Pen-y-Gwryd

Pen-y-Gwryd is a pass at the head of Nantygwryd and Nant Cynnyd rivers close to the foot of Snowdon in Gwynedd, Wales.

From Pen-y-Pass is the "PYG track", one of the many routes leading to the summit of Snowdon, its name is believed be derived from the initials ("P-y-G").

The camp, which has a rhomboid shape, covers about 4 ha (9.9 acres) providing accommodation for up to 2000 soldiers and their baggage trains.

[1] The camp was probably first built during the Roman General Gnaeus Julius Agricola's conquest of the Ordovices in the late AD 70's.

Although the camp had no permanent garrison or buildings, it may have been a waypoint for Roman units travelling between Deva Victrix (Chester) and Segontium (Caernarfon).

[3] The site is difficult to observe due to erosion and local land usage as nothing remains except grass and bramble-covered mounds.

It was first excavated in 1960 by early surveying courses from Plas-y-Brenin under the auspices of Dr Josephine Flood (née Scarr).

Initially Henry combined his hostelry work with a position of Agent at the nearby Snowdonian copper mine and later with farming.

The work features a notable introduction by Jan Morris as well as contributions by: (amongst others) Chris Bonnnington, Peter Hillary, Rebecca Stephens, Jim, Perrin, Joe Brown, Anna Lawford, Ed Webster, Caradoc 'Crag' Jones, Doug Scott, John Disley, H.P.S Ahluwalia, Norbu Tenzing Norgay, Margaret Clennett, Hugh Brasher and Julian Freeman-Attwood as well as William 'Bill' Roache of Coronation Street fame.

On the right, at the hotel entrance, there is a Tyrolean-style Stüberl (dining room) with the signatures, written on the ceiling, of the teams that did the first ascent of Everest in 1953 and of the first ascent of Kangchenjunga in 1955 – these include Sir Edmund Hillary, Tenzing Norgay, Sir John Hunt, Charles Evans, George Band, Joe Brown, John Angelo Jackson,[10] Wilfred Noyce,[11] Tony Streather, Tom Mackinnon, Norman Hardie, Neil Mather, John Clegg and others, including Noel Odell from Mallory's 1924 expedition and Chris Bonington of later successes.

Other notable visitors include: Charles Kingsley and Henry Kingsley, William Ewart Gladstone (Gladstones), Augustine Birrell, Walter Parry Haskett Smith, Thomas Huxley, Lord Coleridge – past and present (at the time of writing), John Henry Cliffe who wrote Notes and Recollections of an Angler (1860), Andrew Ramsay,[12] George Mallory in 1914, and actor Jack Hawkins during the filming of The Long Arm on location in Snowdonia.