In 1870-72, John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales described Nefyn like this:
NEVIN, or Nefyn, a small town, a parish, and a sub-district, in Pwllheli district, Carnarvon. The town stands on the W coast of the Lleyn peninsula, under Carn-Bodvean, 5 miles N W by W of Pwllheli r. station; was the place where Edward I., in 1284, held a triumphalfestival, with tournaments and other amusements, attended by a vast concourse of nobility and gentry, incelebration of the conquest of Wales; was made a boroughby the Black Prince, but never attained to any considerable consequence; was recently no more than a poor fishing-village; has, of late years, undergone considerableimprovement; is still irregularly built, straggling, and not very clean; ranks as a small sub-port, with a road-stead having anchorage in 1 to 2 fathoms water; uniteswith Pwllheli, Criccieth, Conway, Carnarvon, and Bangor, in sending a member to parliament; and has a post-office ‡ under Pwllheli, a tolerable inn, a weekly marketon Saturday, and fairs on 11 April, 18 Aug., and 20 Oct. ...
The parish is conterminate with the borough, and comprises 1, 706 acres of land, and 110 of water. Real property, £2, 649. Pop., 1,818. Houses, 471. The property is subdivided. Porthdynllaen, 2 miles W S W of the village, ranks as a sub-port to Carnarvon; is believed to have been used, as a port, by the Romans; retains, in its neighbourhood, strong entrenchments whichappear to have been Roman; was proposed, during the railway mania, to be made the chief mail packet stationto Ireland, in lieu of Holyhead; was proposed also to bemade a terminus of railways in connexion with the Great Western system; and was again proposed to be made a railway point of importance in connexion with therecently-formed system of railway from Carnarvon to Portmadoc and Pwllheli. Nant-Gwrtheyrn was thefinal retreat of Vortigern. Carn-Bodvean rises abruptlyfrom a plain to a height of about 900 feet, and commandsa very fine panoramic view. The living is a p. curacy in the diocese of Bangor. Value, £11 0.* Patron, W. G. Wynne, Esq. The church has a curious narrowtower, and is good. There are chapels for Independents, Baptists, Calvinistic Methodists, and Wesleyans, and a national school.—The sub-district contains also sevenother parishes. Acres, 18, 626. Pop., 4, 938. Houses, 1, 187.
Nefyn through time
Nefyn is now part of Gwynedd district. Click here for graphs and data of how Gwynedd has changed over two centuries. For statistics about Nefyn itself, go to Units and Statistics.
GB Historical GIS / University of Portsmouth, History of Nefyn, in Gwynedd and Caernarvonshire | Map and description, A Vision of Britain through Time.
URL: https://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/8378
Date accessed: 24th April 2024
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