Llandegai
Encyclopedia
Llandygai is a small village
on the A5 road between Bangor
and Tal-y-Bont
in Gwynedd
, Wales
. It affords a view of the nearby Carneddau
mountain
range.
times.
Excavations in the 1960s at the site of the current Industrial Estate uncovered two large henge
monuments and a series of hengiform pit circles from the late Neolithic
period. Excavations in 2006 and 2007 at the Bryn Cegin site (extending the industrial estate) found an early Neolithic house and later, possibly Romano-British
, settlement
the Battle of Llandygai was fought at Y Dalar Hir, near Llandygai. Royalist forces of 150 horse and 120 foot soldiers led by Sir John Owen engaged Parliamentarian
forces led by Colonel Carter and Colonel George Twistleton.
The village of Llandygai is recorded at the beginning of the nineteenth century as consisting of eight or nine houses. The village was later developed by Edward Gordon Douglas-Pennant, 1st Baron Penrhyn of Llandygai as a ‘model village’ for his estate workers, in which ‘no corrupting alehouse’ was permitted. It lies immediately outside of the walls of the Penrhyn Castle
demesne walls, with the entrance to the village being some 100m from the castle's Grand Lodge.
This model village was mostly constructed in the 1840s in a ‘vernacular revival’ style which conformed to the Picturesque
ideal. The model village was built within the loop of the road to Conwy
from where it branched off Telford
’s newly built Holyhead to London road
. Each house was built in a similar style but none was to be identical. They were furnished with ample gardens and the layout was such that no house’s front door faced another.
(or Tygái or simply Cai) in the fifth century. Relics of the Saint include a stone coffin
and a cross bearing his name are kept at the church.
The present church
dates to around 1330 and was much restored and extended by the diocesan architect, Henry Kennedy, in 1853. The church is of cruciform
structure with a central tower. It is a Grade II* listed building.
The church has six bells
. The bells naturally sound very loud inside the ringing chamber (from where the bells are rung); to combat this the bells are permanently fitted with leather muffles on both sides of the clapper. When ringing the bells they have a strange sound because of this; almost as if they are ringing inside a large tank of water.
In the church is a marble
monument to Archbishop John Williams, the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal
during the reign of James I
. There is also monument by Richard Westmacott
to the first Lord Penrhyn, in which the sarcophagus is flanked by a quarryman and peasant woman, described by Eric Hobsbawm
as “the earliest sculpted proletarians”.
The ecclesiastical parish
of Llandygai follows the Ogwen valley southwards, giving its name also the village of Mynydd Llandygai.
Christopher Bethell
, Bishop of Bangor
, is buried in the churchyard
.
The boys school, now with a twentieth century extension, forms the present-day primary school, Ysgol Llandygai. It is a Voluntary Controlled school with around 170 pupils.
, retains much of its original character, despite some more recent additions, having been declared a conservation area in 1974. The village is next to the Grand Lodge affording the principal entrance to Penrhyn Castle
, the former seat of the Penrhyn family, now a National Trust
property open to the public.
Outside the model village are also to be found –
The Holyhead to Chester railway
passes by the village through the Llandygai Tunnel, which is 442 yards in length, before emerging onto the Ogwen
Viaduct
to the east of the village.
spelling is Llandygái, the accent signifying that the last syllable is stressed as opposed to the last-but-one, the usual pattern. All forms are in use today with Llandygai the most commonly accepted.
Village
A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet with the population ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand , Though often located in rural areas, the term urban village is also applied to certain urban neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New...
on the A5 road between Bangor
Bangor, Gwynedd
Bangor is a city in Gwynedd, north west Wales, and one of the smallest cities in Britain. It is a university city with a population of 13,725 at the 2001 census, not including around 10,000 students at Bangor University. Including nearby Menai Bridge on Anglesey, which does not however form part of...
and Tal-y-Bont
Talybont, Bangor
Talybont , is a small village to the southeast of the city of Bangor in Gwynedd, north Wales....
in Gwynedd
Gwynedd
Gwynedd is a county in north-west Wales, named after the old Kingdom of Gwynedd. Although the second biggest in terms of geographical area, it is also one of the most sparsely populated...
, Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
. It affords a view of the nearby Carneddau
Carneddau
The Carneddau , are a group of mountains in Snowdonia, Wales. It includes the largest contiguous areas of high ground in Wales and England, as well as six or seven of the highest peaks in the country—the Fourteen Peaks...
mountain
Mountain
Image:Himalaya_annotated.jpg|thumb|right|The Himalayan mountain range with Mount Everestrect 58 14 160 49 Chomo Lonzorect 200 28 335 52 Makalurect 378 24 566 45 Mount Everestrect 188 581 920 656 Tibetan Plateaurect 250 406 340 427 Rong River...
range.
Prehistory
There is evidence of human occupation of this site from NeolithicNeolithic
The Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BC in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world. It is traditionally considered as the last part of the Stone Age...
times.
Excavations in the 1960s at the site of the current Industrial Estate uncovered two large henge
Henge
There are three related types of Neolithic earthwork which are all sometimes loosely called henges. The essential characteristic of all three types is that they feature a ring bank and ditch but with the ditch inside the bank rather than outside...
monuments and a series of hengiform pit circles from the late Neolithic
Neolithic
The Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BC in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world. It is traditionally considered as the last part of the Stone Age...
period. Excavations in 2006 and 2007 at the Bryn Cegin site (extending the industrial estate) found an early Neolithic house and later, possibly Romano-British
Romano-British
Romano-British culture describes the culture that arose in Britain under the Roman Empire following the Roman conquest of AD 43 and the creation of the province of Britannia. It arose as a fusion of the imported Roman culture with that of the indigenous Britons, a people of Celtic language and...
, settlement
History
In 1648 during the English Civil WarEnglish Civil War
The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists...
the Battle of Llandygai was fought at Y Dalar Hir, near Llandygai. Royalist forces of 150 horse and 120 foot soldiers led by Sir John Owen engaged Parliamentarian
Roundhead
"Roundhead" was the nickname given to the supporters of the Parliament during the English Civil War. Also known as Parliamentarians, they fought against King Charles I and his supporters, the Cavaliers , who claimed absolute power and the divine right of kings...
forces led by Colonel Carter and Colonel George Twistleton.
The village of Llandygai is recorded at the beginning of the nineteenth century as consisting of eight or nine houses. The village was later developed by Edward Gordon Douglas-Pennant, 1st Baron Penrhyn of Llandygai as a ‘model village’ for his estate workers, in which ‘no corrupting alehouse’ was permitted. It lies immediately outside of the walls of the Penrhyn Castle
Penrhyn Castle
Penrhyn Castle is a country house in Llandegai, Bangor, Gwynedd, North Wales, in the form of a Norman castle. It was originally a medieval fortified manor house, founded by Ednyfed Fychan. In 1438, Ioan ap Gruffudd was granted a licence to crenellate and he founded the stone castle and added a...
demesne walls, with the entrance to the village being some 100m from the castle's Grand Lodge.
This model village was mostly constructed in the 1840s in a ‘vernacular revival’ style which conformed to the Picturesque
Picturesque
Picturesque is an aesthetic ideal introduced into English cultural debate in 1782 by William Gilpin in Observations on the River Wye, and Several Parts of South Wales, etc. Relative Chiefly to Picturesque Beauty; made in the Summer of the Year 1770, a practical book which instructed England's...
ideal. The model village was built within the loop of the road to Conwy
Conwy
Conwy is a walled market town and community in Conwy County Borough on the north coast of Wales. The town, which faces Deganwy across the River Conwy, formerly lay in Gwynedd and prior to that in Caernarfonshire. Conwy has a population of 14,208...
from where it branched off Telford
Thomas Telford
Thomas Telford FRS, FRSE was a Scottish civil engineer, architect and stonemason, and a noted road, bridge and canal builder.-Early career:...
