Porth Ceiriad, near Abersoch
The name of this bay refers to the Iron Age fort overlooking it. Click here for more about Castell Pared Mawr hillfort. The photos show the bay in the 1930s.
Porth is Welsh for ‘gateway. Caer is 'fort', and the ending '-iad' means 'location/site'. So 'site of the fort' is the meaning of Ceiriad.
The small peninsula east of Porth Ceiriad is Trwyn yr Wylfa. Wylfa denotes a place of viewing or watching, suggesting that it was another guarding place in ancient times. During the First World War the farmland was requisitioned by the military as a lookout area.
The peninsula south west of Porth Ceiriad is Trwyn Llech y Doll, a level shelf of rock jutting out to sea. The name denotes a rock associated with a toll. The type of toll isn’t known but could have been customs payments. In the 18th and early 19th century, customs officers used “preventative boats” to patrol the “St Tudwal’s Roads” (the shipping lane to Pwllheli) to ensure import tolls were paid. It’s said that smugglers secretly unloaded contraband on the west side of the headland.
The largest of Porth Ceiriad’s three beaches is Traeth Sidan. Sidan is Welsh for silk. Traeth = beach. The name possibly referrs to its sand. Traeth yr Arian (‘beach of the silver’) is in the centre, and there’s a story that silver was found there after a shipwreck. The third is Traeth Melyn/Traeth Twmpath Melyn (‘yellow beach/yellow hillock beach’), where there’s relatively little sand but sailors might have noted a yellow feature in the rocks or cliffs.
The beaches are divided by Stwffwl Nampig, a rock feature on the land of Nant y Bîg (stwffwl = ‘staple’), and by the Milfeini – large rocks torn from the cliff by the elements long ago. Mil = ‘thousand’. Feini is the mutated form of meini, which means ‘rocks’.
Ships used to unload coal, limestone and salt here for the use of local residents, who came along Lôn Groes or through Pant y Branner to trade on the beach. Coal and limestone were burned locally to provide lime, used to fertilise fields.
With thanks to Diogelu Enwau Llanengan
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