Gwynfryn is a small mountain village in the community

Community (Wales)

A community is a division of land in Wales that forms the lowest-tier of local government in Wales. Welsh communities are analogous to civil parishes in England....

 of Minera

Minera

Minera is a small village, and a local government community, the lowest tier of local government, part of Wrexham County Borough in Wales.The community, which in addition to Minera village includes a number of smaller hamlets such as Gwynfryn and New Brighton and large areas of farmland, had a...

 in Wrexham county borough, Wales

Wales

Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

. Its name, originally that of the village chapel, is formed from the Welsh

Welsh language

Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...

 words bryn, "hill", and gwyn, "white": "white hill". At the time of the 2001 census, its population combined with that of the neighbouring, larger village of Bwlchgwyn

Bwlchgwyn

Bwlchgwyn is a village in Wrexham county borough, Wales, on the A525 road, west of the town of Wrexham and south-east of the town of Ruthin. Bwlchgwyn is part of the community of Brymbo...

 was 1,148.

Like the neighbouring villages of Minera and Bwlchgwyn, Gwynfryn is associated with the development of lead mines and limestone quarries in the vicinity. It is situated at the head of the Clywedog

River Clywedog

The River Clywedog in the county borough of Wrexham, Wales has always been the lifeblood of the area, watering crops and livestock since early times, powering corn mills and driving industrial machinery...

 Valley in a hilly limestone

Limestone

Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate . Many limestones are composed from skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral or foraminifera....

 area. The area was originally known as Plas-Gwyn ("white hall") Mountain, its name on the 1879 and 1900 Ordnance Survey

Ordnance Survey

Ordnance Survey , an executive agency and non-ministerial government department of the Government of the United Kingdom, is the national mapping agency for Great Britain, producing maps of Great Britain , and one of the world's largest producers of maps.The name reflects its creation together with...

s of Denbighshire

Denbighshire (historic)

Historic Denbighshire is one of thirteen traditional counties in Wales, a vice-county and a former administrative county, which covers an area in north east Wales...

, or as Pentre-Bais ("petticoat village"). According to a local story the latter name was changed to Gwynfryn by the disapproving village postmaster (or schoolmaster, in some versions).

There was a Wesleyan Methodist

Wesleyan Methodist Church (Great Britain)

The Wesleyan Methodist Church was the name used by the major Methodist movement in Great Britain following its split from the Church of England after the death of John Wesley and the appearance of parallel Methodist movements...

 chapel in Gwynfryn, which in 1905 had a congregation of 194. There was also a small Church in Wales

Church in Wales

The Church in Wales is the Anglican church in Wales, composed of six dioceses.As with the primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church, the Archbishop of Wales serves concurrently as one of the six diocesan bishops. The current archbishop is Barry Morgan, the Bishop of Llandaff.In contrast to the...

 chapel, St David's, which as of 2010 has been closed.

The musician, composer and Eisteddfod adjudicator Thomas Carrington (1881-1961) was born in Gwynfryn.