, Bala, Gwynedd, Wales,

Street View of Tomen y Bala | Map of Tomen y Bala location

Tomen y Bala is a medieval earthwork castle of the 11th to 12th Century situated close to what is now the High Street in Bala. The Castle is 40m wide and 9m high and is likely to have been the administrative centre of the commote of Tryweryn. It was still fortified in 1202 when Llywelyn ap Iorwerth, Prince Llywelyn the Great, drove out Elis ap Madog, Lord of Penllyn. This predates the actual town of Bala which although being situated in the Welsh heartlands was originally an English town, though we have to go back to the middle ages and the year of 1310 when Bala was founded as an English borough. In its time Tomen Y Bala would have seen much violence but in more recent times men would be seen practising the old skill of knitting on the slopes of the castle mound. Yes in byegone days Bala was an important centre for the manufacture of woollen stockings, and there was a famous Saturday morning stocking market in the town. Everybody around Bala knitted in those days and both men and women would sit knitting on the castle mound in summer evenings.....