Isle of Anglesey Brochure 2013

8/13/2019 Isle of Anglesey Brochure 2013

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Ynys Mn

www.croesomon.co.uk

www.visitanglesey.co.uk


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I have an island full of pleasantmemories of Anglesey. What I missmost are the skies, always on the

move, and the sweeping winds.Is there a more beautiful place inthe world than Llanddwyn Island?

Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead


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Tourist Information Centre

Need a bed? Book ahead!

Opening Hours:-

Mon to Sat: 09.30 - 17.00

Sun: 09.30 - 16.30

Tel: 01248 713177

Email: [email protected]

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Keith & Kathryn Selfe - Preserving Anglesey

Glyn Davies - PhotoArtist, Menai Bridge

Brian & Fiona Thomas - MooBaaOinc

David Jenkins - Copper Mountain, Amlwch

David Edwards - Ebb and Flow

Gerwyn Morgan - Plas Rhianfa

Alison Lea-Wilson - Halen Mn

Margaret Wood - Anglesey Rocksand Geo Mn

Kathy James & Ken Croft - Nature Bites

Kristoffer Hughes - Pagan Druid

Map of Anglesey

Anglesey Activities


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Carreglefn Nursery



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3

Anglesey is described as the Mother of Wales,

Mn Mam Cymru in Welsh. It has always been a

rich and diversified agricultural area providing, in days

gone by, a vast array of staple crops to the more

rugged areas of North Wales. Just take a look

at the ancient grain and flour mills dotted around the

countryside and it will give you an indication of the

islands productivity.

But when Keith and Kathryn Selfe moved to Anglesey

with their family they had diversification and

productivity ideas of their own as to what this island

could produce. They established Carreglefn Nursery.

Kathryn is a qualified chef, and Keith, having been a

policeman for thirty years, including protection dutyof the Queen Mother, had always been a very keen

gardener with green fingers.

Our part of Anglesey, Carreglefn, near Amlwch,

has a balmy, Gulf Stream climate. It also has great

seaweed with nutrients, and salt is always in the air,

says Keith. Things grow here when they shouldnt.

It is quite incredible.

Even more incredible was their decision to invest

what they had in growing tropical plants andproduce - kiwi fruit, oranges, spices and bananas -

in unheated sheltered poly tunnels, dominating a

garden already well populated with ducks, birds, fish,

Keith & Kathryn Selfe -Preserving Anglesey

Keith&kathrynSelfe

dogs and a gargantuan pig. Talk about the

Good Life!

Then came the inspired decision. Kathryn began

making jams and preservatives, using Keiths palate

as quality control! He wasnt too keen on the sweet

stuff but when Kathryn turned to producing literally,

breathtaking chutneys, Keith was in his element. So

too were judges at prestige True Taste Awards, with

a Two Gold Star Awards for her Kiwi Jam, and a one

star award for Keiths favourite the aptly named

Lucifer Chilli Chutney. To give you some idea of

how competitive these Guild of Fine Foods events

are, it took 350 experts 34 days to blind taste 7,481

products from 1600 companies and Lucifer

beat them all. And the awards from True Tasteof Wales and Angleseys Tourism ceremonies

have kept coming.

Anglesey has certainly inspired us, says Keith.

Our children are Welsh speaking, it is a fantastic, safe

place to be, and the nursery is ripe for expansion.

Already on the wish list is converting the garage into

a commercial kitchen, marketing their produce to

local hotels, and hopefully a supermarket chain.



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Afon Braint

Dwyran



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MooBaaOinc



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7

Just in case you are wondering. The Moo

represents beef, the Baa is lamb and you decide

what the Oinc means.

Collectively, they represent the home grown produce

available in a recently opened farm produce shop,

caf and restaurant in Beaumaris.

The shop was the brainchild of farmer Brian Thomas

and his wife Fiona. Brian has done his time on

farmers' protest lines against Irish beef imports,

the low prices paid by supermarkets and meaner

milk prices. He endured the Foot and Mouth crisis in

2001, but he is a passionate man, and a champion of

Welsh Black cattle, which he breeds with Welsh Lamb

at his two Llannerch-y-Medd farms.

The specialist butchers on the island gradually

closed down against supermarket competition,

says Brian. That led to Farmers' Markets all over the

island, but they were one day affairs and didnt really

work or pay the way. Farm Shops came along, with

permanent premises, so that at least you stood a

chance of competing with the big stores. And, as

I am a proud and defiant Anglesey man, if I could

draw customers away from the big boys with better

produce, then I was happy very happy.

So MooBaaOinc, a butchery and local produce

shop, was born in a Beaumaris shop premises that

housed an Indian Restaurant, once raided by the

Brian & Fiona Thomas -MooBaaOinc

MooBaaOinc

police looking for illegal immigrants allegedly housed

underneath the restaurant floor. We did find

massive underground holes under the floor when

we first came here. It was quite a shock, and so our

project was a mighty construction challenge,

admits Brian.

