Qualla: Nantlle Valley https://qualla.com/nantlle-valley en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:13 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/k/v/nantlle-valley-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Nantlle Valley https://qualla.com/nantlle-valley Nantlle Valley: Introduction https://qualla.com/nantlle-valley/ Photo credit Hefin Owen from Wales, CC BY-SA 2.0. The mountains here look hand-carved because they are. The Nantlle Valley runs west from Snowdon's foothills to the sea, and its sides have been quarried for slate for two and a half centuries. Vast staircased pits open into the earth where whole mountains used to be. The biggest of them, Dorothea, flooded in the 1970s and now holds a turquoise lake hundreds of feet deep, with the original winding gear and quarry galleries still intact underwater. Divers come from across Europe to descend into it. Between 1994 and 2004, twenty-one of them did not come back up.

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Image: Hefin Owen from Wales | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/k/v/nantlle-valley-wp/gckv-nantlle-valley-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Nantlle Valley: Math, Lleu and the Eagle in the Oak https://qualla.com/nantlle-valley/ Photo credit Traveler100, CC BY-SA 3.0. Long before the quarries, the valley was already legendary. The Fourth Branch of the Mabinogi -- the medieval Welsh prose cycle written down in the eleventh century but drawing on much older material -- is set largely here. This is where the magician Gwydion finds his nephew Lleu...

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Image: Traveler100 | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/k/v/nantlle-valley-wp/gckv-nantlle-valley-math-lleu-and-the-eagle-in-the-oak.mp3 0:06 2 full Nantlle Valley: Edward's Tournament and the Hewn Pass https://qualla.com/nantlle-valley/ Photo credit Geoff Charles, CC BY-SA 4.0. When Edward I completed his conquest of Wales in 1282 by killing the last native Prince of Wales, his army moved across the peninsula celebrating. One of the first recorded jousts in Britain was held on the fields of Baladeulyn near Nantlle village, as the royal entourage made it...

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Image: Geoff Charles | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/k/v/nantlle-valley-wp/gckv-nantlle-valley-edwards-tournament-and-the-hewn-pass.mp3 0:06 3 full Nantlle Valley: Halley and the Floating Island https://qualla.com/nantlle-valley/ Photo credit Public domain. At the top of the valley sits Llyn y Dywarchen, a small mountain lake with an unusual feature first written about in 1188 by Giraldus Cambrensis, the Welsh-Norman chronicler who toured Wales recruiting for the Third Crusade. Giraldus described a floating island in the lake that d...

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Image: Public domain

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/k/v/nantlle-valley-wp/gckv-nantlle-valley-halley-and-the-floating-island.mp3 0:06 4 full Nantlle Valley: Where Welsh Writers Came From https://qualla.com/nantlle-valley/ Photo credit Eric Jones, CC BY-SA 2.0. Between 85 and 90 percent of the valley's population speaks Welsh as their first language, one of the highest percentages anywhere in Wales. The valley produced an extraordinary share of twentieth-century Welsh literature: the poets T.H. Parry-Williams from Rhyd Ddu and R. Willia...

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Image: Eric Jones | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/k/v/nantlle-valley-wp/gckv-nantlle-valley-where-welsh-writers-came-from.mp3 0:06 5 full