County town: Dolgellau
Merionethshire was created as a shire county in 1284 under the Statute of Rhuddlan following Edward I's conquest of Wales. It incorporated the territory of the cantref of Meirionnydd, part of the kingdom of Gwynedd.
Merionethshire is the most mountainous of the Welsh counties, encompassing the Rhinog mountains, the Cambrian Mountains, and the Cadair Idris massif, with a west-facing coastline on Cardigan Bay at Barmouth and Harlech. Harlech Castle, built by Edward I on a sea-cliff above Tremadog Bay, is one of the most dramatically sited fortresses in Britain — the inspiration for Men of Harlech. The county was strongly Welsh-speaking and culturally conservative, resistant to anglicisation throughout the medieval and early modern periods. Bala Lake (Llyn Tegid), the largest natural lake in Wales, lies in the county's north. The county's slate quarries around Blaenau Ffestiniog were significant from the 18th century.
The historic counties of Wales were created under the Laws in Wales Acts of 1535–42, overlying a much older landscape of Welsh kingdoms — Gwynedd, Powys, Deheubarth, and Morgannwg — that had shaped settlement, culture, and lordship for centuries. The county of Merionethshire incorporates territory from these earlier political divisions, and its boundaries preserve traces of the medieval Welsh landscape.
Wales's 13 historic counties were created under the Laws in Wales Acts of 1535–42, which brought Wales into the English legal and administrative system. Based partly on medieval Welsh kingdoms and Norman lordships, they were the framework of Welsh administration until 1974.
This page introduces the historic county of Merionethshire. A full Aubrey report for a location within it pulls together everything the record actually holds about that ground, from the geology beneath it to the last coin dropped in a field:
Every location is different. Not every section appears for every place, only what the historical record actually holds turns up in a report.
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An Aubrey report for a specific location in Merionethshire draws on historical maps, archaeological records, Domesday data and landscape history to tell the full story of any site in the county.