Bala Lake ( cy, Llyn Tegid ) is a large
freshwater
Fresh water or freshwater is any naturally occurring liquid or frozen water containing low concentrations of dissolved salts and other total dissolved solids. Although the term specifically excludes seawater and brackish water, it does include ...
glacial lake in
Gwynedd
Gwynedd (; ) is a county and preserved county (latter with differing boundaries; includes the Isle of Anglesey) in the north-west of Wales. It shares borders with Powys, Conwy County Borough, Denbighshire, Anglesey over the Menai Strait, and C ...
, Wales. The
River Dee, which has its source on the slopes of
Dduallt
Dduallt ( en, Black hill) (pronounced ) is a mountain in central Snowdonia, north Wales. It is the sister peak of Rhobell Fawr.
It lies north of the A494 road, A494 between Dolgellau and Llanuwchllyn. Its eastern slopes are the Source (river or ...
in the mountains of
Snowdonia, feeds the long by wide lake. It was the largest natural body of water in Wales before its level was raised by
Thomas Telford to provide water for the
Ellesmere Canal
The Ellesmere Canal was a waterway in England and Wales that was planned to carry boat traffic between the rivers Mersey and Severn. The proposal would create a link between the Port of Liverpool and the mineral industries in north east Wales an ...
(later
Llangollen Canal).
The town of
Bala
Bala may refer to:
Places
India
*Bala, India, a village in Allahabad, India
* Bala, Ahor, a village in the Jalore district of Rajasthan
* Bala, Raebareli, a village in Uttar Pradesh, India
Romania
* Bala, Mehedinți, a commune in Mehedinţi ...
, which was once an important centre for the North Wales woollen trade, is located on the north-eastern end of the lake. The
narrow gauge Bala Lake Railway, between the town and
Llanuwchllyn
Llanuwchllyn () is a village and community in Gwynedd, Wales, near the southern end of Bala Lake (Llyn Tegid). It is one of the most sparsely populated communities in Wales.
The electoral ward includes the small settlement of Llangywer.
The ...
(whose name means "church
llan'above
uwch'the lake
llyn'), runs along the lake's south-eastern shore using a section of former trackbed from the former
Ruabon–Barmouth line
The Ruabon–Barmouth line was a standard-gauge line owned by the Great Western Railway across the north of Wales which connected Ruabon, in the east, with Barmouth on the west coast.
Connections
* At Ruabon, the line connected with the Shrewsbur ...
.
Toponyms
Previous names
Gerald of Wales records the lake in his 12th century ''
Itinerarium Cambriae'' under the name ''Penmelesmere''. In his 1804 translation of Gerald's work,
Sir Richard Colt Hoare
Sir Richard Colt Hoare, 2nd Baronet FRS (9 December 1758 – 19 May 1838) was an English antiquarian, archaeologist, artist, and traveller of the 18th and 19th centuries, the first major figure in the detailed study of the history of his home c ...
states that the lake was also referred to as ''Pymplwy meer'' deriving from "pum plwyf" (five parishes). This name refers to the parishes of
Llandderfel
Llandderfel is a village and a sparsely populated community in Gwynedd, Wales, near Bala, formerly served by the Llandderfel railway station. The community also includes the settlements of Glan-yr-afon, Llanfor, Cefnddwysarn and Frongoch. T ...
, Llanfawr,
Llanycil, Llanuwchllyn and
Llangywer. This name was also recorded by other English writers as "Pimble-mere" (in the 1813 Cambrian Travellers' Guide) and "Pemble Mere".
Modern names
The
Modern Welsh name "Llyn Tegid" first appears in the
Cronica Walliae, published in 1568. The name is translated by
George Borrow as "Lake of Beauty", where the name "Tegid" derives from ''teg'', a common Welsh place name element meaning "fair" (as in pleasant or fine scenery).
The lake's name is often given as "Bala Lake" in English, after the nearby town of
Bala
Bala may refer to:
Places
India
*Bala, India, a village in Allahabad, India
* Bala, Ahor, a village in the Jalore district of Rajasthan
* Bala, Raebareli, a village in Uttar Pradesh, India
Romania
* Bala, Mehedinți, a commune in Mehedinţi ...
