Criccieth, also spelled Cricieth (), is a town and community in Gwynedd, Wales, on the boundary between the Llŷn Peninsula and Eifionydd. The town is west of Porthmadog, east of Pwllheli and south of Caernarfon. It had a population of 1,826 in 2001, reducing to 1,753 at the 2011 census.

The town is a seaside resort, popular with families. Attractions include the ruins of Criccieth Castle, which have extensive views over the town and surrounding countryside. In the centre is Y Maes, part of the original medieval town common.

The town is noted for its fairs, held on 23 May and 29 June every year, when large numbers of people visit the fairground and the market which spreads through many of the streets of the town.

The town styles itself the "Pearl of Wales on the Shores of Snowdonia".

Etymology

The earliest recorded form of the place name Criccieth in Welsh is found in , where reference is made to the imprisonment of Gruffudd ap Llywelyn ab Iorwerth in the 'castle of Cruceith<nowiki/> (Middle Welsh orthography: Kastell Krukeith). The form was used by Iolo Goch in a famous 14th century poem addressed to Sir Hywel y Fwyall, custodian of the castle.

There are a number of theories as to the meaning, but the most popular is that it comes from : ' may mean 'prisoner' and thus the name could mean 'prisoner's rock', a reference to the imprisonment of one of Llywelyn ab Iorwerth's sons in the castle by his brother. However, ' has the primary meaning in Middle Welsh of 'serf[s]' and the name could refer to a bond community nearby. In later medieval times the settlement was also known as ' (martyr's town), probably a reference to Saint Catherine, after whom the parish church is named. However, the post town, Ordnance Survey and the legal name of the community all use the spelling Criccieth. The town council has the power to change the legal name of the community, or to adopt different forms of the name for use in Welsh and English language contexts. The council has been petitioned to adopt the Cricieth spelling on multiple occasions, dating back to at least 1969 when the county council asked the urban district council (the town council's predecessor) to change the name, but it declined to do so. This led to a row between the two councils over various road signs the county council had already put up with the Cricieth spelling. The town council maintained its position of using the spelling Criccieth in both Welsh and English contexts when similar requests for it to change the name were made in 1985 and 2008.

History

thumb|Criccieth Castle, c.1778

thumb|upright|left|[[Llywelyn ab Iorwerth, who built Criccieth Castle around 1230, with his sons]]

The area around Criccieth was settled during the Bronze Age, and a chambered tomb, Cae Dyni, survives on the coast to the east of the town; it consists of seven upright stones, and there are 13 cup marks, arranged in several groups. Evidence from other sites on the Llŷn Peninsula suggests that the area was colonised by a wave of Celtic settlers, who explored the Irish Sea, probably around the 4th century BC. Ptolemy calls the peninsula (English: Peninsula of the Gangani); the Gangani were a tribe of Irish Celts, and it is thought there may have been strong and friendly links with Leinster.

Although it is thought that Criccieth Castle was built around 1230 by Llywelyn ab Iorwerth, who had controlled the area since 1202, the first record of the building was in 1239, when the administrative centre of Eifionydd was moved from Dolbenmaen.

In the later years of his life, Llywelyn turned his attention to his successor. Welsh law stipulated that illegitimate sons had equal rights with legitimate sons; Llywelyn sought to ensure that Dafydd ap Llywelyn, his legitimate offspring, would inherit Gwynedd in place of his eldest, but illegitimate, son Gruffydd. On Llywelyn's death in 1240, Dafydd sought to secure his position. Dafydd was half English and feared that his pure Welsh half-brother would be able to gather support to overthrow him. Gruffydd was held prisoner in Criccieth Castle, until he was handed over to Henry III of England in 1241, and moved to the Tower of London.

Dafydd ap Llywelyn died in 1246, without leaving an heir, and was succeeded by Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, his nephew. Edward I had inherited the English throne in 1272, and in 1276 declared Llywelyn a rebel. By 1277, Edward's armies had captured the Isle of Anglesey, and were encamped at Deganwy; the settlement, the Treaty of Aberconwy, forced Llywelyn to acknowledge Edward as his sovereign, and stripped him of much of his territory. Dafydd ap Gruffydd, Llywelyn's younger brother, attacked the English forces at Hawarden in 1282, setting off a widespread rebellion throughout Wales; Edward responded with a further invasion of Gwynedd, during which Llywelyn was killed on the battlefield at Cilmeri.

thumb|upright|right|In 1282 [[Criccieth Castle became part of a ring of castles surrounding Edward I's newly conquered territories in Wales.]]

With the final defeat of Gwynedd, Edward set about consolidating his rule in Wales. Criccieth Castle was extended and reshaped, becoming one of a ring of castles surrounding Edward's newly conquered territories. A township developed to support the garrison and a charter was granted in 1284; the charter was intended to create a plantation of English burgesses who would provide food for the soldiers from the arable land behind the Dinas and the grazings on the slopes beyond.

