Dolgellau is a market town as well as neighborhood in Gwynedd, north-west Wales, pushing the River Wnion, a tributary of the River Mawddach. It is commonly the county town of the historic region of Merionethshire (Welsh: Meirionnydd, Sir Feirionnydd), which shed its management condition when Gwynedd was created in 1974. Dolgellau is the main base for climbers of Cadair Idris. Although extremely tiny, it is the second largest settlement in Southern Gwynedd after Tywyn. The neighborhood consists of Penmaenpool. The name of the town is of unsure beginning, although dôl is Welsh for "field" or "dale", and also (y) gelli (soft anomaly of celli) implies "grove" or "spinney", and prevails locally in names for ranches in sheltered spaces. This would certainly appear to be the most likely derivation, giving the translation "Grove Meadow". It has also been recommended that the name might stem from words cell, indicating "cell", equating for that reason as "Meadow of [monks'] cells", but this appears less likely thinking about the background of the name. The earliest videotaped spelling (from 1253, in the Study of Merioneth) is "Dolkelew", although a spelling "Dolgethley" days from 1285. From after that until the 19th century, most punctuations were along the lines of "Dôlgelly" "Dolgelley", "Dolgelly" or "Dolgelli" (Owain Glyndwr's scribe created "Dolguelli"). Thomas Pennant utilized the form "Dolgelleu" in his Tours of Wales, and this was the type made use of in the Church Registers in 1723, although it never ever had much currency. In 1825 the Registers had "Dolgellau", which develop Robert Vaughan of Hengwrt embraced in 1836. While this kind might derive from an incorrect etymology, it ended up being conventional in Welsh and is currently the conventional type in both Welsh as well as English. It was adopted as the official name by the regional country district council in 1958. Shortly before the closure of the town's railway station it displayed signs reviewing otherwise Dolgelly, Dolgelley as well as Dolgellau.