Bus services in Corwen were primarily provided by GHA Coaches with routes available to Wrexham via Llangollen on services 5 and T3, Barmouth via Bala and Dolgellau on service T3 (now operated by Lloyds Coaches), and to Ruthin on service X5 (now operated by Arriva Buses Wales), with through services continuing to Denbigh. Llew Jones operate a twice daily, weekday service to Llanrwst with one journey extended to/from Bala. Corwen is the last sizeable town on the A5 road from London to Holyhead until Betws-y-Coed is reached. Because of this it still contains a number of hotels which were used in the past as coaching inns for the Mail coach and stagecoaches. Although the A5 is no longer the most important road to Holyhead, having been superseded by the coastal route of the A55, there is still significant traffic travelling through the town centre’s narrow main street. Corwen hosted the National Eisteddfod in 1919. The Pavilion in the town, which was pulled down in 2015, played an important part in Welsh culture throughout the 20th century. It hosted several concerts and eisteddfodau. It was also the venue for the first concerts performed by Edward H. Dafis, the first Welsh-language rock band to receive significant press notice, in August 1973. Novelist John Cowper Powys (1872-1963) lived in Corwen with his common-law wife Phyllis Playter from 1935 until 1955, when they moved to Blaenau Ffestiniog. He wrote two major novels both set in this region of Wales, while living in Corwen, "Owen Glendower" (1940) and "Porius" (1951), amongst other works of both fiction and non-fiction. In 1940 he began a novel set in contemporary Corwen but gave it up, to start his "Romance of Corwen", "", in January 1942, the action of which takes place in 499 AD.