. However, the word "bala" means "outlet of a lake", giving Bala Lake an impossible meaning. The usage of the English name in preference to the Welsh name is considered controversial by many.
Geology
The lake formed in a glacial valley along the fault line between Bala and
Tal-y-Llyn. Towards the end of the
last ice age, the receding Dee valley glacier left a
recessional moraine
A moraine is any accumulation of unconsolidated debris (regolith and rock), sometimes referred to as glacial till, that occurs in both currently and formerly glaciated regions, and that has been previously carried along by a glacier or ice shee ...
, effectively damming the valley so resulting in the establishment of the lake, and on which the town of Bala now stands.
Wildlife
The lake has abundant
pike,
perch,
brown trout
The brown trout (''Salmo trutta'') is a European species of salmonid fish that has been widely introduced into suitable environments globally. It includes purely freshwater populations, referred to as the riverine ecotype, ''Salmo trutta'' morph ...
,
roach
Roach may refer to:
Animals
* Cockroach, various insect species of the order Blattodea
* Common roach (''Rutilus rutilus''), a fresh and brackish water fish of the family Cyprinidae
** ''Rutilus'' or roaches, a genus of fishes
* California roach ...
, and
eel. It also contains the
gwyniad
The gwyniad (''Coregonus pennantii'') is a freshwater whitefish native to Bala Lake ( cy, Llyn Tegid) in northern Wales.
The population is threatened by deteriorating water quality and by the ruffe, a fish introduced to the lake in the 1980s and ...
, a fish unique to the locality and listed as critically endangered by the
IUCN
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natu ...
due to the introduction of the invasive and non native
ruffe;
[– Snowdonia Guide, Bala Lake website](_blank)
/ref> and the very rare mollusc ''Myxas glutinosa
''Myxas glutinosa'' (glutinous snail) is a species of small air-breathing freshwater snail, an aquatic gastropod mollusc in the family Lymnaeidae, the pond snails.
Anatomy
This snail is unusual in that it extends its almost transparent man ...
'' (the glutinous snail). According to legend, whilst the Dee itself flows through the lake, the waters never mix. However this was not confirmed by the detailed limnological work undertaken from the 1990s, to understand and manage the occurrence of algal blooms on the lake.
In the 1990s the lake suffered from blooms of blue-green algae which indicated a significant and worrying eutrophication of the lake. Investigation by the Environment Agency
The Environment Agency (EA) is a non-departmental public body, established in 1996 and sponsored by the United Kingdom government's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with responsibilities relating to the protection and enha ...
, in partnership with the water industry, the farming community and others, has put in place a plan for reducing pollution inputs to the lake.
Water management
The lake forms part of the River Dee regulation system
The Dee regulation scheme is a system of flow balancing and quality management along the River Dee, Wales, River Dee managed by a consortium of the three largest water companies licensed to take water from the river, United Utilities, Welsh Wate ...
and the level at its outflow is automatically controlled. Depending on flow conditions and the level of water in Llyn Celyn
Llyn Celyn () is a reservoir constructed between 1960 and 1965 in the valley of the River Tryweryn in Gwynedd, Wales. It measures roughly long by wide, and has a maximum depth of . It has the capacity to hold of water.
It was originally ...
, water can flow either into or out of the lake at the normal outflow point. Controls on the level of water in the lake were first constructed around 1840. Sluices designed and built by Thomas Telford and William Jessop were installed to ensure that the newly constructed Ellesmere Canal
The Ellesmere Canal was a waterway in England and Wales that was planned to carry boat traffic between the rivers Mersey and Severn. The proposal would create a link between the Port of Liverpool and the mineral industries in north east Wales an ...
had a constant and sufficient supply of water. In the 1950s, these sluices were removed when the Dee and Clwyd River Authority constructed a new outlet channel and sluices to better control flooding of the upper Dee caused by uncontrolled releases of water from the lake. The operation of these sluices enables the lake to operate as water storage or water capacitance in the Dee system and thus allow water to be abstracted at Huntington near Chester, England in order to supply fresh water to the Wirral, England.
Recreation
Bala has been a tourist destination since the early 19th century. With the advent of the railways, Bala saw a growth in visitor numbers. This continued with the invention of the motor vehicle. The lake remains popular; it has two sailing clubs, and a number of companies provide kayaks, yachts and various other types of boats for hire.
