Porthmadog (once known as Portmadoc) is situated in the county of Gwynedd, North Wales. It is a busy little town situated on the Glaslyn Estuary on the edge of the Snowdonia National Park and the Llyn Peninsula. Most of the town is built upon land reclaimed from the sea by William Madocks, and this led to the town's name, which translates from the Welsh into "Madog's Port.â€

The history of the town revolves around the harbour, the slate trade, and the Ffestiniog Railway. For many years, the town's prosperity owed much to the slate trade which exported roofing slate all over the world from the harbour at Porthmadog. | The Ffestiniog Railway (originally horse drawn) opened for freight traffic in 1836 and transported the slate from source at Blaenau Ffestiniog to the harbour via a 21km journey through meadows, woodlands, lakes and waterfalls within what is now the Snowdonia National Park. However, the commercial future of Porthmadog as a harbour began to decline with the arrival of the Cambrian Railway in 1867, offering an alternative means of transport to the growing industrial towns in England. The last of the fleet of ships had disappeared by 1945 ending with it an important chapter in the history of the town. At about the same time, the Ffestiniog Railway closed down, and things looked bleak for a short while.