Historic Bala

Reproduced courtesy of worldwidewales.tv

Situated within the Snowdonia National Park, the present town of Bala was established by Roger de Mortimer with a Royal Charter in 1310 to tame the rebellious Penllyn district. By Tudor times it was a "little poor market" and prosperity came to Bala in the late 18th and early 19th century when it became the centre of the Welsh cloth industry; George III wore Bala stockings to ease his rheumatism!

So great was the demand for the cloth that almost all of Bala’s women were involved. Religious heritage is important, for Bala was one of the centres of the Methodist revival of the 18th and 19th centuries. Thomas Charles, pioneer of the Sunday School movement, was a minister here and was inspired to form the Bible Society by 16-year-old Mary Jones who walked 25 miles over the mountains to buy her famous bible in 1804.

Nonconformity was a mainstay then, but it was not always so. Seeking religious freedom in 1682, Edward Jones and 17 Quaker families from Bala settled the area of Merion, Pennsylvania. They were among the first Welsh settlers in the United States and their town was renamed Bala-Cynwyd in 1886 Michael D Jones of Bala was the prime mover for the founding of the Welsh Colony in Patagonia in 1865, though he remained in Bala to establish the Bala-Bangor Theological College. Some Welsh is still spoken in Patagonia today.

Though only 41 when he died in 1899, Tom Ellis, as Liberal MP for Merionethshire, was a spirited fighter for the interests of Wales and was heavily involved in the movement for a National Library. Another kind of spirit was also evidenced in Bala though, for Squire Price of the Rhiwlas Estate was the first to distil Welsh whisky - he is buried at nearby Llanfor beneath a commemoration of the racehorse Bendigo that once saved him from financial ruin by winning a race: "As to my latter end I go, To win my Jubilee, I bless the good horse Bendigo; Who built this tomb for me".