DOLWYDDELAN CASTLE,
Situated about five miles from Capel Curig, and on the eastward side of Moel Siabod, deserves notice. It is built upon a lofty rock, which on one side is inaccessible. There are two square towers, and a court in the middle. It is surrounded by mountains, and must in ancient days have been a fortress of considerable importance. It is said, Llewellyn the great was born in the castle; and this fact is sufficient to interest the stranger who is capable of appreciating and feeling reverence for a hero, who so long struggled with unwearied assiduity and unconquerable bravery, for his native land, and who fought and died in the sacred cause of liberty.
Within four miles of Capel Curig is an oval lake, of about three miles in circumference, called Llyn Ogwen, which must by no means be overlooked. The scenery around is delightful, and the waters are well stored with excellent trout of fine flavour, and surpassing all others in that respect, in the Carnaervonshire lakes.
At the western end of this lake, are the falls of Benglog, (being three in number and upwards of one hundred feet in height) from whence the waters take their course through Beavers’ Hollow, a wild and romantic glen, rocky and barren.
Powel, in his History of North Wales, says, “In Tevi, above all the rivers in Wales, were, in Giraldus’s time, a great number of castels, which may be Englished beavers, and are called in Welsh avane, which name onlie remaineth in Wales at this daie, but what it is, very few can tell. It is a beast not much unlike an otter, but that it is bigger, all hearie saving the taile, which is like a fishe taile as broad as a man’s hand. This beast useth as well the water as the land; and hath a voice, sharp teeth, and biteth cruellie till he perceives the bones cracke * * * * He that will learn what strong nests they make, which Giraldus calleth castells, which they build upon the face of the water with great bowes, which they cut with their teeth, and how some lie upon their backs holding the wood with their fore feet, which the other draweth with a crosse stick, the which he holdeth in his mouth, to the water’s side, and other particularities of their natures, let him read Giraldus in his Topographie of Wales.”
In this stream are found the fresh water muscle, which the country people call cregyn deluw, i.e. shells of the deluge, supposed to have been brought into it by Noah’s flood.
On the left of the lake are the Crags of Trifaen; huge shattered ridges, which overhang the pool and keep it in continual shadow, while the sides of Braich-ddu slope gradually to the lake’s margin. The Francôn mountains, in the distance, are astonishingly grand, and altogether this lake scene may be considered the finest in Caernarvonshire.
A gentleman in the winter of 1831, was driving along the road which skirts the borders of the lake, when upwards of a thousand tons of rock fell from the heights of Benclog, a little below the falls into Nant Francôn, a short time after he had passed them, and he beheld one portion roll into the valley and river, while the other rested upon the road he had just travelled, rendering it impossible for any carriage to proceed by that route, until the obstruction was removed.
A mile distant from Llyn Ogwen is another lake, well worthy of being visited, which lies in a deep hollow of the Glyder mountains called