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 17th 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historical documents, through this form of research an appropriate name for the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
|
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 |
Myrddyn Phillips (March 2018)
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