Island Life and Mouses
Added on 29 September 2025
Dear Reader,
I've just been on a trip to stay on the island of Anglesey (or Ynys Môn as it's called in Welsh). I visited some new St Mary's churches and Auntie Fiona has helped me add them to my website. Some are on my Wales page, and the rest are on a new page called Anglesey (it seemed like a good idea at the time).
More importantly, I've got a "J", hurrah! This is all very exciting. To bring you up to date, I visit St Mary's churches all over the place (if you don't know why, what have you been doing? You certainly haven't been paying attention. Have a look my St Mary's Churches page to see the background to this). As part of this, I've been trying to visit a St Mary's church in a village or town starting with every letter of the alphabet. I don't think I'm every going to succeed, simply 'cos some of them just don't exist, but I want to get as close as possible. Anyhoo, I've been missing a "J" which must be wrong 'cos I'm sure there are lots of places starting with "J". Long story short, on the way to this holiday on Anglesey (when I was happy to sort out another omission caused by my associates, of which more later) I visited Johnstown which just happens to have a St Mary's church!
When I got to Anglesey, I was able to visit the church that's famous for being "St Mary's church in the hollow of the white hazel near to the fierce whirlpool of St Tysilio of the red cave" aka Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. I was near to it a few years ago (see Big Ted Goes To...) and my associates failed to realise that the "Llanfair" bit means "St Mary's Church" in Welsh, so they should have known it was there. Now I've been there, I've forgiven them for their omission!
But I didn't see the whirlpool, or the hazel, or the cave. However, I've since learned that the village is really called "Llanfairpwllgwyngyll" which is the "St Mary's church in the pool of the white hazels" bit; the rest of the name was added on in the 1860s as a publicity stunt to give its railway station the longest name in Britain (and to make it a tourist attraction)! I've also learned that the "whirlpool" bit refers to the "The Swellies" which is the stretch of the Menai Strait between the Britannia Bridge and the Menai Bridge where there are whirlpools and surges that are the result of the tides washing around the island of Anglesey at different speeds. [Lecture over - but I may ask questions later!]
I met some mouses too. I'm sure I've seen some before. [The altar rail in Conwy church is by Robert Thompson of Kilburn who’s known as the mouseman. You’ve seen some of his mice before in Ilmington, Warwickshire (055), Conistone, Yorkshire (262) and Strensall, Yorkshire (514), Big Ted]
All in all, I had a good trip to Anglesey and visited some lovely St Mary's churches; it's a shame I couldn't go inside all of them.
Love, Big Ted