a map of a Welsh or English parish or township and which was prepared after the 1836 Tithe Commutation Act.  This act allowed tithes to be paid in cash rather than goods.  The Tithe maps gave names of owners and occupiers of land in each parish and importantly for place-name research they also included the name of enclosed land.  This enclosed land is usually based on a field system, however not every field is given a name, but many are and especially so in Wales.

Extract from the Tithe map

The enclosed land where the summit of this hill is situated is given the number 168 on the Tithe map, this can be cross referenced against the apportionments; it is these apportionments that give the name of the owner or occupier of the land as well as the name of the land.  The land where the summit of this hill is situated is named as Nantgwyrddeil [sic], with the details on the Tithe map appearing in the county named as Merioneth and in the parish of Dolgelley [sic].

Extract from the apportionments

The name given this bounded land relates to a farm named Nant-y-gwyrddail that is positioned at SH 671 143 and to the north-east of the hill’s summit.  Having visited this hill and surveyed its summit and bwlch I then visited this farm and met Ceri Williams and her young son and daughter.  Ceri and her husband; Gwern, had moved here recently from the Garndolbenmaen area north-west of Porthmadog, she explained that the farm is tenanted from the National Trust and confirmed their boundary, which took in the 312m map heighted hill to the north north-east and the hill that this article relates to which is importantly the farthest summit on their land from the farm.  As Ceri is a newcomer to this area she suggested that I should visit Emyr Rees who farms from Tynyceunant (SH 688 152).

Ceri Williams of Nant-y-gwyrddail with her daughter, son and floppy pawed puppy

As I pulled up in my car at the access track that leads to Tynyceunant, Emyr had just pulled up in his Landrover and was wielding a mighty mallet readying himself to work on a new fence post.  Emyr is aged 70 and has lived at Tynyceunant all his life and is a Welsh speaker.  After introducing myself and explaining my interest in upland place-names, we talked about the hills and their names.  Emyr told me the old farmer from Nant-y-gwyrddail; John Rees, who died in 2017, called the bounded land where the summit of this hill is situated Ffridd Bellau Nant y Gwyrddail, and that the word bellau can be translated in to English as farthest, therefore the translation of this name is the far off ffridd of Nant y Gwyrddail.  Emyr also gave me a number of other names for near hills, which will be detailed in later Significant Name Changes posts.  

Emyr Rees of Tynyceunant

Therefore, the name this hill is now listed by in the 200m Twmpau is Ffridd Bellau Nant y Gwyrddail, and this name was derived from local enquiry, with the bounded land where the summit of the hill is situated confirmed by the Tithe map and substantiated with the present resident of the farm of Nant-y-gwyrddail.

The full details for the hill are:

Group:  Cadair Idris

Name:  Ffridd Bellau Nant y Gwyrddail

Previously Listed Name:  Bryn y Gregennen 

Summit Height:  280.0m (converted to OSGM15)

OS 1:50,000 map:  124

Summit Grid Reference:  SH 66542 13906 

 

Drop:  35.4m (converted to OSGM15)

The Trimble GeoXH 6000 gathering data at the summit of Ffridd Bellau Nant y Gwyrddail

For details on the survey of Ffridd Bellau Nant y Gwyrddail

Myrddyn Phillips (March 2018)