Pen-y-groes, Tal-y-sarn & Dyffryn Nantlle

The three settlements sit along the Nantlle Valley in Gwynedd, laid out on the floor of a long slate-bearing valley with quarry workings on the slopes above. Roofless mills, spoil tips and flooded quarry pits mark the landscape, and the name Dorothea appears on maps and in field names associated with a major slate quarry nearby. Traces of the old Nantlle Railway and its inclines can still be found where stone routes once ran from pit to quay, and narrow lanes thread between rows of houses and former mill sites.

Daily life in Pen-y-groes, Tal-y-sarn and Dyffryn Nantlle is shaped by the valley and by Welsh language and culture, which is in everyday use in shops, schools and chapels. Public footpaths follow old quarry tracks and drystone walls up onto the surrounding moor, offering direct access from village streets to the working pattern of the valley. Community centres and small local businesses mark the centres of the villages; market days, chapel meetings and choirs remain part of how people meet and use the valley.