There were unused, unsafe lofts above the caf,

but in Brian's imagination it was the ideal space for

a restaurant . Another, even larger reconstruction

challenge but Brian is nothing if not defiant.

All he needed now, was someone to cook!

A young backpacker was looking to return home

to Anglesey with his young family. And as a now

celebrated Michelin champion, and a GordonRamsey scholarship winning chef, Aled Williams,

formerly of everywhere - Sydney, New York, Ynyshir

Hall Machynlleth - was inspired by the Brian and

Fiona dream of not only bringing the Farm to Town

in the shop, but their ambition of bringing Farm to

Fork in a restaurant.

There was room enough upstairs to house the

ambition and that was the birth of the Cennin (Welsh

for leek) restaurant. Aled had been a long standing

admirer of local produce. This was his inspiration, andthe obvious benefits of helping local producers, and

returning to his home patch.



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Parys Mountain, Amlwch

Mynydd Parys, Amlwch



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David Jenkins is very much a mining archaeology

enthusiast, and there is nothing more he likes todo but travel from his Snowdonia home and spend

hours in the shafts and tunnels of Amlwchs Parysmountain. This is not born of inspiration, it is a

passionate dedication for him, and fellow membersof the Parys Underground Group.

There is also nothing more he would like better

than to invite you to share his zeal by visiting themountain heritage trail and also the Copper Kingdom

mining and maritime centres on the Porth Amlwchquayside. The exhibition includes a state of the art

touchscreen - kids will love it!

With some justification, they claim, that here, inthe sleepy postcard sea resort of Amlwch, a major

contribution was made to the beginning of theIndustrial Revolution in Britain. "Not only that, says

David, we are looking at a heritage of 4,000 years ofmining, 20km of passageways and 120 shafts

and it serves as a great introduction to our industrialheritage.

Amlwch town was a major conurbation before

Cardiff/Swansea, Amlwch port was an importantbusy sea port on the North Wales coast.

Copper mining on Anglesey dates back to the Bronze

Age, but efforts to find and then mine copper in the

18th century were hampered by floods and

David JenkinsCopper Kingdom, Amlwch

DavidJenkins

extremely challenging working conditions. MaxBoyces colliery steel, pick and shovel had not yet

been invented.

By strategically and systematically digging a patternof exploratory new shafts, one Rowland Pugh,

a miner, discovered copper ore for the owner, SirNicholas Bayley.. He was rewarded with a bottle of

whisky and a rent-free cottage for a year. That wasthe shrewdest investment in Anglesey history.

There are maps of the tunnels and workings, shafts

and vents, which make the London Underground asimplistic navigational experience.

But the relatively crude methods of extractionworkings did have an impact. It is now a savagedlunar landscape, a colossal, but exceptionally

colourful monument to an age gone by. It is alreadya favoured filming location. The unique devastated

landscape has attracted the producers of Dr Who,Mortal Kombat as well as many documentaries.

But does it have future beyond historical and

industrial fascination? With contemporary worldcopper prices rocketing there may well be a future

for mining copper and zinc at Parys Mountain. .

He smiles.This is just part of the copper magicof Parys Mountain at Amlwch.



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Menai Strait

Afon Menai



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David Edwards is a successful novelist, sacrificing a

personal millionaire fortune and leaving his family

to becoming one. After leaving Cheshire, he found

Anglesey, and now lives in a caravan on the luxury

chalet park of Plas Coch, rubbing shoulders with

Premiership footballers, rugby league players and

Cheshire weekend retreaters.

All his possessions fit into his car, not that he cares

for material matters these days. He is content with a

new family, and is building or converting a new home

at Brynsiencyn, overlooking the Menai Strait.

A congenial and thoughtful conversationalist, he

brims with excitement when talking about Anglesey.

To say that he has embraced the island would be anunderstatement. He has totally immersed himself in

local historical date and events for his novel Ebb and

Flow. He finds it inspiring to be living close to the

Strait and the site where the Romans invaded

Anglesey and slaughtered the defending Druids.

His first novel, written under his pseudonym

Jack George Edmonson, was a best seller. The Sun

Sharer was explicit in its examination and

questioning of marriage, affairs, and material

superficiality.

Ebb and Flow is also based on relationships, or

rather the bitter rivalries between the wealthy English

land owning barons of Anglesey in the eighteenth

David Edwards -Ebb and Flow

DavidEdwards

century and their harsh and dismissive treatment of

the islands people. It is a tale of corruption, cruelty,

murder, feudal exploitation and suffering, leaving the

reader is no doubt that David Edwards has adopted

Anglesey as his own.

