Aberglaslyn Pass

The A498 road/A4085 road follows a relatively level route along the Afon Glaslyn through the pass from Beddgelert to Prenteg and then continues at the edge of the Traeth Mawr via Tremadog to Porthmadog.

As recently as the early 19th century, the river Glaslyn was navigable for small boats at high tide as far as Pont Aberglaslyn, which is just one mile (1.6 km) south of Beddgelert, where a sixth-century monastery was succeeded in the twelfth by an Augustinian priory.

The route from the coast via Beddgelert and overland to Caernarfon or Bangor via Llyn Cwellyn was often considered preferable to the long voyage round the Llŷn Peninsula.

From here to the sea, landowners have benefited significantly from the land reclamation made possible by the construction at Porthmadog in 1812 of the great embankment across the Traeth Mawr estuary, known as The Cob.

When the bridge was finished he went to the local inn (Y Delyn Aur) to inform the magician Robin Ddu that it was ready.

Before the Cob was built, the Glaslyn estuary was tidal as far as Pont Aberglaslyn and the fisherman's path through the pass was used as a route to the coast.

However, having no real argument (given that the fisherman's path was still alongside the railway owned trackbed), they claimed that owing to danger from falling rocks the pass would be unsafe for trains.

The public continued to unofficially use the trackbed and tunnels as a footpath until construction work on the railway made such use dangerous.