The new administration soon proved unpopular among the native Welsh, and in 1294, Madog ap Llywelyn led a national revolt against English rule. Criccieth was besieged for several months over the winter; 41 residents sought refuge within its walls, joining the garrison of 29 men under William de Leybourne, until supplies were brought in from Ireland the following April. The following year, the castle was again used as a prison, housing captives taken in Edward's wars against Scotland.

Three Welshmen who had settled in the borough, which was supposedly reserved for the English, were evicted in 1337, but times were about to change. Hywel ap Gruffydd was appointed constable of the castle in 1359, the first Welshman to hold the post. The following year came mayor of the town, holding the office for twenty years; in a poem of praise, Iolo Goch described him as "a puissant knight, head of a garrison guarding the land".

The town expanded in the 19th century with the coming of new transportation links. In 1807 a turnpike road was built from Tremadog to Porthdinllaen, which was intended to be the main port for traffic to Ireland; and with the construction of the Aberystwith and Welsh Coast Railway in 1868, the town began to develop as a Victorian seaside resort.

Disaster struck Criccieth in October 1927; a great storm in the Irish Sea stopped the tidal flow, causing a double high tide. High seas and strong on-shore winds destroyed houses at Abermarchnad, the pressure of the waves punching holes through the back walls; the houses subsequently had to be demolished and the occupants rehoused.

Criccieth hosted the National Eisteddfod in 1975, and in 2003 was granted Fairtrade Town status. It won the Wales in Bloom competition each year from 1999 to 2004.

Governance

thumb|Memorial Hall (Neuadd Goffa)

There are two tiers of local government covering Criccieth, at community (town) and county level: Criccieth Town Council (Cyngor Tref Criccieth) and Gwynedd Council (Cyngor Gwynedd). The town council meets at the Memorial Hall on High Street.

The town forms part of the Dwyfor Meirionnydd constituency for elections to the House of Commons, and also forms part of the Dwyfor Meirionnydd constituency for the Senedd. It was also the main town in the ancient commote of Eifionydd, which in 1284 was made part of the new county of Caernarfonshire under the Statute of Rhuddlan. Also in 1284 the town was made a borough under a charter granted by Edward I of England. The first mayor was William de Leybourne, who was appointed constable of the castle a month after the charter was granted. A government survey of boroughs in 1835 found that the borough corporation had very few powers. The role of mayor and constable of the castle had become hereditary; in 1835 it was held by William Ormsby-Gore, who lived in Shropshire.

Given its limited powers, the borough was left unreformed when the Municipal Corporations Act 1835 reformed most ancient boroughs across the country into municipal boroughs. The old corporation continued to operate, but with very few functions. In order to provide more modern forms of local government, a local government district was created under the Criccieth Improvement Act 1873, which also disbanded the old borough corporation, replacing it with an elected local board. Any residual claim Criccieth may have had to be called a borough was extinguished under the Municipal Corporations Act 1883.

Local government districts were converted into urban districts under the Local Government Act 1894. The 1894 Act also directed that parishes could no longer straddle district boundaries, and so the part of Criccieth parish outside the urban district became a separate parish called Penllyn. The urban district was extended in 1934 to take in parts of the neighbouring parishes of Penllyn and Treflys, and again in 1938 to take in part of Llanystumdwy.

Criccieth Urban District was abolished in 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972. A community called Criccieth was created instead, covering the area of the abolished urban district. District-level functions passed to Dwyfor District Council, which was in turn replaced in 1996 by Gwynedd Council.

Geography

thumb|upright|left|[[Gorse flowers throughout the year in Criccieth's temperate maritime climate.]]

Criccieth is located in Eifionydd on the Cardigan Bay shore of the Llŷn Peninsula. The town is south facing and built around the rocky outcrop containing Criccieth Castle, which effectively divides the shoreline in two at this point. The East Shore has a sandy beach with a shallow area for bathing, whilst the Marine Beach, to the west, is quieter and has a number of hotels and guest houses.

The rhyolitic headland on which the castle is built is strong and not easily eroded. The cliffs to each side, however, are less resistant, being made up of glacial drift, layers of boulders, stones, clay and silt which were laid down during the last ice age. Sea walls were already in existence at the time of the first Ordnance Survey map in 1891, and the west shore sea wall had been extended and groynes built by 1913. Extensive remedial work was completed in 1965, and the defences were again strengthened in 1974 and 1985. In 1995 work was started on improving the defences along The Esplanade, followed in 1997 by further work to replace the crumbling gabions below Lôn Felin. Submerged forests occur in a number of places off the Cardigan Bay coastline, including Criccieth; these are deposits of peat, soil and tree remains and appear to be post-glacial coastal lagoons and estuaries, which have been flooded by rising sea levels.

