Church Island, also known as Llandysilio Island, [1] (Welsh : Ynys Tysilio) is a small island in the Menai Strait on the shores of Anglesey to which it is attached by a short causeway that is reachable only on foot. The dominant feature of the island is with St Tysilio's Church, constructed in the 15th century, its churchyard, and a grade-II listed war memorial. The 20th-century bard Cynan (Albert Evans-Jones) is among several notable people buried in the churchyard. The Anglesey Coastal Path passes the head of the causeway.
A number of birds inhabit the island and its waters, and it also features numerous primroses.
Church Island is located in the Menai Strait, off the south-eastern shore of the island of Anglesey, close to the town of Menai Bridge. [2] It is located in a stretch of the Menai known as the Swellies, with the stretch of water to the south of the church is prone to dangerous tidal currents. [1] Access to the island is via a short tidal causeway, which meets the Wales Coast Path long-distance footpath at its Anglesey end. The closest road is the A545, [2] with a car park from which the island can be accessed via a woodland path. [1]
St Tysilio's, a single-chamber church, is the major feature on the island, [1] along with its graveyard and a war memorial near the highest point, which was designed by Harold Hughes and was given a grade-II listing in 1997. [3]
The early history of the island, including details of the construction of the causeway to the Anglesey mainland, is unknown. [4] The first recorded occupation was by Prince Tysilio, later Saint Tysilio, who was the son of Brochwel Ysgithrog, a king of Powys. Tysilio arrived on Church Island in approximately AD 630, and founded a hermitage there. He remained there for around seven years, before moving to Meifod where he became an abbot. [5] No trace of Tysilio's hermitage survives on Church Island today. [5]
The present-day church of Saint Tysilio was founded in the fifteenth century. [6] It is not known who built the church, but it is likely that it replaced an earlier structure on the same site. [4] Several prominent people are buried in the churchyard, including Henry Rees Davies, [6] other members of his family such as father Richard Davies, [4] John Edward Lloyd, and the bard Albert Evans-Jones, known by the pseudonym of Cynan. [6]
Birds found close to the island include oystercatchers, curlews, common terns, and in recent times, little egrets. There are also a number of primroses growing, which give the island a golden appearance during the spring months. [1]
The Menai Strait is a strait which separates the island of Anglesey from Gwynedd, on the mainland of Wales. It is situated between Caernarfon Bay in the south-west and Conwy Bay in the north-east, which are both inlets of the Irish Sea. The strait is about 25 km (16 mi) long and varies in width from 400 metres (1,300 ft) between Fort Belan and Abermenai Point to 7.5 kilometres (4.7 mi) between Puffin Island and Penmaenmawr. It contains several islands, including Church Island, on which is located St Tysilio's Church.
Menai Bridge is a town and community on the Isle of Anglesey in north-west Wales. It overlooks the Menai Strait and lies by the Menai Suspension Bridge, built in 1826 by Thomas Telford, just over the water from Bangor. It has a population of 3,376.
Ynys Llanddwyn is a small tidal island off the west coast of Anglesey, northwest Wales. The nearest settlement is the village of Newborough.
Abermenai Point is a headland in the southeast of the island of Anglesey in Wales. It is the southernmost point of the island and is the northern point of the western entrance of the Menai Strait.
Ynys Gored Goch, sometimes Ynys Gorad Goch, is a small island in the Menai Strait between Gwynedd and Anglesey in north Wales. It is situated in the stretch of the strait called the Swellies between Thomas Telford's Menai Suspension Bridge and Robert Stephenson's Britannia Bridge.
Saint Dwynwen, sometimes known as Dwyn or Donwen, is the Welsh patron saint of lovers. She is celebrated throughout Wales on 25 January.
Ynys Castell is a small island in the Menai Strait which separates Anglesey and mainland Wales. It is an extruding piece of Precambrian schist lying to one side of the Afon Cadnant estuary. It lies between Ynys y Bîg and Ynys Gaint. There is a causeway running to the island that is covered at high tide. On the island there is a private house. Ynys Castell means Castle Island in Welsh.
Ynys Gaint is a small island in the Menai Strait connected to the town of Menai Bridge on Anglesey by a causeway and also a concrete bridge erected by Sir William Fison in the 1930s. Literally translated Ynys Gaint mean Kent Island.
Saint Tysilio was a Welsh bishop, prince and scholar.
The Anglesey Coastal Path is a 200-kilometre (124 mi) long-distance footpath around the island of Anglesey in North Wales. The route is part of the Wales Coast Path.
Sir (Albert) Cynan Evans-Jones CBE, more commonly known within Wales by his bardic name of Cynan, was a Welsh war poet and dramatist.
Llanfaes is a small village on the island of Anglesey, Wales, located on the shore of the eastern entrance to the Menai Strait, the tidal waterway separating Anglesey from the north Wales coast. Its natural harbour made it an important medieval port and it was briefly the capital of the kingdom of Gwynedd. Following Prince Madoc's Rebellion, Edward I removed the Welsh population from the town and rebuilt the port a mile to the south at Beaumaris. It is in the community of Beaumaris.
Culture and Society in Gwynedd during the High Middle Ages refers to a period in the History of Wales spanning the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries. The High Middle Ages were preceded by the Early Middle Ages and followed by the Late Middle Ages. Gwynedd is located in the north of Wales.
Dindaethwy was in medieval times one of two commotes of the cantref of Rhosyr, in the south-east of the Isle of Anglesey. It was between the Menai Strait and Conwy Bay, and the Irish Sea and Red Wharf Bay.
Llanfairpwllgwyngyll or Llanfair Pwllgwyngyll, often shortened to Llanfairpwll and sometimes to Llanfair PG, is a village and community on the Isle of Anglesey, Wales. It is located on the Menai Strait, next to the Britannia Bridge. At the 2011 Census the population was 3,107, of whom 71% of the village population could speak Welsh. In 2021, the population decreased to 2,900. It is the sixth largest settlement in the county by population.
Richard Davies was a Welsh businessman and ship-owner and nonconformist Liberal politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1868 to 1886.
The Old Church of St Nidan, Llanidan is a medieval church in the community of Llanidan, in Anglesey, North Wales, close to the Menai Strait. The first church on the site was established in the 7th century by St Nidan, the confessor of the monastery at Penmon, Anglesey, but the oldest parts of the present structure, now closed and partly ruined, date from the 14th century. In about 1500 the church was enlarged by the addition of a second nave on the north side, separated from the earlier nave by an arcade of six arches. During 1839 till 1843 a new church was built nearby to serve the local community, partly due to the cost of repairing the old church. Much of the building was subsequently demolished, leaving only part of the western end and the central arcade. The decision was condemned at the time by Harry Longueville Jones, a clergyman and antiquarian, who lamented the "melancholy fate" of what he called "one of the largest and most important [churches] in the island of Anglesey". Other appreciative comments have been made about the church both before and after its partial demolition.
St Tysilio's Church is a medieval church in the village of Menai Bridge, Anglesey, Wales. The current building dates from the early 15th century and underwent renovations in the 19th century. It was designated as a Grade II* listed building on 14 February 1967.
St Mary's Church is a Grade II listed church in Menai Bridge, Anglesey serving the parish of Bro Tysilio, in the Diocese of St Davids of the Church in Wales.
Ynys Faelog is a small tidal island in the Menai Strait between Gwynedd and the Isle of Anglesey, Wales, near the town of Menai Bridge. On average it measures 140 metres by 130 metres and is connected by a narrow stone causeway to the Anglesey mainland. There is a two-storey house on the island with three outbuildings and a boathouse.