Wartime history to be respected as new homes all set for village

New light has been shed on the rich history at a site which is about to be bulldozed for housing. Local democracy reporter Dale Spridgeon reports

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IT IS hard to imagine that an idyllic, peaceful corner of rural Wales could ever be the target of a terrifying bombing raid.

But that is exactly what happened in the Pen y Berth area of Penrhos, on the Llyn Peninsula, in the 1940s.

During the Second World War it was home to RAF Penrhos and had been the site of a bombing school established in 1936.

The RAF base was heavily targeted by the Luftwaffe during the Second World War and endured several bombing raids between July and October 1940.

One event is vividly described in the details of a Cyngor Gwynedd archaeological planning report.

Written by Aeon Archaeology, the document cites an account by LAC (Cpl) Peter Baxter, who said of one of the raids: “We had been thrown to the floor - a German bomber overhead, a Dornier 217 with its machine guns rattling away.” (Annand, 1986; Parry & Stokes, 2022.)

The report has been commissioned as part of the planning conditions for a housing development on the land.

The site’s last use was as a home for expatriate Polish, which had grown out of the disused RAF base and its buildings.

The Polish Village at Penrhos, the report said, stood “as a vital cultural, social and historical refuge for displaced Polish nationals in Britain after World War II”.

It added: “This community, deeply rooted in the Polish contribution to the Allied war effort, became a haven for those unable to return to Poland”

It also details the area's medieval origins, its transitioning manorial estate and farming history from the 16th to the 19th century, and includes tales of bards, pilgrims, dissident Catholics and its influence on Welsh nationalism.