The nearest weather station is at Cwmystradllyn. The town has a temperate maritime climate which is influenced by the Gulf Stream. Frost and snow are rare; the last serious snowfall, of , was in 1985.

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Demography

At the 2001 Census, Criccieth had a population of 1,826, 62.54% of households were owner occupied, and 25.30% were in rented accommodation.

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Economy

In the 16th century, at the bottom of Lôn Felin stood the town's mill, powered by water from a millpond near to the present level crossing and fed from the Afon Cwrt.

The High Street has several bistro-style restaurants.

To the south of Y Maes stands Caffi Cwrt, an early 18th century detached stone house where the burgesses held court when rain prevented them meeting in their usual location on the bridge. The house has been owned by just two families since 1729. Two medieval strip fields to the rear, Llain Fawr (large strip) and Llain Bella (furthest strip), formed most of the smallholding of Cwrt but were lost when the railway was built. Nearby, where the slate shop now stands, was a smithy.

Notable people

  • Sir Llewelyn Turner (1823 at Parkia – 1903), politician, Mayor of Caernarfon, 1859 to 1870.
  • David Lloyd George (1863–1945), UK Prime Minister from 1916 to 1922; grew up in the nearby village of Llanystumdwy.
  • Margaret Lloyd George (1864–1941) Welsh humanitarian, wife of David Lloyd George
  • Robert Jones (1891-1962) mathematician and aerodynamicist, world expert on the stability of airships.
  • Group Captain Leslie Bonnet (1902–1985), RAF officer, writer and originator of the Welsh Harlequin Duck.
  • Megan Lloyd George (1902–1966), politician, first female MP in Wales, daughter of David Lloyd George
  • William George (1912–2006), poet and nephew of David Lloyd George.
  • Joan Hutt (1913–1985), an artist and wife of Leslie Bonnet, they lived at Ymwlch from 1949.
  • Ruth Martin-Jones (born 1947), a former long jumper and heptathlete, bronze medallist at the 1973 Commonwealth games
  • Paul Roberts (born 1977) a Welsh former footballer with over 340 club caps
  • Dyfan Dwyfor, actor who won the Richard Burton Award at the National Eisteddfod in 2004, is from Criccieth.

Lifeboat station

The Royal National Lifeboat Institution lifeboat station stands on Lôn Felin and was built in 1853, although it was known as Porthmadoc Lifeboat Station until 1892. It was closed in 1931 but reopened in 1953. It operates an lifeboat but also has a smaller lifeboat which can get into shallower parts of the Glaslyn and Dwyryd estuaries than the larger boat can reach.

Transport

thumb|right|[[Criccieth railway station is on the Cambrian Coast Line.]]

Criccieth lies on the A497, the main road running through the southern Llŷn Peninsula from Porthmadog to Pwllheli. The B4411 runs north from Criccieth to join the A487 near Garndolbenmaen, giving access to Caernarfon to the north.

The town is served by Criccieth railway station on the Cambrian Coast Line between Pwllheli and Machynlleth. Trains, operated by Transport for Wales, run through to Shrewsbury, Wolverhampton and Birmingham. The station, which is unstaffed, has been adopted by the local community which provides flower displays, and has engaged local artists to paint scenes of the town on the previously boarded up windows

Buses are operated by Caelloi Motors and Lloyds Coaches. Caelloi Motors, of Pwllheli, operate local service 3 from Pwllheli to Porthmadog. Lloyds Caches, of Machynlleth, operate TrawsCymru service T2 from Bangor to Aberystwyth via Caernarfon, Criccieth, Porthmadog, Dolgellau and Machynlleth.

Education

Primary education is provided by Ysgol Treferthyr on Lôn Bach, which has 131 pupils. At the last school inspection by Estyn, in 2010, 7% of pupils were entitled to free school meals and over half came from homes where Welsh was the main spoken language. Welsh is the main medium of teaching, and 94% of the pupils can speak Welsh. Secondary school pupils mainly attend Ysgol Eifionydd in Porthmadog.

Culture

Criccieth is a predominantly Welsh speaking community, with 64.2% of residents aged three and over being able to speak the language according to the 2011 Census.

The Memorial Hall, fronting Y Maes, is a venue for concerts, dramas and other community events and the main venue during the annual Criccieth Festival. It was designed by Morris Roberts of Porthmadog in a fusion of the art deco and arts and crafts architectural styles and completed in 1925, the foundation stone having been laid in 1922 by David Lloyd George.

The National Eisteddfod was held in Criccieth in 1975, and a new housing estate, Gorseddfa marks the place where the Gorsedd stones then stood.

