What do you think?
The historic building at Pen y Pass used to be called Gorphwysfa. Today it’s official name is YHA Snowdon Pen y Pass, but the most prominent signs on the building read ‘Mallory’s’, which is the new branding of the cafe-bar inside.
In our spring magazine we featured an item by Duncan Brown of Llen Natur about it. The item is copied below, or you can read it in our on-line magazine.
A number of people have contacted the YHA about the names and the history; we will let you know what comes of the discussion.
“ … a thousand cuts”
by Duncan Brown (www.llennatur.com)
(First published in Snowdonia Society spring 2016 magazine.)
Why do people feel so strongly about place-names? I had to think anew about that question recently when, as Editor of the Llên Natur Project, my attention was drawn to an example of a change of name to a very prominent feature in the Park. The local mountaineer Maldwyn Peris wrote to tell me of his dismay at a recent name-change to the youth hostel and the cafe at ‘Gorffwysfa’, Pen y Pass. The name has been changed to ‘Mallory’s’.
I was struck dumb by the news. But what right have I, or anyone else, to complain about the name of a private cafe in such a public place? Despite that, I did complain and I will complain, and here’s why.
The interest of place-names for environmentalists is the wealth of information that comes with them about the location, its history … “the land of our fathers”, whoever we are. Many place-names of course contain ecological information – obvious, I hope, to readers of this magazine. But this is not the whole story – wouldn’t names translated into English fulfil the same purpose? No, it goes much deeper than that.
Occasionally I follow the campaigns of peoples such as the aborigines to protect their sacred sites from damage and disrespect by visitors who are unable to understand the sites’ significance to the native people. America’s First Nations plead a similar cause.
Regarding the case at Pen y Pass, we have a common enough Welsh name. Gorffwysfa (or Gorphwysfa) – resting place, but a resting place for whom? Others more qualified than me must be familiar with the background; and if there is more to know, beyond being somewhere to put one’s feet up, perhaps for the last time, then that’s a pearl of wisdom yet to reach me. A reason in itself to hold on to the name.
According to Maldwyn, the name has a long history: Thomas Pennant mentioned ‘Gorphwysfa’ in 1773; the new road through the pass was built in 1830; in 1843 there was a small tavern and cottages on the site; the tavern was rebuilt in 1901 and the family of Owen Rawson Owen owned the hotel from 1903; it was shut in 1967; and the building was bought by the YHA and opened as a hostel in 1971.
And so we come to the new name: ‘Mallory’s’. The last thing I want to do is disrespect the name of this man – a hero in the climbing world who partly served his apprenticeship on Snowdon. Here’s a man who did more in his field than the majority of us. He certainly deserves recognition in Snowdonia, but, not at the expense of a Welsh place-name – a principle that’s as sacred as that of Chomolongma (Everest) to the people of Tibet, or Uluru (Ayers Rock) to the local Australian aborigine tribe.
Aren’t our Welsh place-names by now our only hold on our land, and does each little change loosen our grip? Death by a thousand cuts. I’ll leave the last word to Maldwyn: “It makes me really mad each time I pass the old Gorphwysfa, to see that name … shame on us …”. Over to you, Snowdonia Society!
