Tremadog
| Tremadog | |
|---|---|
 St Mary's Church, Tremadog |
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 Tremadog
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| Tremadog shown within Gwynedd | |
| OS grid reference | SH561401 |
| Community | |
| Principal area | |
| Country | Wales |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | PORTHMADOG |
| Postcode district | LL49 |
| Dialling code | 01766 |
| Police | North Wales |
| Fire | North Wales |
| Ambulance | Welsh |
| EU Parliament | Wales |
| UK Parliament | |
| Welsh Assembly | |
Tremadog (formerly Tremadoc) is a village in the community of Porthmadog, in Gwynedd, north west Wales; about 1 km north of the town of Porthmadog. It was a planned settlement, founded by William Madocks, who bought the land in 1798. The centre of Tremadog was complete by 1811 and remains substantially unaltered.
Tremadog hosted an unofficial National Eisteddfod event in 1872.
By mid-1805, Madocks had already built some houses on the site of Tremadog, for he wrote to the Post-Master at Caernarfon informing him that letters addressed to Pentre-Gwaelod should be delivered to the new houses he had built on Traeth Mawr, near Tan-yr-Allt. Pentre-Gwaelod translates as Bottom Village, but Madocks had grander plans, for aldermen and a mayor had been appointed, and he corrected the word "village" in a letter written soon afterwards to read "borough". He planned it himself, perhaps with some help from architectural friends and architectural books, but his letters reveal that a master plan was never produced, as he held the ideas for the settlement in his mind.
Tremadog is a good example of a planned town, with an array of Georgian architecture built in the classical tradition of the 18th century. It is located immediately below the high ground of Snowdonia and on the edge of the modern Snowdonia National Park.
Tremadog was built on flat land reclaimed from Traeth Mawr, the estuary of the Afon Glaslyn, and to enhance its appearance Madocks placed the Market Square, the centre of his project, just in front of a great crag of rock, the former edge of the estuary. It towers some 100 feet (30 m) over the Town Hall, and the coaching inn, giving a theatrical effect to the area. He hoped to attract more buildings that fitted his overall plan, but this plan failed and he eventually funded most of them himself. The main streets were named Dublin Street and London Street, as Madocks wanted Tremadog to be a stopping off point on the main route from London to Porth Dinllaen on the Llŷn Peninsula, which was intended to be the chief port for ferries to Dublin. However this plan failed when Holyhead supplanted Porth Dinllaen as the main ferry port. He was keen that everything should enhance the village's appearance — his main interest. Unlike some contemporary town planners, he was less interested in the moral reform of the inhabitants: he felt that people had the right to work, educate their children, pray, drink, gamble, save or waste money as they saw fit; and that the town should give its residents opportunities to get on with their own lives, providing that they were congenial neighbours.
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Wikipedia