Trawsfynydd is a old slate-quarrying village, an industrial settlement in the middle of remote and beautiful landscape. The original settlement is medieval, and the church of St Madryn is well worth a visit.
When the slate quarries closed, the village was geared to the needs of the now-defunct Magnox power station. It is now an excellent centre for walking, lying as it does between the Rhinogs and the Moelwyns. South-west of the lake is one of the most extensive and best-preserved Bronze Age landscapes in the British Isles, with standing stones, cairn circles and the remains of round huts strung out along an ancient trackway and the jagged crown of the cairn on Bryn Cader Faner towering above it all.
There is little of industrial archaeological interest in the area, apart from a few small, disused slate quarries. The only significant one, Braich-ddû slate quarries to the north of Tomen y Mur (area 15), closed in 1868 (and was the last quarry to have slate taken down to the Afon Dwyryd to be taken out by boat),