Both Sides of the Menai Strait: (2) Anglesey, Beaumaris and Plas Newydd

Anglesey Mussels, a Norman Castle, the Village with That Name and a Big House

26-July-2018

Wales

Anglesey

Beaumaris

After crossing the Menai Bridge outside Bangor at the end of the previous post we turned right and drove along the coast to Beaumaris.

Thomas Telford's Menai Bridge

Once a Viking settlement, Beaumaris became a town in 1295 when Edward I chose the coastal plain for one of the chain of castles he deemed necessary to intimidate the newly conquered and unruly people of Gwynedd. Its Norman name (lit: ‘beautiful marsh’) marks Beaumaris out as unusual on Welsh-speaking Anglesey where place names are overwhelmingly Welsh, though the usual pronunciation is better reflected by its Welsh spelling Biwmares.

Anglesey and the mainland of North Wales

Once a major port and trading centre and the County Town of Anglesey, Beaumaris declined in importance until tourism became a major industry and with 2,000 inhabitants it still feels like a small town rather than a large village.

Joseph Hansom and Victorian Beaumaris

We drove down the main drag, Castle Street, to the castle and turned back down the coast to our B&B tucked behind Victoria Terrace.

Castle Street, Beaumaris (looking very quiet as this photo was taken 07:30 next morning)

Victoria terrace was designed by Joseph Hansom, he of the Hansom Cab and Birmingham Town Hall, and built 1830-35. It was named for the thirteen-year-old Princess (later Queen) Victoria who visited Beaumaris in 1832. Its shape (which causes the sun to always to be at the wrong angle) makes it a difficult building to photograph and I thought it dour and out of scale for the small town, even if it is Grade I listed.

Victoria Terrace, Beaumaris

Princess Victoria and her mother the Duchess of Kent stayed for three weeks in the then newly built Bulkeley Hotel, another Joseph Hansom building. The hotel frontage on Castle Street looks small and a touch neglected,….

The Bulkeley Hotel, Beaumarais, Castle Street frontage

….but the hotel really faces the sea, not the street.

The Bulkeley Hotel, Beaumaris. sea front side

Anglesey Mussels at the Bulkeley Hotel

Unaware of the royal connection we decided to dine at the Bulkeley, a very short walk from our B&B. The menus of most (all?) of Beaumaris’ many restaurants feature Anglesey mussels – how could we resist? It may not have been the ‘fine dining’ that has graced recent wedding anniversaries (that would come tomorrow) but it was good, fresh, local food, sympathetically cooked. Absolutely excellent.

Anglesey mussels, Bulkeley Arms, Beaumaris

A picture of Nelson hangs prominently in the hotel entrance. Their website claims, the hotel’s builder, Sir Richard Bulkeley, had previously been a midshipman on HMS Victory at the Battle of Trafalgar and was the last man to speak to Nelson before he died. Maybe or maybe not. The National Archives tell that the Midshipman Richard Bulkeley on the Victory was from Herefordshire not Beaumaris. Maybe the Bulkeleys (of whom more later) got around, but they have been prominent Beaumaris landowners since the middle ages, though the family died out in 1822.

Beaumaris, Evening Stroll

After dinner we strolled along the sea front in the warm evening air, took the obligatory wedding anniversary photo...

43 years and no time off for good behaviour, beside the Menai Strait, Beaumaris

...and watched the almost full moon rise over Snowdonia across the Menai Strait.

Moonrise over Snowdonia across the Menai Strait from Beaumaris

27-Jul-2018

Beaumaris, Early Morning Stroll

Up early, we took a morning stroll. Over a thousand stone circles survive in Britain and Ireland from the Neolithic and early Bronze Ages but the stone circle on the grassy area between the Victoria Terrace and the sea is not one of them, being constructed in 1996 to celebrate the Anglesey Eisteddfod.

Anglesey Eisteddfod Stone Circle, Beaumaris, and clouds over Snowdonia

Dark clouds over Snowdonia heralded the end of the month-long heat wave. Some will be glad to see it go and I know the rain is needed, but Lynne and I will mourn its passing.

We walked along Castle Street (photo above), turned down Church Street...

Church Street, Beaumaris

…and before the eponymous church found this chapel converted into a home.

Converted chapel, Church Street, Beaumaris

From the ex-chapel we drifted round past the castle and back for breakfast.

Beaumaris Castle

Beaumaris is a bijoux sort of Norman Castle; it does not stand on a massive rocky outcrop like Harlech, or dominate the town with forbidding towers and walls like Caernafon and Conwy (the four together make up a UNESCO World Heritage site). Instead it sits with quiet confidence at the end of town, its small, neat towers and sturdy walls overlooking by a still intact moat.

