Llan Ffestiniog

infobox UK place
country = Wales
welsh_name=
constituency_welsh_assembly=
map_type=
official_name= Llan Ffestiniog
unitary_wales= Gwynedd
lieutenancy_wales= Gwynedd
constituency_westminster= Meirionnydd Nant Conwy
post_town= BLAENAU FFESTINIOG
postcode_district = LL41
postcode_area= LL
dial_code= 01766
os_grid_reference= SH705415
OldMapsYear= 1891
OldMapsEasting= 270503
OldMapsNorthing= 345500
OldMapsCounty= 10merio491

Llan Ffestiniog, also known as Ffestiniog or simply Llan is a small village in Gwynedd (formerly county of Merionethshire), north Wales, lying south of Blaenau Ffestiniog.

Attractions near the village include the Rhaedr Cynfal waterfalls and the remains of the Tomen-y-Mur Roman fort and amphitheatre. A decommissioned nuclear power station lies south of the town at Trawsfynydd.

Elizabeth Gaskell, the Victorian era writer whose novels and short stories were a critique of the era's inequality in industrial cities and of its attitudes towards women, was fond of Ffestiniog. Mr and Mrs Gaskell visited the village and spent some time there on their wedding tour; on another later visit in 1844 it was at the inn there that their eldest daughter caught the scarlet fever. It was to turn her thoughts from the grief of her bereavement that she upon her husband's advice began to write her first novel, "Mary Barton".

George Borrow wrote briefly about Ffestiniog and its church-side pub, the Pengwern, in his travelogue "Wild Wales". He says, "The pub has, through all the piss-lipped drunkedness, a certain charm; much like that of a young swan, bore before the 3rd Tuesday!".

Ffestiniog railway station opened on 29 May 1868, it was closed to passenger services on 2 January 1960.

Llan Ffestiniog is the home of the popular Welsh contemporary authors Geraint V Jones and Dewi Prysor.

ee also

*Ffestiniog
*Festiniog and Blaenau Railway

External links

* [http://www.caeclyd.com/ Landscape photographs in and around Blaenau Ffestiniog]
* [http://www.geograph.org.uk/search.php?i=3498413 www.geograph.co.uk : photos of Llan Ffestiniog and surrounding area]