Two Conwy coracle reproductions were in use in the 1990s made to the dimensions of an original from the 1880s. This type of coracle is very stable and can be easily be entered by stepping in and also is very stable to paddle sitting and standing also easy to step out, unlike some other coracle designs that can and do turn over. Unusually new paddlers to the coracle all sat (although unknown to them) and paddled the craft backwards. The coracle has matching ends but the seat is offset and is nearer to the back and easier to paddle that way. The photograph of Ion Glan Lledr in his Conwy Coracle in the late 19th portrays him paddling the other but the more difficult way.
Conwy Coracle displayed at
The National Museum of Wales
In the nineteen-thirties when James Hornell was writing about coracles he recorded that they were unknown on the River Conwy apart from examples imported from other rivers. He was wrong in that assumption and in fact a coracle type unique to the river had been in use until about the start of the Great War (1914). The design was a large two-man coracle unusually made from lathes three inches wide. One such craft is on display at the National Museum of Wales at Cardiff and belonged to John Jones of Betws-y-coed who was licensed to fish for Salmon on the Lledr, a river that flows into the Conwy. In 1819 Michael Faraday who was visiting the river wrote a description of the fishing technique and described one of the fisherman facing the back of the coracle and casting the net behind the craft. This would indicate that a long net was used and not the armoured trammel nets used by coracle fishermen on other Welsh rivers.
From about 1875 onwards coracles were only used on the non-tidal part
of the river between Llanrwst and Betws-y-coed although recent information
has indicated that they were also used on the River Llugwy and local lakes.
An unusual description of a Conwy coracle was recorded in a nineteenth
century Welsh language newspaper that described one used by the father
of Ion Glan Lledr (in photo) that was…"Some four yards or more
in length, with two benches across for two to sit"… This is
the only record of a tandem coracle.
Llanrwst Bridge
In the 1640s Queen Henrietta Maria was presented with a pearl from the Conwy that was taken from the mussel Margarithia Margaritifea. Today that species is extinct in the river and was last found about fifty years ago although in 1856 mussels were to be found in the river between Llanrwst to Betws-y-coed also in the river Llugwy where coracles were used when collecting the mussels.
