Boston Lodge

Boston Lodge is situated at Penrhyn Isa, Minffordd, Penrhyndeudraeth, on the A487 road about 1 mile SE across the Afon Glaslyn causeway from Porthmadog, Gwynedd in north-west Wales.

The original 'Penrhyn Isa' cottage (now the railway works office) was renamed 'Boston Lodge' after Boston, Lincolnshire, the parliamentary seat of William Madocks, the proprietor of the land reclamation venture.

Construction of the causeway, known locally as ‘The Cob’, linking Penrhyn Isa on the Merioneth shore with the small rocky island called Ynys Towyn (where Britannia Terrace now stands in Porthmadog) near the Caernarfonshire shore, started in 1807 and was completed in 1811 during which time large quantities of stone was quarried and extracted from both ends.

The site at Boston Lodge first held barracks for many of the 150 men working from the Merioneth side on the embankment construction, together with stables and smithies for the horses and wagons used to carry the stone.

The works undertakes the restoration and preservation of the railway's historic locomotives, carriages, wagons and features of all descriptions.

These outside contracts have included restoration work on steam engines and the complete construction of various replica narrow-gauge passenger coaches.

Prior to the coming of the Ffestiniog Railway, the road was on the top of the embankment, but in 1836 the present carriageway was constructed on the landward side at the lower level.

At 3:00pm on Saturday 29 March 2003, the tollgate and its cottage having been bought from the Rebecca Trustees by the Welsh Assembly Government, the toll (still just five pence per day) ceased to be levied.