I find the tranquillity of Anglesey so appealing.

People here have time for each other and that

seems to be ingrained in the culture. Theres the

lack of cars as well, and always something to dis-

cover. It is a different place, almost a foreign place.

A two hour drive from the big English cities, and

you find yourself in a different country not county.

It is a joy to be here.

And of course there is the Welsh Language. VisitingEnglish friends are puzzled or unsettled by it, but I tell

them the reason people are speaking in Welsh, is be-

cause they are Welsh!

So it comes and no surprise to hear that David

Edwards is learning the language.



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Plas Rhianfa



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I met David, my husband, when we were students at

Bangor University.We decided to live on Anglesey

because, quite simply, we loved the area and, it has

to be said, was slightly more affordable than the

mainland. Student days have not changed, and we

were always short of money. So we started trading

as shellfish fish and game wholesalers from our

unrefrigerated Morris 1000 van, growing and taking

oysters and winkles to Blackpool and bringing wet

fish back. There were some pretty hairy moments,

especially if the van broke down. All our marketing

was done from a 'phone box down the road.

It did seem that all the people we met in our part

of Anglesey were sea inspired, and that probably

fashioned our lives. A large building at Brynsiencyncame on the market, and though I tried to hide my

pregnancy, a friendly bank manager did grant us a

loan to buy the property. We didnt have the foggiest

idea what to do with it. So for a while it became an

art, local crafts and pottery gallery. But we did have

an aquarium outside and we began lobster farming,

which attracted interest. We bought some more

tanks, which eventually developed into the Anglesey

Sea Zoo. We hadnt planned anything like that, we

just fell into it.

It was successful and we developed it over the years,

but summer income was only just enough to cover

our winter and considerable training costs, and there

were other problems too. People kept pinching our

Alison Lea-Wilson -Halen Mn

DavidLea-Wilson

ideas, and whereas there was only one other Sea

Zoo in the UK when we started, there were 30 by the

time we finished. We knew had to find something

else in order to survive.

The answer was all around us. We boiled a saucepan

of Anglesey sea water on the Aga, and salt crystals

began to appear. It was a defining moment. David

then won a Winston Churchill Memorial Scholarship,

allowing him to travel and study salt making in Japan,

New Zealand and French Polynesia.

On his return Halen Mn Anglesey Sea Salt - with

David at the helm, was born. Five years ago, we

decided that we could no longer sustain the Zoo and

the Salt business. We decided to sell the Zoo, whichwas a huge emotional wrench.

Halen Mn is now distributed world wide. It is found

in restaurants and recipes everywhere, and acclaimed

by chefs and catering gurus and leading shop chains.

President Obama likes it too.

The sceptics and cynics have been silenced by our

salt. Anglesey provided and inspired, and I cannot

think of anywhere else I would rather be.



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South Stack

Ynys Lawd



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Holyhead

Caergybi



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Roam around Anglesey and you will notice signs

pointing to ancient burial chambers, tombs, sacred

sites and standing stones all revealing a past when

Anglesey was protected and controlled by the Druids.

It is the ancestral home of British Druids.

Anglesey is, perhaps, the oldest recorded place name

in Britain. We have the Romans to thank for that,

since this is where the front line of Druidic Priests

and Priestesses fought and sacrificed their lives

against the ruthless Roman armies of Julius

Caesar, with the savage and merciless battles

recorded by Tacitus.

The Druids were the intellectual and spiritual class

of the Celts. They were the mediators between theGods and their people and Anglesey was the spiritual

centre of the Druidic world. They were totally

connected to the land and its nature, and would

defend Anglesey with their lives, and did.

The Druids are a source of spiritual fascination and

dedication to Druidic expert and writer Kristoffer

Hughes who lives in Bodorgan, on Anglesey. He

travels the world, lecturing, holding workshops, and

explaining his love of Celtic heritage and culture.

Anglesey to Kristoffer, evokes the memories and

tales of the ancient priesthood and the power and

influence the Druids possessed. He hates leaving

the island, because it is a special and magical place.

Kristoffer Hughes -Pagan Druid

KristofferHughes-FounderoftheAnglesey

DruidicOrder

We walk on the same soil, and breathe the same air

as the Druids did, he says, and when I look over to

Snowdonia, where I was born, that to me is a totally

different place and another world. That little ribbon

of water separates us. When he leaves the island he

is anxious to return.

His books have been a massive success, but here

also lies an intriguing story. His publishers, Llewellyn

Worldwide, was established in 1901 by the late

Llewellyn George in Portland ,Oregon. As the name

suggests, Llewellyn George was a Welshman, born

in Swansea, and the publishing house specialises

in occult books. Kris Hughes became the first

Welshman to publish with the American company.