’s newly built Holyhead to London road
A5 road
The A5 is a major road in England and Wales. It is also the first Roman built road in England hence the name Roman Road. It runs for about from London, England to Holyhead, Wales, following in part a section of the Roman Iter II route which later took the Anglo-Saxon name Watling...
. Each house was built in a similar style but none was to be identical. They were furnished with ample gardens and the layout was such that no house’s front door faced another.
Llandygai Church
A church was founded by Saint TegaiSaint Tegai
Saint Tegai is the patron saint and founder of Llandygai in the Welsh county of Gwynedd.According to Enwogion Cymru, Tegai was a saint who lived in the early part of the sixth century He was one of the sons of Ithel Hael, and with his brother Tecwyn accompanied Saint Cadfan from Brittany to Wales...
(or Tygái or simply Cai) in the fifth century. Relics of the Saint include a stone coffin
Coffin
A coffin is a funerary box used in the display and containment of dead people – either for burial or cremation.Contemporary North American English makes a distinction between "coffin", which is generally understood to denote a funerary box having six sides in plan view, and "casket", which...
and a cross bearing his name are kept at the church.
The present church
Parish church
A parish church , in Christianity, is the church which acts as the religious centre of a parish, the basic administrative unit of episcopal churches....
dates to around 1330 and was much restored and extended by the diocesan architect, Henry Kennedy, in 1853. The church is of cruciform
Cruciform
Cruciform means having the shape of a cross or Christian cross.- Cruciform architectural plan :This is a common description of Christian churches. In Early Christian, Byzantine and other Eastern Orthodox forms of church architecture this is more likely to mean a tetraconch plan, a Greek cross,...
structure with a central tower. It is a Grade II* listed building.
The church has six bells
Bell (instrument)
A bell is a simple sound-making device. The bell is a percussion instrument and an idiophone. Its form is usually a hollow, cup-shaped object, which resonates upon being struck...
. The bells naturally sound very loud inside the ringing chamber (from where the bells are rung); to combat this the bells are permanently fitted with leather muffles on both sides of the clapper. When ringing the bells they have a strange sound because of this; almost as if they are ringing inside a large tank of water.
In the church is a marble
Marble
Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite.Geologists use the term "marble" to refer to metamorphosed limestone; however stonemasons use the term more broadly to encompass unmetamorphosed limestone.Marble is commonly used for...
monument to Archbishop John Williams, the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal
Lord Keeper of the Great Seal
The Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England, and later of Great Britain, was formerly an officer of the English Crown charged with physical custody of the Great Seal of England. This evolved into one of the Great Officers of State....
during the reign of James I
James I of England
James VI and I was King of Scots as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the English and Scottish crowns on 24 March 1603...
. There is also monument by Richard Westmacott
Richard Westmacott
Sir Richard Westmacott, Jr., RA was a British sculptor.-Life and career:He studied under his father, Richard Westmacott the Elder, before going to Rome in 1793 to study under Antonio Canova...
to the first Lord Penrhyn, in which the sarcophagus is flanked by a quarryman and peasant woman, described by Eric Hobsbawm
Eric Hobsbawm
Eric John Ernest Hobsbawm , CH, FBA, is a British Marxist historian, public intellectual, and author...
as “the earliest sculpted proletarians”.
The ecclesiastical parish
Parish
A parish is a territorial unit historically under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of one parish priest, who might be assisted in his pastoral duties by a curate or curates - also priests but not the parish priest - from a more or less central parish church with its associated organization...
of Llandygai follows the Ogwen valley southwards, giving its name also the village of Mynydd Llandygai.
Christopher Bethell
Christopher Bethell
Christopher Bethell was Bishop of Bangor.Bethell was the second son of the Reverend Richard Bethell, the rector of St Peter's Wallingford, Berkshire, who died 12 January 1806 having married his wife Ann in 1771...
, Bishop of Bangor
Bishop of Bangor
The Bishop of Bangor is the Ordinary of the Church in Wales Diocese of Bangor.The diocese covers the counties of Anglesey, most of Caernarfonshire and Merionethshire and a small part of Montgomeryshire...