Beaumaris Castle

An aerial view explains why historian Arnold Taylor called it the "most perfect example of symmetrical concentric planning." I do not travel with a drone, so I have borrowed a picture from Wikipedia.

Beaumaris Castle
(Copyright Cadw - and this is a link to their website as requested)

Plans for the castle were made in 1284, two years after Edward I’s annexation of Wales, but Beaumaris was not a priority and building did not start until Madog ap Llewelyn’s 1294-5 rebellion provided a wake-up call. Work then got going under the direction of James of St George, a Savoyard and the greatest castle builder of the age, but Edward’s expensive Scottish pre-occupation left the builders without funds and work soon stopped. It restarted in 1306 and was finished in 1330.

James of St George (by Ceredigion based sculptor/designer Sebastien Boyesen)
As there are no contemporary likenesses of James of St G and this was made in 2016, it might not be a precise likeness

Despite its size the castle looks impregnable. Attackers managing to cross the moat and break through the door or over the outer wall find themselves trapped in a killing field between two walls. However, the castle was taken by siege in 1403 during Owain Glendŵr’s rebellion and retaken in 1405.

Between the outer and inner walls, Beaumaris Castle

With the Welsh Tudors on the English throne Wales became less rebellious and the castle fell into disrepair, only to become relevant again in the Civil War, as it controlled the route connecting the Royalist forces in England and Ireland via Holyhead. Thomas Bulkeley, whose family had managed the castle for generations, paid a considerable sum from his own pocket for repairs and held the castle for the King, an act for which he was created the 1st Viscount Bulkeley in 1644. The castle was surrendered to Parliamentarian forces in 1646.

Inside the inner wall, Beaumaris Castle

In 1807 the 7th and last Viscount Bulkeley bought the castle from the Crown, incorporating it into the park around his house. In the 20th century Beaumaris Castle was given back to the Crown eventually finding its way into the care of Cadw, the Historic Environment division of the Welsh Government.

On the walls, Beaumaris Castle

We walked among the old stones, and through a series of rooms inside the inner wall including the chapel…

Chapel, Beaumaris Castle

…and ‘hands-on’ room where children are encouraged to build arches and spiral staircases. Lynne has always nurtured her inner child and although her arch collapsed her spiral staircase was first class.

Lynne builds a spiral staircase, Beaumaris Castle

Beaumaris Court House and Gaol (closed on Fridays)

We intended to visit Beaumaris’ 17th century courthouse and the Joseph Hansom designed gaol. The courthouse was a two-minute walk from the castle and we arrived to discover both it and the gaol close on Fridays – an odd day to choose, we thought.

Beaumaris courthouse (and Lynne checking the opening hours if the jail)

Instead we went for a coffee. On the way we passed a seagull, hardly unusual in Beaumaris, but not like this.

Seagull, Beaumaris
(or in deference to my friend Brian who is occasionally heard to remark 'there is no such bird as a seagull', it is a herring gull)

Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch

Heading back along the coast past the Menai bridge, we decided to drop in on the place with ‘that name’. We last visited in the 1990s, in November when it was just a matter of stopping in the almost empty station car park, wandering onto the platform and photographing the sign. On a fine July day the car park was stuffed - and was the small shopping centre new? We merely paused, took a picture and left.

Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwrndrobllllantisiliogogogoch Station

Originally known as Llanfair Pwllgwyngyll, the village is often referred to Llanfair PG, which is easier on the anglophone. Pwllgwyngyll looks like a 12-letter word without vowels, but y is a vowel, as is the first w (pronounced like - oo - in English) The biggest problem is the frequently encountered ll, technically described as a ‘voiceless lateral fricative’ – I bet that helps. The long version of the name, with five voiceless lateral fricatives, two of them consecutive, means, ‘St Mary’s Church in the hollow of the white hazel near the rapid whirlpool of Llantysilio of the red cave’. It was coined in the 1860s with the intention of giving the station the longest name in the British railway system and so attracting tourist traffic. It worked.

Plas Newydd

Nearby, surrounded by woods and parkland, Plas Newydd sits beside the Menai Strait.

Parkland, Plas Newydd

A house known as Llwyn-y-Moel occupied the site in the 13th century and by 1470 was owned by the Griffith family of Penrhyn Castle (a predecessor of the house we visited yesterday). In the early 17th century Llwyn-y-Moel passed by marriage to Lewis Bayly, Bishop of Bangor who rebuilt it and renamed it Plas Newydd (New Hall).

