Former corn mill, Aberdaron
Former corn mill, Aberdaron
The stone building just below the junction of the Wales Coast Path and the B4413 road was the local corn mill, generally known simply as “Felin” (Y Felin = The Mill). The footpath still skirts the outline of the small mill pond visible in the lower picture.
If you’ve just scanned the QR codes on the waymarker post, you’re now standing just above the point where the water from the mill race reached the waterwheel (long since removed). The photo on the right (also courtesy of Rhiw.com) shows the wheel’s position between the mill and the highway retaining wall.
The Melin Daron community group has begun a project to restore the building as a working mill – see the link to the group’s website below.
The mill existed by the 1840s and the first section was probably built much earlier. Records from the 13th century refer to a mill in Aberdaron.
From 1843 the corn mill belonged to Lord Penrhyn, whose family fortune came from the use of slave labour in Jamaica and slate quarrying in North Wales. In December 1907 he put many of his properties in Aberdaron parish, including the corn mill, up for auction.
The mill was powered by water drawn from Afon Daron c.500 metres east of the mill. The water ran in a narrow channel (the mill race) roughly parallel to the river.The public footpath which ran alongside the mill race now forms the Wales Coast Path east from here. Its ancestry explains why this section of the path is unusually level!
The river gives Aberdaron its name. Aber means the mouth of a river. Daron was said to be the goddess of the oak tree. Dâr is an old Welsh name for oak, and is also found in Aberdâr (Aberdare) in the South Wales Valleys. In modern Welsh, oak is known as derw, dâr, deri and derwen.
Postcode: LL53 8BE View Location Map
With thanks to Prof Hywel Wyn Owen, of the Welsh Place-Name Society, for place-name information
Melin Daron website – more history and details of restoration project
More old photos of Aberdaron – Rhiw.com website
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