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The old Garsiwn Well, where it's recorded that the
Earl of Richmond's troops drank on 11 Aug 1485, before marching on to the
Battle of Bosworth Field. For a location of such antiquity, it's a pity that
it's now ignored and confined behind ugly bars.
Grid Ref: SH
744007.
Adjacent to the town is a field named the "Garshion," at the
extremity of which is a copious spring, whence the inhabitants of Machynlleth
are supplied with water. From: 'Machynlleth - Mancott', A Topographical
Dictionary of Wales (1849), pp. 179-86. URL:
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=47866. Date accessed: 20
August 2006. |
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Pistyll Gwyn, on the southern face of Penrallt, which
traditionally had a reputation as a medicinal well, in that it helped cure
sprains. I'm guessing that it might also have been important to the tanning
industry which was carried out at Tanws (Tan House), a hundred feet or so
below. It was specifically mentioned in a 1769 Act of Parliament in the context
of the shutting of "a way or lane leading under Pen-yr-Allt Hill by Pistyll
Gwun into the road leading from Machynlleth to Dolguog".
Grid Ref: SH
749012.
"Pistyll Gwyn. On Penrallt Common, Machynlleth: it cured
sprains". Bygones, 15 Nov 1911. |
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Part way along Garth Lane (or, as the authorites
insist, Garth Road) there's this cut-out depression in a rock that's usually
water-filled, assisted by a channel that looks as if it's been cut into the
rock specifically to catch water draining off the bank. An earlier generation
knew this as the "wishing well". I recall a lady 45 years ago who must have
been born in the early 1900s using it to make wishes, and in 2003 I had a
letter from someone else in her 80s who wrote "I never passed along Garth Lane
without dipping my fingers in the well and wishing". How old was this
tradition, and has it now faded away?
Grid Ref: SH 754012. |
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A very well-hidden and well-rusted tap, in an alley
off Poplar Square, with the words "Kennedy Patentee" + some indistinct letters
that might just be "Lion". A very similar model is listed as "Kennedy's Patent
Self-closing Wall Fountain" at
http://www.scottishironwork.org/
Grid
Ref: SH744009 . |
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Site of tap (now missing) on Tanrallt, below Penrallt,
opposite Graig Fach.
Grid Ref: SH 746009.
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Just found an old photograph of two long-gone
Machynlleth characters posing in front of a magnificent pump in Graig Fach. The
pump also is long-gone, but I'll try to get permission to include the pic
here. |
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"In 1874 Ioan Glan Crewi wrote an englyn to
Ffynnon y Llynlloedd, Machynlleth." The Holy Wells of Wales, Francis
Jones.
Grid Ref: .
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Ornamental fountain in the Plas Rose
Garden.
Grid Ref: SH 746005. |