Llanedwen, Anglesey

Historical Description

Llanedwen, a parish in Anglesey, on the Menai Strait, near Porthamel Ferry, 3 miles S by E of Llanfair, and 6½ SW of Beaumaris. Post town, Llanfair. Acreage, 1668, with 100 of foreshore; population, 306. Plas Newydd, a modern mansion, amid finely-sheltered grounds, belongs to the Marquis of Anglesey, was visited for some days by George IV. when on his way to Ireland, and was the summer residence in 1832 of the Queen when Princess Victoria. Two crom-lechs are in the grounds, and one of these till of late was the most complete monument of its kind in Wales, the capstone of it measuring 12 feet in length and 10 in breadth. Plas Coch, to the S of Plas Newydd, is a fine Tudor mansion of the 16th century, and was built by the Attorney-General Hugh Hughes. The Roman General Suetonius crossed the Menai Strait by a bridge of boats at Porthamel Ferry, and was fiercely resisted on the Llanedwen side by a body of Druids who seemed to have had a chief seat here, and a sanguinary action followed at a spot still called Bryn Beddau, signifying " the hill of graves." Agricola afterwards crossed by the same passage, and Tacitus graphically notices the conflict with the Druids, and speaks of it as a death-blow to their superstition. A part of Edward I.'s army in 1282 crossed at Moel-y-don Ferry, a little higher up, and was defeated within Llanedwen parish at Tan-ben-Cefn, where there are vestiges of an ancient camp. The living is a perpetual curacy, annexed to the vicarage of Llauidan, in the diocese of Bangor. The church stands on a sloping bank at the side of the strait, and is good. There is a Calvinistic Methodist chapel.

Administration

The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.

Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.

Civil Registration

For general information about Civil Registration (births, marriages and deaths) see the Civil Registration page.

For births, marriages, and deaths in Llanedwen from 1837 to 1933 you should search for the Bangor Registration District.

Land and Property

A full transcript of the Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Anglesey is online.

Maps

Online maps of Llanedwen are available from a number of sites:

• Bing (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
• Google Streetview.
• National Library of Scotland. (Old maps)
• OpenStreetMap.
• old-maps.co.uk (Old Ordnance Survey maps to buy).
• Streetmap.co.uk (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
• A Vision of Britain through Time. (Old maps)

Newspapers and Periodicals

The British Newspaper Archive have fully searchable digitised copies of the following newspapers online:

• Western Mail
• The North Wales Chronicle