Watch more of our videos on ShotsTV.com and on Freeview 262 or Freely 565 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 c.