Capel Celyn

Capel Celyn ( _en. Holly Chapel) was a rural community to the north west of Bala in north Wales, in the Afon Tryweryn Valley that was flooded to create a reservoir, Llyn Celyn, to supply Liverpool and The Wirral, with water for industry. The village contained, among other things, a chapel, as the name of the community suggests.

History

In 1956, a private bill sponsored by Liverpool City Council was brought before Parliament to develop a water reservoir from the Tryweryn Valley. The development would include the flooding of Capel Celyn. By obtaining authority via a Parliamentary Act, Liverpool City Council would not require planning consent from the relevant Welsh Local Authorities. This, together with the fact that the village was one of the last Welsh-only speaking communities, ensured that the proposals become deeply controversial. Thirty five out of thirty six Welsh Members of Parliament (MPs) opposed the bill (the other did not vote), but in 1957 it was passed. The members of the community waged an eight-year effort, ultimately unsuccessful, to prevent the destruction of their homes.

When the valley was flooded in 1965, the village and its buildings, including the post office, the school, and a chapel with cemetery, were all lost. Twelve houses and farms were drowned, and 48 people of the 67 who lived in the valley lost their homes ["Capel Celyn, Ten Years of Destruction: 1955 - 1965", by Einion Thomas, published by Cyhoeddiadau Barddas & Gwynedd Council, 2007, ISBN 978 1 900437 92 9] . In all some 800 acres (3.2 km²; 320 ha) of land were submerged. Llyn Celyn, otherwise known as the Tryweryn Reservoir, was formed. Many of the stones from the original chapel were re-used in the construction of the new Memorial Chapel.

A full list of the drowned properties (from largely west to east) is as follows -

Families who had relatives buried in the cemetery were given the option of either moving them to another cemetery, or leaving them. Consequently, eight bodies were disinterred, and the remainder left. All headstones were removed, and the cemetery was then covered in a layer of gravel, then concrete. ["Capel Celyn, Ten Years of Destruction: 1955 - 1965", by Einion Thomas, published by Cyhoeddiadau Barddas & Gwynedd Council, 2007, ISBN 978 1 900437 92 9]

Hafod Fadog

One of the farmsteads covered was Hafod Fadog, a Quaker meeting place. It is recorded on a bronze plaque in a lay-by near to the dam::Under these water and near this stone stood HAFOD FADOG, a farmstead where in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Quakers met for worship, on the hillside above the house was a space encircled by a low stone wall where larger meetings were held, and beyond the house was a small burial ground. From this valley came many of the early Quakers who emigrated to Pennsylvania, driven from their homes by persecution to seek freedom of worship in the new world.

Political effects

The building of the reservoir was instrumental in an increase in support for the Welsh Nationalist Party, Plaid Cymru during the late 1950s. Almost unanimous Welsh political opposition had failed to stop approval of the scheme, a fact that seemed to underline Plaid Cymru's argument that the Welsh national community was powerless. [ Davies, J, "A History of Wales", (1990, rev. 2007), Penguin] . At the subsequent General Election the party's support increased from 3.1% to 5.2%.

Of perhaps greater significance, however, was the impetus the episode gave to Welsh devolution. The Council of Wales recommended the creation of a Welsh Office and Secretary of State for Wales early in 1957, a time when the governance of Wales on a national level was so demonstrably lacking in many people's eyes. [Butt-Phillip, A, "The Welsh Question", (1975), University of Wales Press ] By 1964 the Wilson Government gave effect to these proposals.

The flooding of Capel Celyn also sharpened debate within Plaid Cymru about the use of direct action. While the party emphasised its constitutional approach to stopping the development, it also sympathised with the actions of two party members (who of their own accord) attempted to sabotage the power supply at the site of the Tryweryn dam in 1962. [Butt-Phillip, A, "The Welsh Question", (1975), University of Wales Press ]

A more militant response was the formation of Mudiad Amddiffyn Cymru or MAC, which blew up a transformer on the dam construction site in February 1963. MAC went on to carry out a number of other bombings in the next six years.

In October 1965 the Llyn Celyn reservoir opened to a sizeable Plaid Cymru organised demonstration. A year later, Gwynfor Evans won Plaid Cymru's first Parliamenary seat in Carmarthen. The role Capel Celyn played in Evans' victory should not, however, be overstated. Apart from Carmarthen's distance from Tryweryn, Plaid Cymru's victory owed as much to an anti-Labour backlash in the constituency's mining communities as it did Plaid's successful depiction of Labour's policies as being a threat to the viability of small Welsh communities. [ Francis, H and Smith, D, "The Fed: A History of the South Wales Miners in the Twentieth Century", (1980), University of Wales. See also Tanner, D, "Facing the New Challenge: Labour and Politics 1970 - 2000" in "The Labour Party in Wales 1900-2000" (Ed. Tanner, D, Williams, C and Hopkin, D), (2000), University of Wales Press ]

On 19 October 2005, Liverpool City Council issued a formal apology for the flooding.

ee also

*Llyn Celyn

References

External links

* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/4332312.stm Picture gallery]
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/4354256.stm Apology on BBC News]
* [http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1590733,00.html Apology on Guardian Unlimited]
* [http://www.llgc.org.uk/ymgyrchu/Dwr/Tryweryn/index-e.htm National Library of Wales page on Tryweryn]
* [http://www.abandonedcommunities.co.uk/page36.html Capel Celyn and other Welsh communities flooded to create reservoirs]