Mapping Mountains – Significant Name Changes – Welsh Highlands - Uchafion Cymru

Fronllwyd (SH 617 631)

There has been a Significant Name Change to a hill that is listed in the Welsh Highlands - Uchafion Cymru, with the summit height, bwlch height and there locations, the drop and status of the hill derived from a combination of surveys.  With the drop of the hill derived from a level and staff line survey conducted by John Barnard, Graham Jackson and Myrddyn Phillips, the summit height and its position derived by a Trimble GeoXH 6000 survey conducted by Myrddyn Phillips and Aled Williams and the bwlch position derived from LIDAR analysis conducted by Aled Williams.

Fronllwyd (SH 617 631)

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

Welsh Highlands - Uchafion Cymru – Welsh hills at or above 500m in height with 15m minimum drop, with an accompanying sub list entitled the Welsh Highland Subs, the criteria for which is all Welsh hills at or above 500m in height with 10m or more and below 15m of drop.  This list is authored by Myrddyn Phillips and Aled Williams with the Introduction to the list published on Mapping Mountains in November 2015 and the latest update relating to the list published on Mapping Mountains in January 2023.

Welsh Highlands - Uchafion Cymru by Aled Williams and Myrddyn Phillips

The hill is adjoined to the Glyder Fawr group of hills, which are situated in the north-western part of North Wales (Region A, Sub-Region A1), and it is positioned with the Afon Ogwen and the A5 road to its north-east and Llyn Padarn, Llyn Peris and the A4086 road towards its south-west, and has the town of Bethesda towards the north and the village of Llanberis towards the south-west.

The hill first made an appearance in a published hill list in 1940 when Ted Moss listed it as Carnedd y Filiast Point N.W. in his The Two-Thousands of Wales published by The Rucksack Club Journal.

When this hill was first included in the listing that later became known as Yr Uchafion and latterly as the Welsh Highlands – Uchafion Cymru it was listed by Myrddyn Phillips under the directional name of Carnedd y Filiast North-west Top with an accompanying note stating; Named from mountain to the South-east.

During the early hill listing that Myrddyn Phillips conducted he 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.  His preference was to use farm names and put Pen, Bryn or Moel in front of them or as in this instance use a directional name based on supplanting the name of a near hill and adding a directional component to it.  This is not a practice that he now advocate as with time and inclination place-name data can be improved either by asking local people or by examining historic documents, through this form of research an appropriate name for the hill can usually be found.

Extract from the Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 Explorer map

It was during the compilation of the Welsh Highlands – Uchafion Cymru list that Myrddyn Phillips first made place-name enquiries with local farmers, grazers and landowners, during this process there were many people who gave me an enormous amount of help, with one of these being Ieuan Wyn who at the time of my enquiries lived in Bethesda.  It was Ieuan who first told me that this hill is known as Fronllwyd or with the use of the definite article; Y Fronllwyd.  During subsequent enquiries this was substantiated by a number of local farmers, including Glyn Williams, Gwyn Thomas and William Williams.  The name of Fronllwyd also appears on contemporary Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 Explorer maps, however it is misspelt and appears as Fronllwydd.

Therefore, the name this hill is now listed by in the  Welsh Highlands – Uchafion Cymru is Fronllwyd and this was derived from local enquiry, with this name also appearing in a misspelt form on the contemporary Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 Explorer map.

The full details for the hill are:

Group:  Glyder Fawr

Name:  Fronllwyd

Previously Listed Name:  Carnedd y Filiast North-west Top

OS 1:50,000 map:  115

Summit Height:  720.8m (converted to OSGM15, Trimble GeoXH 6000)

Summit Grid Reference:  SH 61747 63161 (Trimble GeoXH 6000)

Bwlch Height:  704.6m (relative to Trimble summit and line survey for drop)

Bwlch Grid Reference:  SH 61858 63028 (LIDAR)

Drop:  16.1m (line survey)

Myrddyn Phillips and Aled Williams (October 2019)