Arenig Fawr is the highest member of the Arenig range, with Arenig Fach (Welsh for 'small high ground'), a smaller neighbouring mountain, lying to the north. It is surrounded by Moel Llyfnant to the west, Rhobell Fawr to the south and Mynydd Nodol to the east.
Ascent
The easy-to-moderate climb to the summit takes about 2½ hours from Llyn Celyn. There are no readily identifiable footpaths but the route is marked by an old wire boundary fence. Beneath the mountain is Llyn Arenig Fawr, a reservoir providing drinking water to Bala and the surrounding villages.
The summit, which is also known as Moel yr Eglwys (Welsh for 'Bare hill of the church'), has a trig point and a memorial to eight American aircrew who died when their Flying Fortressbomber B-17F #42-3124 crashed on 4 August 1943. Some of the crash wreckage is still scattered across the hillside 300 m (330 yds) from the memorial location.
ArenigHalt was a request stop on the Bala Ffestiniog Line. It closed to passenger services on 2 January 1960 and freight services on 27 January 1961. The remains of the station buildings have been cleared away leaving no trace.[1][2][3]
Artists James Dickson Innes and Augustus John used the mountain as a backdrop during their two years of painting in the Arenig valley between 1911 and 1912. In 2011 their work was the subject of a BBC documentary entitled The Mountain That Had to Be Painted.[5]
In The Faerie Queene, an incomplete English epic poem by Sir Edmund Spenser, the home of 'old Timon', Prince Arthur's sage foster-father, "is low in a valley greene, Under the foot of Rauran mossy hore".[6] Welsh historian Sir John Edward Lloyd wrote that Rauran "comes from Saxton's map of Merionethshire (1578), which places ‘Rarau uaure Hill’ (Yr Aran Fawr) where Arenig should be".[7]
A boulder at a crossroads in the hamlet of Bell Heath, near Belbroughton, Worcestershire, in England, has a brass plaque attached to it stating "Boulder from Arenig Mountain in N. Wales, Brought here by the Welsh Ice-sheet in the Glacial Period".[8]
References
↑Marsh, Terry (1984). The Summits of Snowdonia. London: Robert Hale.
↑Nuttall, John & Anne (1999). The Mountains of England & Wales - Volume 1: Wales (2nd edition ed.). Milnthorpe, Cumbria: Cicerone Press. ISBN1-85284-304-7.