In Welsh mythology
There was a belief in Wales that certain lakes are offended when mortals attempt to measure their depths. Two men went out in a boat to the deepest part of the lake to measure it with a plummet and line. They were angrily warned by the lake to return to the shore or face destruction.
Tegid Foel
The mythological
Myth is a folklore genre consisting of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not objectively true, the identification of a narrat ...
figure '' Tegid Foel'' ( en, Bald Tegid) is associated with the lake. He was the husband of the goddess or witch Ceridwen and the place where his court stood is now beneath the waters of the lake. According to Taliesin, the 6th century CE early Brittonic poet of Sub-Roman Britain
Sub-Roman Britain is the period of late antiquity in Great Britain between the end of Roman rule and the Anglo-Saxon settlement. The term was originally used to describe archaeological remains found in 5th- and 6th-century AD sites that hint ...
whose work survived in a Middle Welsh manuscript, the ''Book of Taliesin
The Book of Taliesin ( cy, Llyfr Taliesin) is one of the most famous of Middle Welsh manuscripts, dating from the first half of the 14th century though many of the fifty-six poems it preserves are taken to originate in the 10th century or before ...
'', Tegid Foel's entire court was drowned in one night. Although in legend, its lights and the little town around it can still be seen on moonlit nights.
The drowning of the court of Tegid Foel also survives in a variant folktale. Near the lake was a walled spring that had to be secured and locked every night with a lid so that the spring water would not be corrupted by supernatural influences. For whatever reason, the man responsible for this task neglected his duty, though some say the Devil had found a way to open it. In any event, the water burst forth from the spring and completely drowned a nearby town, and this is how the lake was formed.[Trevelyan, Marie (1909), ''Folklore and Folk Stories of Wales'', p. 13.]
"Teggie"
Many of Wales' largest lakes feature in Welsh mythology, often associated with lake monsters
A lake monster is a lake-dwelling entity in folklore. The most famous example is the Loch Ness Monster. Depictions of lake monsters are often similar to those of sea monsters.
In the ''Motif-Index of Folk-Literature'', entities classified as "lak ...
, called '' afancod'' (plural of ''afanc'', "beaver"). The legend of such a creature in this lake was recorded in 1909, when the folklorist
Folklore studies, less often known as folkloristics, and occasionally tradition studies or folk life studies in the United Kingdom, is the branch of anthropology devoted to the study of folklore. This term, along with its synonyms, gained currenc ...
Marie Trevelyan collated a number of local legends including the story of a coiled dragon-like creature living in the lake some centuries earlier.
Modern reports of sightings have been recorded since the 1920s. These include strange disruptions of the water's surface, disturbance of watercraft and the increase in local belief that a beast was living below the lake's surface. Of these sightings, the most notable was reported by the lake's manager Dowie Bowen in the 1970s. Bowen described seeing a crocodile-like creature, about eight feet (2.4 m) in length emerge from the water. Bowen's report was soon followed in 1979 by another sighting, when a fisherman visiting the lake also described seeing a large hump-backed beast at the water's surface. By the 1990s the various sightings had attracted film crews and investigators. One Japanese crew spent three days investigating and filming the lake using specialist diving equipment and a submarine. However, no substantial evidence for the creature's existence has been found.
The lake is already known to be home to a unique and extant species, the gwyniad
The gwyniad (''Coregonus pennantii'') is a freshwater whitefish native to Bala Lake ( cy, Llyn Tegid) in northern Wales.
The population is threatened by deteriorating water quality and by the ruffe, a fish introduced to the lake in the 1980s and ...
. The survival of the gwyniad has led to discussions as to whether the lake could support a larger predator, and whether such a creature could survive in its isolated environment into modern times. Supporters for the potential existence of an afanc-like creature suggest that both the lake's size (40 metres deep and almost 6 km long) and the abundance of potential prey within it (pike, perch, brown trout and eels) would be able to support a single large predator or even a breeding population.
References
External links
Bala Lake
www.geograph.co.uk : photos of Bala Lake and surrounding area
{{Authority control
Bala, Gwynedd
Tourism in Gwynedd
Sites of Special Scientific Interest in East Gwynedd
Ramsar sites in Wales
River Dee, Wales
Lakes of Gwynedd
RBala