Beddgelert Woodcraft

Just a quick note to wish you all a happy and prosperous New Year. This last year has seen the thirtieth anniversary of Beddgelert Woodcraft, the production of our new line of postcards (following our photo competition) in support of the local primary school and has generally been a busy year for the village.

Our stock for the coming season is currently out at sea on its way to us, and will be arriving mid February. We shall have the old favourites — wooden birds, mosaic plates — and some new lines too. We’re looking forward to having our new shipment as there are quite a few special and unique pieces this time.

Yet again, the village put on a stunning fireworks display to see in the new year and new decade. There was a great party atmosphere, music and dancing in the streets and the river too!

Many thanks to all of you who have been to visit us. We hope to see you again in the near future.

Ho, ho, ho. Peace, joy, merriment and all that kind of malarkey. The Big Day is almost upon us yet again.

To celebrate, from midday on Christmas Eve we shall be serving up mulled wine and mince pies and having a sing along, closing at 3pm.

You may even find that last minute gift that is just a little different from the run of the mill high street fayre!

So; Come All Ye Faithful, join us to give the Christmas Festivities an early start!

We are soon to be leaving cold wet Wales on our annual buying trip.

We shall be closed on Mondays during the period 9th November to 30th November inclusive. The remainder of the week we shall be open from 10am to 5pm. During December we shall be back to our normal seven day week.

If you plan on making a special journey to visit us during November, please call us on 01766 890 586 to check and avoid disappointment.

The results of our photo competition are here and selling well. We hope this will continue and that we can raise some funds for Beddgelert Primary School.

The postcards have turned out really well and we are very happy with them, despite the odd spelling mistake which just adds to their charm!

If you are one of the competition winners, please get in touch with your postal address and we shall send a full set out to you.

Finally, we have decided on the winning photographs from our recent photo competition. We shall be creating a series of eight unique postcards from these to sell from our shop.

All proceeds from sales will be donated to Beddgelert Primary School.

We would like to thank everyone who took the time to take part, we have had fun sorting through the hundreds of entries we received.

Congratulations to the winners, here are the pictures;

Well, he’s not the shop cat really he’s ours. He just follows us in to work some days.

His name is ‘Pesto’ which is long for pest. He is 2 years old but looks older because he has so much fluff.

Arriving as a Bengal, his hair continued to grow. We remembered seeing a persian when we collected him!

He has been know to bite occasionally, but only playfully.

He can often be found under the large carving  of eagles, or soaking up the warmth from the counter lights.

After six years of work the Welsh Highland Railway has opened the latest 16 mile (25 km) section of track from Caernarfon to Beddgelert, which will eventually continue through to Porthmadog.

The platform was crowded with excited faces all eager to ride the first public trip from Beddgelert to Rhyd Ddu and back, laid on for local residents. Despite a small delay all had a great time enjoying a familiar journey from a different perspective.

It was good to see so many familiar faces turn out, all chattering and catching up with each other. The train ride became quite a social event.

This short journey takes in views of the forest, lakes and Snowdon. A spectacular opportunity for photographers! There must have been hundreds of photos taken already. I wonder if any will be entered in our photo competition?

As recently as 70 years ago trains used to run along this route regularly, reintroducing the railway will add to the charm of this already beautiful area.

Many thanks to Welsh Highland Heritage Group and Welsh Highland Heritage Railway for the use of this archive picture.

Come along and join us on the village green. Mondays from midday we shall be holding music sessions where you can have a go at banging drums, bonging bongos, tinkling a xylophone and generally shaking your maracas!

We shall be providing a variety of our ethnic musical instruments for you to have a go at playing, and if you already play an instrument you are welcome to bring it along.

Play a little, learn a bit, laugh a lot!

Everyone is welcome to take part, this is a free event, it’s just a bit of fun.

The first Music Monday will be held on the 13th April, weather permitting.

We hope that these will become a regular event!

Our coffee morning in aid of Comic Relief was a great success. People started turning up before the doors were open with apologies that they could not attend, but with a donation in an envelope.
The tables were groaning under the weight of cakes baked by our army of bakers. The penguin was busy buttering, coffee was being brewed, signs being stuck, everything prepared.

There was a brief moment when the coffee machine was playing up, but a neighbour saved the day by bringing a second coffee machine from her café.

Soon, people begun to arrive. The coffee flowing and the cakes and raffle tickets selling. Good to see the crowd gather, and to catch up with people that we don’t see all that often. Everyone was generous on the day.

After a busy few hours it was time to tidy up and tally up. Between donations and sales we managed to collect £294.37. Added to this, another £75 in Red Nose sales, a grand total of £369.37 was raised for Comic Relief.

We decided to make it a round number, so a donation of £500 was sent during the evening show.

We would like to thank everyone who helped to make it a special occasion. All the bakers, the donations of coffee, cups, coffee machines, milk and sugar and to everyone who attended, donated, spent, chatted.

Thank you, from the Beddgelert Woodcraft Crew!

Update: Further donations have raised the total to £530!

This Red Nose Day we shall be holding a coffee morning.We have a troop of bakers on the case so we shall have a variety of cakes, biscuits, tarts and slices on offer. We shall also be holding a raffle with great prizes.

All proceeds will be going to comic relief, along with a percentage of the days takings.

We hope you can come along and join us, do something funny yummy for money.