His latest book sold 30,000 copies world-wide.Anglesey is a special and magical place, he says,

it is in my blood.



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ALLWEDD / KEY

Isle of Anglesey County Council


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NEED A BED? BOOK AHEAD!Why not let us do all the hard work for

you? Just let us know your requirements(dates, facilities, price range etc.) and we

will do the rest! A 10% deposit (deducted

from your total bill) and a 2.00 booking

fee secures the booking.

Opening Hours:-

Mon to Sat: 09.30 - 17.00

Sun: 09.30 - 16.30

You can email, phone or visit touristinformation centre at Llanfairpwll who

provide a warm welcome and a wide

variety of services. Information is provided

on attractions, activities and events on the

island. They can also offer advice and help

on booking accommodation.

Located near the railway station and

within the Edinburgh woollen mill building

Tel: 01248 713177

Email: [email protected]


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Tourist Information

Centre


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Below is a list of attractions on Anglesey to make your visit even more enjoyable.

For a comprehensive list of attractions and activities on Anglesey please visitwww.visitanglesey.co.uk or Contact the Tourism Information Centre on

01248 713177

AttractionsAmlwch Copper Kingdom Amlwch LL68 9DB 01407 832255

Anglesey Circuit Bodorgan LL62 5LP 01407 811400

Anglesey Sea Zoo Brynsiencyn LL61 6TQ 01248 430411

Beaumaris Castle Beaumaris LL58 8AP 01248 810361

Beaumaris Goal & Courthouse Beaumaris LL58 8PE 01248 724444

Cartio Mn Karting Bodedern LL65 3PA 01407 741144Foel Farm Park, Brynsiencyn LL61 6TQ 01248 430646

Holyhead Breakwater Country Park Holyhead 01407 760530

Holyhead Maritime Museum Holyhead LL65 1YD 01407 769745

James Pringle Weavers Llanfairpwll LL61 5UJ 01248 717171

Llynnon Mill Llanddeusani LL65 4AB 01407 730797

Marquess of Anglesey Column Llanfairpwll LL61 5NJ 01248 714393

Menai Heritage Menai Bridge LL59 5EA 01248 715046

Moelfre Seawatch Centre Moelfre LL72 8HY 01248 410277

Oriel Ynys Mn Llangefni LL77 7TQ 01248 724444

Plas Newydd, National Trust Llanfairpwll LL61 6DQ 01248 714795Pili Palas Menai Bridge LL59 5RP 01248 712474

Swtan Church Bay LL65 4ES 01407 730501

Tacla Taid Newborough LL61 6TN 01248 440344

Ucheldre Centre Holyhead LL65 1TE 01407 763361

Leisure Services

Amlwch Leisure Centre Amlwch LL68 9PG 01407 830060

Beaumaris Leisure Centre Beaumaris LL56 8AL 01248 811200

David Hughes Leisure Centre Menai Bridge LL59 5SS 01248 715653

Holyhead Leisure Centre Holyhead LL65 2YE 01407 764111Plas Arthur Leisure Centre Llangefni LL77 7QX 01248 722966

Llangefni Golf course/driving range Llangefni LL77 8YQ 01248 722193

Anglesey Activities For further informationgo to www.visitanglesey.co.uk

Isle of Anglesey Golf PassPlay 5 rounds of golf for only 79

A choice of 6 18 hole courses - Baron Hill Golf Club, The Anglesey Golf Club,

Storws Wen Golf Club, Bull Bay Golf Club, Henllys Golf Club and Holyhead Golf Club.

Valid for 1 year from date of purchase

To purchase your Anglesey Golf Pass call 0845 450 5885


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Argraffu/Print -

Westdale Press Ltd. Cardiff

Dylunio/Design -

Stephen Edwards & Stephen Jones,

Adain Graffeg / Design Section,Cyngor Sir Ynys Mn / Isle of Anglesey County Council

Cefnogwyd gan/Endorsed by -

Destination Anglesey Partnership (DAP)

Ysgrifen/Editorial -

Martyn Williams, Cardiff

Ffotograffiaeth/Photography -

Glyn Davies / glyndavies.com, Stuart Campbell

Visit Wales,BRAND (ERDF) Ireland Wales Programme,

Isle of Anglesey County Council

Hawlfraint Copyright 2013

Cyngor Sir Ynys Mn / Isle of Anglesey County Council

Whilst every effort has been made to ensure accuracy in this guide, we can acceptno liability for any errors, inaccuracies or omissions, or for any matter in any wayconnected with or arising ou t of t he publ ication of the information d etailed inthis guide. The Council can accept no liability whatsoever for any accidentsor injuries caused through participation in activities detailed in this guide.

www.croesomon.co.uk



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Isle of Anglesey Brochure 2013

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