Description

Llanedwen, a parish in Anglesey, on the Meuai Strait, near Porthamel Ferry, 3 miles S by E of Llanfair, and 6 1/2 SW of Beanmaris. 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.