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Penrhos-Lligwy

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"PENRHOSLLIGWY, (or Penrhos Llugwy), a parish in the hundred of Twrcelyn, county Anglesey, 4 miles N.E. of Llanerchymedd, its post town, and 6 from Amlwch. The village, which is of small extent, is situated near Red Wharf Bay and Ynys-Gadern. There are some marble works in the neighbourhood. It is in contemplation to erect a column on the rocks overlooking the bay, and about 1½ mile to the N.E. of the church, in memory of those who perished in the wreck of the Royal Charter. The living is a perpetual curacy in the diocese of Bangor, value £75. In the church, which is dedicated to St. Michael, are some ancient tombs. In the churchyard, as well as in the neighbouring churchyard of Llanallgo, are interred the remains of a large number of persons who lost their lives in the wreck of the Royal Charter steam clipper on the rocks of Moelfre in 1859. The parochial charities produce about £93 per annum, part of which goes towards apprenticing children. L. Morris, the antiquary, and author of "Celtic Remains," was born here in 1702. Near Moelfre is a cromlech standing on seven supports." [From The National Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland (1868) - Transcribed by Colin Hinson ©2003]

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Church History

Church and chapel data from The Religious census of 1851 : A Calendar of the returns relating to Wales, Vol 11, North Wales. Ed. by Ieuan Gwynedd Jones, UWP, 1981. The names given towards the end of each entry are those of the informants.

Penrhoslligwy Parish; Statistics; Area 2894 acres; Population 271 males, 282 females, total 553

  • Penrhoslligwy Parish Church (Diocese of Bangor) Attendance - average- morning 12/18, afternoon 80/90 Service in Welsh "The two dissenting schools being open on Sunday mornings merely a few old people (neighbours) attend morning service" Richard Williams Mason, M.A, Perpetual Curate
  • Ysgoldy'r Mynydd, Calvinistic Methodist Erected 1822 Attendance - usual - 40 scholars, afternoon 60, evening 50 Informant; John Roberts, Cefn Carrog
  • Salem, Calvinistic Methodists Erected 1838 Attendance - morning 56 scholars, afternoon 107, evening 57 Richard Williams, Elder, Bodafon
      • See Welsh Chapels and Churches for a photograph of St Michael's Church
      • PENRHOSLLIGWY, St. Michael the Archangel "A medieval and later parish church, restored in 1865............" coflein
      • Capel Lligwy, (Originally a Memorial Chapel or Chapel of Ease?) - on geograph.org.uk and "Capel Lligwy Chapel is a single cell twelfth century chapel of ease attached to St Michael's Church, Penrhos-Lligwy..............." coflein
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      Church Records

      Joyce Hinde has supplied a list of Parish Registers held at Anglesey Record Office.

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      Description & Travel

      You can see pictures of Penrhos-Lligwy which are provided by:

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      Gazetteers

      PENRHOS-LLIGWY, a parish in the hundred of TWRCELYN, county of ANGLESEY, NORTH WALES, 5 miles (E. N. E,) from Llanerchymedd, containing 557 inhabitants. This parish, which is situated near the shore of the Irish sea, is of very considerable extent, and is principally distinguished for the fine quarries of Mona marble with which it abounds, and in the procuring of which several of its inhabitants find constant employment. A small creek running up from Dulas bay affords every facility for conveying their produce to the shipping-place there, from which great quantities are sent to London, and Liverpool. At a short distance from the mouth of the bay, which forms a very commodious harbour, is a small island called Ynys Gadarn, a lofty rock of marble, on which is placed an occasional light to direct mariners in the navigation of these dangerous coasts, and to point out. an object which has, often proved fatal to those who were unacquainted with this part of the shore. A few of the inhabitants are also employed in carding and spinning wool, of which a small manufactory is carried on in the parish. The living is a perpetual curacy, in the archdeaconry of Anglesey, and diocese of Bangor, endowed with £ 200 private benefaction, £ 800 royal bounty, and £500 parliamentary grant, and in the patronage of Lord Boston. The church, dedicated to St. Michael, is a neat modern structure. In the church-yard are two very ancient sepulchral stones, with inscriptions in very rude and antique characters, of which one is noticed by the author of the " Mona Antiqua Restaurata," as covering the grave of Mechell, or Macutus, grandson of one of the lords of Gloucester, Bishop of St. Maloes, and founder of the church of Llanvechell, in this county, who was massacred at Stonehenge. Owen Lloyd, Esq., of London, in 1665, bequeathed a farm in the parochial chapelry of Iscoed, near Wrexham, directing the income to be applied to the apprenticing of poor boys of this parish to some trade or calling in London : the same gentleman left also £400 to be laid out in the purchase of land for the endowment of two exhibitions in the University of Oxford, for one boy, a native of this parish, and one a native of any part of the Isle of Anglesey. The rental of the farm is now £70 per annum, which is applied to the apprenticing of four boys of this parish : the exhibitioners are appointed by Mr. Meyrick, of Bod-organ. There are also some small charitable donations and bequests for distribution among the poor. Lligwy, in this parish, the ancient seat of the family of Llwyd, and now the property of Lord Boston, has been a venerable mansion, celebrated for the extensive woods surrounding it, of which at present there are but very small remains, the woodlands being now covered only with small brushwood and brambles, and the mansion almost in ruins. On the same estate are some remains, of an ancient chapel, situated on an eminence overlooking the bay of Llys Dulas : the architecture, which is of the very rudest kind, bears testimony to its great antiquity : it is said to have been a private chapel belonging to the family mansion. On digging out a fox which had taken shelter in the ruins of this building, a large square vault was discovered, containing several human skeletons, which, on exposure to the air, crumbled into dust ; and, on searching farther into the interior of the building, the ground which it enclosed was, found to consist of a large mass of human bones, several feet in depth, and protected only by a covering of plaster, which formed the floor of the chapel. About a quarter of a mile to the south of these ruins is a very large cromlech, said to be the largest in the island : the table stone is nearly eighteen feet in length and sixteen feet in breadth, and is supported on five low upright stones, having one end resting upon a rock : this relic of antiquity is called by the country people Arthur's Quoit. Lewis Morris, an eminent antiquary, poet, and man of science, was born in this parish, in 1702: he was employed by the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty to survey the coast of Wales, which work was completed and printed in 1748 ; he also left a work which he called " Celtic Remains," still unpublished, with an immense number of manuscripts, of which eighty volumes are deposited in the library of the Welsh charity school in Gray's Inn Lane, London. Richard Morris, his brother, distinguished himself as a Welsh critic and poet of considerable talent : he spent the greatest part of his life as first clerk in the Navy Office, during which time he superintended the printing of two valuable editions of the Welsh Bible. The average annual expenditure for the support of the poor amounts to £161. 4. (A Topographical Dictionary of Wales by Samuel Lewis, 1833)
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      History

      The Royal Charter shipwreck, Lligwy Bay/Moelfre - on the Wikipedia site

      Anglesey-history site - the three ages of Lligwy

      Aerial photograph of Din Lligwy Ancient Village in 1994 - on the People's Collection Wales site

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      Land & Property

      Held at Anglesey Record Office (NRA);

      • Penrhoslligwy Community Council;- 1883-1984: minutes, financial records, corresp, administrative papers
      • Penrhoslligwy;- 1760-1814: assessments
      • Penrhoslligwy Parish ;- 1578-1997: records
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      Maps

      Gwynedd Family History Society have a diagram of the ecclesiastical parishes of Anglesey (under Parishes)

      You can see maps centred on OS grid reference SH482863 (Lat/Lon: 53.351774, -4.281493), Penrhos-Lligwy which are provided by: