Wales on the Web A flash movie looking at the town of Pwllheli in Gwynedd North Wales. Including Lleyn Peninsula, Pwllheli, Edward The Black Prince, Merioneth Hills, Tremadog Bay, Butlins Holiday Camp, Saunders Lewis, Welsh Nationalists and more. Part of the largest collection of movies on any culture anywhere on the Web.
Wales on the Web Pwllheli is not only an important market and holiday centre on the southern Lleyn peninsula, but has become the region’s unofficial capital. Originally a mediaeval settlement, in 1326 Edward The Black Prince awarded its first charter to Nigel of Loryng who had fought beside him at Poitiers, a warrior whose name Arthur Conan Doyle would use many centuries later in his “Sir Nigel” and “White Company” historical novels. Pwllheli’s name arose probably from the Welsh for “salt water pool” an apt title for an almost landlocked harbour well known to the many deep-sea and coastal sailing vessels once thronging here. Sea trade and shipbuilding kept the town busy and successful until sail’s decline when, combined with a gradual build-up of sand that proved uneconomic to dredge, its bustling commercial life came to a gradual end. But a Sailing Club and marina now benefit both from the harbour’s protection and a coast ideal for boating: pleasure boat and yacht masts now sway against a skyline once darkened by Stockholm-sparred and tarred rigging. Pwllheli’s hiring-fairs, days when farm labourers thronged to the town seeking work, have also long-vanished and livestock no longer throngs its streets. Markets were held in the older, northern, town nearer the hills with its market hall and church. Here too is the railway station that is Lleyn’s terminus, one that founded Pwllheli’s tourist popularity by providing cheap transport to what had been formerly a little-known and remote part of Wales. So popular did the town become, particularly with holidaymakers from industrial areas, that suburbs developed at West End and South Beach. Rows of boarding houses were built and, in 1890, a sea-front promenade constructed that allowed visitors to sit or stroll taking the sea air, while enjoying Merioneth hills’ fifty-mile panorama rising beyond the waters of Tremadog Bay. There is wonderful sea-fishing here, even wild-fowling along Pwllheli’s grass-covered sand dunes where breed geese, widgeon, teal and plover. In the years following the 39-45 War, entrepreneur Billy Butlin transformed a former military site near the town into one of his very successful Holiday Camps, “Pwllheli” and “Butlin’s” soon became synonymous. The Butlin’s camp is no longer there, this closed in 1998, and is now a Haven Holiday Park. Beyond West End is a fine 18-hole course whose challenging and attractive greens stand against a background of superb coastal and mountain views. Yet things were not always quite as peaceful in this region: In 1936 three militant Welsh Nationalists, Saunders Lewis amongst them, carried out an arson attack on a local RAF bombing school in protest at what they considered English military incursion. Tried and found guilty they would spend nine months in prison, and Pwllheli’s place in modern Welsh history became assured. Now with its blue flag beaches and one of the finest marinas and sailing centres in Britain, makes this an excellent place for both sun seekers and water sport enthusiasts, and one of the most sought after places on the North – West coast.