, is buried in the churchyard
Churchyard
A churchyard is a patch of land adjoining or surrounding a church which is usually owned by the relevant church or local parish itself. In the Scots language or Northern English language this can also be known as a kirkyard or kirkyaird....
.
Education
There are accounts of schooling for twelve children under the Welsh Trust in the late seventeenth century, and later a circulating school established in the area in 1750. Shortly after her husband’s death, the first Lady Penrhyn set up a school for girls in the village in what is now Neuadd Talgai. A school for boys was built in 1843.The boys school, now with a twentieth century extension, forms the present-day primary school, Ysgol Llandygai. It is a Voluntary Controlled school with around 170 pupils.
The village today
The model village, within the loop of the former line of the A55 roadA55 road
The A55, also known as the North Wales Expressway, is a major road in Britain. Its entire length is a dual carriageway primary route, with the exception of the point where it crosses the Britannia Bridge over the Menai Strait. All junctions are grade separated except for two roundabouts — one...
, retains much of its original character, despite some more recent additions, having been declared a conservation area in 1974. The village is next to the Grand Lodge affording the principal entrance to Penrhyn Castle
Penrhyn Castle
Penrhyn Castle is a country house in Llandegai, Bangor, Gwynedd, North Wales, in the form of a Norman castle. It was originally a medieval fortified manor house, founded by Ednyfed Fychan. In 1438, Ioan ap Gruffudd was granted a licence to crenellate and he founded the stone castle and added a...
, the former seat of the Penrhyn family, now a National Trust
National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty
The National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, usually known as the National Trust, is a conservation organisation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland...
property open to the public.
Outside the model village are also to be found –
- Off the A5 towards BangorBangor, GwyneddBangor is a city in Gwynedd, north west Wales, and one of the smallest cities in Britain. It is a university city with a population of 13,725 at the 2001 census, not including around 10,000 students at Bangor University. Including nearby Menai Bridge on Anglesey, which does not however form part of...
:- Llandygai Gypsy Site
- Llandygai Industrial Estate
- Ty Newydd probation hostel
- Bangor Cricket Club (Ty Newydd ground)
- Off the A5 towards BethesdaBethesda, WalesBethesda is a town lying on the River Ogwen and the A5 road on the edge of Snowdonia, in Gwynedd, north-west Wales, colloquially called Pesda by the locals.- History :...
:- Parc Cegin business park (in development)
- Off the former line of the A5, now a narrow lane:
- Bangor Rugby Football ClubBangor RFCBangor Rugby Football Club is a Welsh rugby union team based in Bangor, North Wales. Bangor RFC is a founding member of the Welsh Rugby Union and is a feeder club for the Llanelli Scarlets...
- Bangor Rugby Football Club
The Holyhead to Chester railway
North Wales Coast Line
The North Wales Coast Line is the railway line from Crewe to Holyhead. Virgin Trains consider their services along it to be a spur of the West Coast Main Line. The first section from Crewe to Chester was built by the Chester and Crewe Railway and absorbed by the Grand Junction Railway shortly...
passes by the village through the Llandygai Tunnel, which is 442 yards in length, before emerging onto the Ogwen
Ogwen
- Places :*Afon Ogwen, a river in Gwynedd, Wales*Llyn Ogwen, its source*Dyffryn Ogwen or Ogwen Valley, its valley*Ogwen Cottage, an outdoor education centre by Llyn Ogwen...
Viaduct
Viaduct
A viaduct is a bridge composed of several small spans. The term viaduct is derived from the Latin via for road and ducere to lead something. However, the Ancient Romans did not use that term per se; it is a modern derivation from an analogy with aqueduct. Like the Roman aqueducts, many early...
to the east of the village.
Spelling
The village name has been spelt also as Llandegai. The correct WelshWelsh language
Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...
spelling is Llandygái, the accent signifying that the last syllable is stressed as opposed to the last-but-one, the usual pattern. All forms are in use today with Llandygai the most commonly accepted.