It used to be the custom, on Easter Sunday morning, for keys or pins to be thrown into Ffynnon Fair as an offering to Saint Catherine.

The town features in Welsh Incident, a humorous poem published in 1950 by Robert Graves, which tells of the mysterious creatures that supposedly, one Tuesday afternoon, "... came out / From the sea caves of Criccieth yonder." It is also the subject of Shipwrecked Mariners, a painting by English Romantic landscape painter Joseph Mallord William Turner; the painting uses his sketch of Criccieth Castle but, although the rock is depicted correctly, the building is a mirror image.

There is a local legend that a piper named Dic, and two fiddlers named Twm and Ned, were once lured into a nearby cave by fairies. They were not seen again, but their music could still occasionally been heard coming from the cave.

Religion

thumb|left|200px|Griffith Jones founded a Circulating School that visited Criccieth in 1749. Out of a population of 600, the school taught 543 illiterates to read.

Religion has been an important part of Criccieth's life since early days, and around 1300 St Catherine's Parish Church was built on what is thought to be the site of an early religious foundation. As the town developed so did the church, and in 1500 an extra nave was added. It contains wooden panelling made from old box pews and a communion table dating from the 17th century. On the wall is a list of rectors stretching back to 1301. In the graveyard, the oldest stone commemorates the death in 1688 of Robert Ellis who was Groom of the Privy Chamber in Ordinarie to Catherine of Braganza, the wife of Charles II. Outside the west door is a sundial dating from 1734 with distances to ports in all directions. Built as a chapel of ease for St Catherine's, it was financed by the Greaves family for the use of English speaking visitors as services at the parish church were held in Welsh. It eventually closed in 1988, its pipe organ being transported to Sydney in Australia.

For over a hundred years community hymn singing has taken place on Sunday evenings on the small green at Abermarchnad, the site of the old market of the original fishing village. Notables who played here included John Boynton Priestley, the novelist, playwright and broadcaster; Frank Riseley who partnered Sydney Smith and won the Men's Double Championship at Wimbledon in 1902 and 1906; his brother Bob Riseley who was on the Wimbledon Committee of Management for many years; Dodd and Mellet of South Africa; Dorothy Round Little who was Ladies' Singles Champion at Wimbledon in 1934 and 1937 and Mixed Doubles Champion in 1934, 1935 and 1936; Commander Philip Glover, Royal Navy champion; Thelma Cazalet-Keir, the Conservative feminist politician; Alan Davies; Duncan Macaulay, who was Secretary of the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club from 1946 to 1963; and Megan Lloyd George, the Liberal Party's Deputy Leader from 1949 to 1952.

Golf started in Criccieth with a few holes on Caerdyni Hill, but in 1906 Criccieth Golf Club opened. It was an undulating nine-hole course on natural terrain with views of the coast and the mountains of Snowdonia. The penultimate hole was a challenging par 4 with a green above the tee, whilst the finishing hole was just long with the green below the tee. The club holds the distinction of having three British prime ministers, Bonar Law, David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill, play the course on the same day. It closed on New Year's Eve, 2017.

thumb|upright|left|The East Shore has a sandy beach, with a safe shallow area for children.

The town is a popular venue for sea anglers. From the East Shore, bass, dogfish, mackerel and whiting can be caught. The Stone Jetty, in addition, is a good spot for conger, pollock and wrasse dabs, whilst bass, dogfish, mackerel, pollock and whiting can all also be found from the Marine Beach.

Criccieth, Llanystumdwy and District Angling Association, formed in 1927, controls the fishing rights on of the Afon Dwyfor and Afon Dwyfach. Each year between 2,000 and 3,000 sea trout and 30 to 40 salmon are caught; the association runs a hatchery where between 8,000 and 10,000 sea trout are reared annually. Gloddfa Lake, a disused quarry pool on Criccieth Golf Course, is a location for coarse fishing, with catches of rudd, roach and eels.

Bathing is popular, particularly on the East Shore, which is sandy and has a safe shallow area for children. Graig Ddu (English: Black Rock) marks the boundary with Black Rock Sands. The Marine Beach to the west of the castle is pebbly. The water quality prediction is "good" and in 2009 both beaches were awarded a yellow flag seaside award.

Surfing is possible at all stages of the tide, but there is a fairly exposed beach break that does not work very often. It is particularly flat in summer. Most of the surf comes from groundswells and the best swell direction is from the southwest, the beach break providing left- and right-handers. Offshore winds blow from the north-northeast.

Crown green bowls is played at Criccieth Bowling Club, and there is a miniature golf course nearby.

See also

  • St Deiniol's Church

References

  • 360 Interactive view of Criccieth Castle
  • Geograph : Photographs of Criccieth