The current Plas Newydd, a substantial neo-classical country house, was largely the work of architects James Wyatt and Joseph Potter in the 18th century. Wyatt was also responsible for the partial rebuilding of Liverpool Town Hall after the 1795 fire (see Liverpool (1) Castle Street and the Catholic Cathedral). Walking through the park, we arrived at the back of the house and had completed the tour before reaching the front where a lawn runs down to the sea.

Plas Newydd, from the front

The Pagets and the Cannock Chase Connection

The house and later owners have a Staffordshire connection (see Cannock Chase: Venturing Further East). In 1744 it was the home of Sir Nicholas Bayly, 2nd Baronet Plas Newydd and his wife Caroline Paget. In that year Caroline’s second cousin Henry, the 8th Baron Paget, died without issue and his title and estate, Beaudesert near Cannock, passed to Nicholas and Caroline Bayly's son Henry. When he died in 1812 Henry Bayly (by then Henry Bayly-Paget) was 9th Baron Paget, 1st Earl of Uxbridge and 3rd Baronet of Plas Newydd. His son Henry Paget (the 10th Baron etc), was Wellington's Second in Command at Waterloo where he famously mislaid his leg (his prosthetic leg is on show at Plas Newydd). In compensation he was created 1st Marquess of Anglesey, because another title was just what he needed.

Meet the ancestors, entrance hall, Plas Newydd

The Marquesses of Anglesey lived mainly at Beaudesert. The 5th Marquess (1875-1905) was an interesting character whose extravagances led to bankruptcy and his early death, after which the titles passed to his cousin, Charles who sold off Beaudesert and their London house to cover the debts and moved full time to Plas Newydd.

Bedroom, Plas Newydd

Charles Paget made the last major changes to the house, including the removal of the crenellations.

Drawing room, Plas Newydd

Rex Whistler at Plas Newydd

In the 1930s the artist Rex Whistler was a regular visitor. Whistler painted portraits of Charles Paget (see the Cannock Chase post linked above), his daughter Caroline, with and without her clothes, (they may have had an affair) and his son Henry, the future 7th Marquess.

The young Henry Paget, future 7th Marquess of Anglesey

From 1936-38 Whistler worked on his capriccio, a seascape on a huge canvas covering a whole wall of the dining room. He played with perspective – Neptune’s wet foot prints lead in different directions depending in on where you stand – and some of the trompe-l’oeil effects are mind-bending.

Rex Whistler's capriccio, Plas Newydd
This is Wikipedia's picture, but it is in the public domain

He left a (painted) cigarette on a step, saying he intended to smoke it on his return. He never did return; he joined the Welsh Guards in 1940 and was killed in action near Caen in July 1944.

My photo of Whistler's capriccio
The dining room is not wide enough to photograph the whole thing, but this gives an idea of the size and also shows one of the trompe-l'oiel end panels. the cigarette is on the step of the (actually non-existent) corridor on the right.

Henry Paget became the 7th Marquess in 1947, donating the house to the National Trust in 1976. He continued to live at Plas Newydd, maintaining an office there until his death in 2013. It remains as he left it. It is not untidy, he said, he had a desk for running the estate and one for each of his many interests – military history, family history, prosthetic limbs and more - with the appropriate papers at the ready.

Henry Paget's 'tidy office', Plas Newydd

The Britannia Bridge

It was time to make our way south and east to dinner at Tyddan Llan in Denbighshire. After crossing to Anglesey on the Menai Bridge we returned over the Britannia Bridge. Built as a railway bridge by Robert Stephenson and opened in 1850, it connected London directly to Holyhead and thence by boat to Dublin. The admiralty insisted it should be high enough to accommodate a fully rigged man-of-war, so Stephenson designed a tubular wrought iron construction.

Stephenson's Britannia Bridge in 1852 - uncredited engraving

Stephenson’s bridge worked well enough until May 1970 when it was destroyed by a fire. The damage was such that only the piers could be re-used and as the admiralty’s height requirement was no longer relevant it was replaced by a truss arch railway bridge which opened in 1972. A second tier was added in 1980 to carry the A55.

The current Britannia Bridge
The two bridges are only a few hundred metres apart. This photo and the one of the Menai Bridge were taken from the same spot

Both Sides of the Menai Strait

Part 1:The Mainland, Penryhn Castle and Bangor
Part 2: Anglesey, Beaumaris and Plas Newydd