Marking 60 years since a nuclear power station arrived in Snowdonia National Park

There were howls of protest at the time, but few of them came from the locals themselves who welcomed the work the power station was bringing to the area.

Our nostalgic photo comes from the autumn of 1964 when the plant had sprung to life in Snowdonia national park. The nuclear reactor had gone critical some weeks previously. Despite the alarming name, criticality merely meant the reactor was in a configuration that would let it operate at a steady power level, but electricity was not yet flowing into the national grid.

Trawsfynydd nuclear power station, near Blaenau Ffestiniog, was destined to be familiar to countless Midlanders on their way to their seaside holidays.

It had been built for the Central Electricity Generating Board and was of what was loosely known as the Calder Hall type. It was the first nuclear power station in the UK to be built inland, drawing its condenser cooling water from Trawsfynydd Lake.

Construction had begun in 1959, with both reactors operational by 1965. The power station stopped generating in 1991 and defuelling was completed by 1997 with fuel elements removed from the site and transported to Sellafield for processing.

The decommissioning and clearance of the site is a continuing process which will last for decades. Nevertheless, the Trawsfynydd site may yet play a part in Britain's future energy strategy.

Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson told a Welsh Conservative conference in 2022 that the UK government was looking to build a small modular reactor there.

However earlier this year Great British Nuclear, the organisation set up to co-ordinate the industry, said that the site did not have enough space for such a scheme, but remained an "interesting site for future nuclear development."

One of the more unusual past roles for Trawsfynydd has been as a film location.

Parts of the 1995 movie First Knight, starring Richard Gere, Sean Connery, and Julia Ormond, were filmed in the area, with "Camelot" being created on the edge of Trawsfynydd Lake. Black Rock Sands, near Porthmadog, was among other locations as the film-makers took advantage of the stunning scenery.

Locals were used as extras in the battle scenes of the movie, which was based on the Arthurian legend.

It had its European premiere at the Coliseum cinema in Porthmadog on July 3 that year, the same day First Knight was screened in New York. Top film executives attended the Welsh charity premiere but there was disappointment for the hundreds of locals who turned out to spot the stars as Connery and Gere were absent.

Ormond did go and, stepping onto a hastily rolled out red carpet, she said: “It did rain rather more than in California but I would prefer to be here any day because the scenery is a lot better.’’

Afterwards Gwynedd County Council’s media unit, which had attracted numerous film producers to the region, wanted to transform the turbine hall at Trawsfynydd into a film studio, although nothing seems to have come of it.

As for the 1930s art deco Coliseum cinema in Porthmadog, it was demolished in February 2016 despite a campaign to save it.