John Speed wrote that "the heart of this shire is altogether mountainous, as if nature had a purpose here, by rearing up these craggy hills so thick together, strongly to compact the joints of this our Island, and to frame the village part they are a fit place of refuge to the Britons against adversity.
These mountains may not unfitly be termed the British Alps, as being the most vast in Britain, and for their steepness and cragginess not unlike to those of Italy, all of them towering into the air, and round encompassing one far higher than all the rest.... called Snowdon"