Botwnnog is a small village built around a crossroad on the B4413, approximately 21km (13 miles) south west of Pwllheli, on the Lleyn Peninsula.

Henry Rowlands, Bishop of Bangor, ‘made provision for the establishment of a school at Botwnnog’ in his will, and so the Grammar School was duly built on the north side of St. Bueno’s church in 1618.

The 1888 edition of the Ordnance Survey’s six-inch map shows quite a scattered community with a few amenities. These include a post office, a church dedicated to St. Bueno, Rhyd-Bach Chapel, a post office and two schools – a Grammar School (‘not the original 1618 schoolhouse,’ but rather located to the south of the church) and a school a little to the east of the cross roads near Pont y Gof.

The village had expanded considerably by the end of the twentieth century. ‘The grammar school had been greatly enlarged and a residential focus had been established along the Meyllteyrn road, either side of the crossroads.’ By the time the six inch Ordnance Survey map was published in 1953. The Grammar School had been relabelled a ‘County Intermediate School,’ a smithy had been recorded on the eastern outskirts of the village, near the other school, and there was a telephone exchange at the crossroads.

The post office was still operational in 2009, as was St Bueno’s and Rhyd Bach Calvinistic Methodist chapel. The village also has a health centre. The grammar school or County Intermediate School is now a bilingual secondary school educating approximately 450 pupils, whilst the school to the east of the crossroads, Ysgol Pont y Gof, is a predominantly Welsh medium primary school educating approximately 120 pupils.

Sources: Gwynedd Archaeological Trust ‘Historic Landscape Characterisation Llŷn – Area 16 Nanhoron and Botwnnog’ PRN 33491; historic Ordnance Survey maps; Estyn reports for Ysgol Botwnnog (published October 2019) and for Ysgol Pont y Gof (December 2015)

M. Ryder, RCAHMW, 25th November 2020

Site Record

Botwnnog