Heritage
There have been people in this valley since the retreat of the ice age. A Bronze Age axe head was discovered in the grounds of Glan y Gro and has been sent to Gwynedd Archaeological Trust. There are also remains of Roman forts in the valley. The Roman historian, Pliny records that the Silures were a tribe living in this part of Wales. The Greek historian, Ptolomy states that the local inhabitants belonged to the Demetae.
The Motte in Bala dates from the Norman Conquest. Hugh Earl of Chester was the first of the Noramns to take this area and held it with a garrison. The Motte was a small fortification commanding a good view of the confluence of the rivers at the head of the lake. The town of Bala was founded by Royal Charter around 1310 by Roger de Mortimer, a Lord of the March based in Chirk castle.
William Camden taught at Westminster School from 1575. He visited Bala and wrote ‘ On the browe or edge hereof (The edge of the lake) standeth Bala, a little towne with many immunities (disadvantages), but peopled with few inhabitants, and as rudely and unhandsomely built, neverthelesse it is the chiefe mercate towne for these mountainers.’
In 1682, Edward Jones and 17 Quaker families sought religious freedom by sailing to Merion Pennsylvania. They were among the first Welsh settlers in America and their town was renamed Bala-Cynwyd in 1886.
In the late eighteenth century Bala was the centre of a Methodist revival which was headed by Thomas Charles, a pioneer of the Sunday School movement. He was involved along with William Wilberforce and others in the formation of the British and Foreign Bible Society in 1804- known today simply as Bible Society. This was a response to the plight of many in Wales represented by Mary Jones, who famously walked 26 miles one way to buy her own Welsh language Bible.
By 1801 the population of Bala was 6,586; by 1911 it had fallen to 5,609 and today it is under 2,000.because people go to the cities for work.
In 1865, Michael D. Jones of Bala organised the founding of a Welsh colony in Patagonia. He himself remained in Bala to establish the Bala-Bangor Theological College. There is still Welsh spoken in Patagonia today.
In 1868 the Bala and Dolgelley Railway Company built a line between Corwen and Dolgellau. It was operated by the Great Western Railway which acquired it in 1877. The bridge by Glan y Gro dates from this time. Trains operated until December 1964 when the last mail train from Chester used the line.
Bala became the centre of the Welsh cloth industry. Knig George III wore Bala Stockings to ease his rheumatism. Almost all Bala women were engaged in knitting.
Rheilfford Lyn Tegid Ltd opened a narrow gauge line in 1971. It was the first company to be registered in the Welsh language.