Trefriw.com : The community website for the village of Trefriw, North Wales

Many thanks to Cathe Booth for submitting this information :)

Trefriw's origins go back to the ancient track, Sarn Helen. This is a Roman road which leads from the coast to Tomen y Mur, a Roman outpost near Dolgellau, though I am sure that the Romans built over even older tracks. The route skirts the village and makes its way up Llanrhychwyn Hill. (The road in the valley was a feat of engineering, and the expertise to build it wasn't mastered until the eighteenth century.)

We know that the Romans were in the area, and made use of the waters of Trefriw Wells Spa, and it is probably that they had mining interests in the hills. The poet Taliesin, of whose works we still have some fragments, though he was writing at the opening of the seventh century A.D. (700 years before Chaucer!), is reputed to have been born on the shores of Llyn Geirionydd.

Open air eisteddfodau were held in the nineteenth century on the legendary spot, and now there is a stone monument there. It's a place so laden with atmosphere that all its history seems to be blowing around in the wind. Trefriw has another very famous son, the fictional monk Brother Cadfael, (created by Ellis Peters,) supposedly born here in the days of Henry I in the early twelfth century. Ellis Peters also wrote a series of four books about the thirteenth century prince, Llywelyn the Last, whose stronghold was in these parts.

Trefriw first makes an appearance in the real history books in the twelfth century, when Llywelyn the Great had a hunting lodge here. He had strongholds all over north west Wales, from Aberffraw on Anglesey to Dolwyddelan in the Lledr valley south of here, and it's impossible to know how much time he spent here. It was enough, however, to make it necessary for him to commission a church on the site where St Mary's now stands.

His wife, Siwan or Joan, the youngest daughter of England's King John, objected to the weekly trek up the steep hill to the church at Llanrhychwyn. The path up which they walked was still in existence until about thirty years ago, but it has now disappeared (in the forest planted by the newly established Forestry Commission in the 1920s.)

There is now a proper road, but the hill hasn't become any less steep. The church is still there, unspoilt and practically unaltered, in its ancient churchyard. Services are held there about once a month and on special occasions. It's usually locked, but the key is available from Tu hwnt i'r Gors Farm, nearby.

I'm told that the oldest house in Trefriw is Gwyndy Cottage, (up Crafnant Road, first left, and it's just there on the corner) but there are two cottages on the village street that have plaques and dates going back to the eighteenth century. One of them is called Tan yr Yw (Under the Yew Tree) - proof that the yew tree which still stands in the churchyard opposite is truly ancient.

The coming of industry turned Trefriw into a port, where the lead and slates brought down from the mines in the hills were loaded into boats and transported down the River Conwy to the sea. Tourism began soon afterwards, and the wharf where the ships were loaded became a quay. Here pleasure boats ended their journey from Conwy and delivered holiday makers.

There are some large Victorian houses in the village that began as boarding houses for these early tourists. The block, of which Glanrafon Stores is now a part, was a hotel. The nineteenth century saw Trefriw flourishing. It was the century of the Welsh Chapels, and Trefriw had several. The largest and most imposing, Peniel, built about 1870, can be seen from the village street by the Post Office.

Further History will be added (just need to colate some info.)

Trefriw History