Llanfairpwllgwyngyll
Encyclopedia
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch (Welsh pronunciation: ˌɬanvairˌpuɬɡwɨ̞nˌɡɨ̞ɬɡoˌɡɛrəˌχwərnˌdrobuɬˌɬantɨ̞ˌsiljoˌɡoɡoˈɡoːχ) is a large village and community
Community (Wales)
A community is a division of land in Wales that forms the lowest-tier of local government in Wales. Welsh communities are analogous to civil parishes in England....

 on the island of Anglesey
Anglesey
Anglesey , also known by its Welsh name Ynys Môn , is an island and, as Isle of Anglesey, a county off the north west coast of Wales...

 in 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...

, situated on the Menai Strait
Menai Strait
The Menai Strait is a narrow stretch of shallow tidal water about long, which separates the island of Anglesey from the mainland of Wales.The strait is bridged in two places - the main A5 road is carried over the strait by Thomas Telford's elegant iron suspension bridge, the first of its kind,...

 next to the Britannia Bridge
Britannia Bridge
Britannia Bridge is a bridge across the Menai Strait between the island of Anglesey and the mainland of Wales. It was originally designed and built by Robert Stephenson as a tubular bridge of wrought iron rectangular box-section spans for carrying rail traffic...

 and across the strait from Bangor
Bangor, Wales
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...

. This village has the longest place name in Europe and one of the longest place names in the world. The short form of the village's name is Llanfairpwllgwyngyll, also spelled Llanfair Pwllgwyngyll. It is commonly known as Llanfair PG or Llanfairpwll.

According to the 2001 census, the population of the community is 3,040, 76% of whom speak Welsh
Welsh 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...

 fluently; the highest percentage of speakers is in the 10–14 age group, where 97.1% are able to speak Welsh. It is the fifth largest settlement on the island by population.

Visitors stop at the railway station
Llanfairpwll railway station
Llanfairpwll railway station is a station on the North Wales Coast Line from London Euston station to Holyhead on Anglesey. It serves the village of Llanfairpwllgwyngyll....

 to be photographed next to the station sign, visit the nearby Visitors' Centre, or have 'passports' stamped at a local shop. Another tourist attraction is the nearby Marquess of Anglesey's Column, which at a height of 27 metres (88.6 ft) offers views over Anglesey and the Menai Strait. Designed by Thomas Harrison
Thomas Harrison (architect)
Thomas Harrison was an English architect and engineer. He built a number of bridges, including Grosvenor Bridge in Chester. He also rebuilt parts of Chester and Lancaster castles...

, the monument celebrates the heroism of Henry Paget, 1st Marquess of Anglesey
Henry Paget, 1st Marquess of Anglesey
Field Marshal Henry William Paget, 1st Marquess of Anglesey, KG, GCB, GCH, PC , styled Lord Paget between 1784 and 1812 and known as The Earl of Uxbridge between 1812 and 1815, was a British military leader and politician, now chiefly remembered for leading the charge of the heavy cavalry against...

 at the Battle of Waterloo
Battle of Waterloo
The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815 near Waterloo in present-day Belgium, then part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands...

.

Name

The long form of the name is the longest officially recognised place name in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 and one of the longest in the world
Longest words
The longest word in any given language depends on the word formation rules of each specific language, and on the types of words allowed for consideration. Agglutinative languages allow for the creation of long words via compounding. Even non-agglutinative languages may allow word formation of...

, being 58 letters in length (51 letters in the Welsh alphabet, where "ch", "ng" and "ll" count as single letters).

The name means: [St] Mary's Church (Llanfair) [in] the hollow (pwll) of the white hazel (gwyngyll) near (goger) the rapid whirlpool (y chwyrndrobwll) [and] the church of [St] Tysilio
Tysilio
Saint Tysilio was a Welsh bishop, prince and scholar, son of the reigning King of Powys, Brochwel Ysgithrog, maternal nephew of the great Abbot Dunod of Bangor Iscoed and an ecclesiastic who took a prominent part in the affairs of Wales during the distressful period at the opening of the 7th...

 (llantysilio) with a red cave ([a]g ogo goch).

This village was originally known as Llanfair Pwllgwyngyll (and is sometimes still referred to as Llanfairpwllgwyngyll) and was given its long name in the 19th century in an attempt to develop the village as a commercial and tourist centre (see Significance of the name below). Today the village is still signposted as Llanfairpwllgwyngyll, marked on Ordnance Survey
Ordnance Survey
Ordnance Survey , an executive agency and non-ministerial government department of the Government of the United Kingdom, is the national mapping agency for Great Britain, producing maps of Great Britain , and one of the world's largest producers of maps.The name reflects its creation together with...

 maps as Llanfair Pwllgwyngyll and is known to locals as Llanfairpwll or simply Llanfair.

The name is also seen shortened to Llanfair PG, which is sufficient to distinguish it from the many other Welsh villages with Llanfair in their names. Other variant forms use the full name but with tysilio mutated to dysilio, and/or with a hyphen between drobwll and llan. In Welsh
Welsh 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...

, the initial Ll may be mutated to a single L in some contexts.

Significance of the name

The village's long name cannot be considered an authentic Welsh-language
Welsh 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...

 toponym. It was artificially contrived in the 1860s to bestow upon the station the honour of having the longest name of any railway station in Britain; an early example of a publicity stunt
Publicity stunt
A publicity stunt is a planned event designed to attract the public's attention to the event's organizers or their cause. Publicity stunts can be professionally organized or set up by amateurs...

. The village's own web site credits the name to a cobbler from the local village of Menai Bridge. According to Sir John Morris-Jones
John Morris-Jones
Sir John Morris-Jones was a Welsh grammarian, academic and poet.He was born at Llandrygarn, Anglesey and educated at Friars School, Bangor. Whilst at Jesus College, Oxford, Morris-Jones co-founded the Cymdeithas Dafydd ap Gwilym...

 the name was created by a local tailor, whose name he did not confide, letting the secret die with him.

The village was originally known as 'Llanfair Pwllgwyngyll' "St Mary's church in the hollow of the white hazel." 'Pwllgwyngyll' was the name of the original medieval township
Township
The word township is used to refer to different kinds of settlements in different countries. Township is generally associated with an urban area. However there are many exceptions to this rule. In Australia, the United States, and Canada, they may be settlements too small to be considered urban...

 where the village stands today.

The village is split into two smaller villages, Llanfairpwllgwyngyll-uchaf (Upper Llanfairpwllgwyngyll) the original part of the village and Llanfairpwllgwyngyll-isaf (Lower Llanfairpwllgwyngyll) the newer area nearer the railway station. These are occasionally referred to as Pentre Uchaf and Pentre Isaf (Upper Village and Lower Village) respectively.

Pronunciation

The full name of the village is ˌɬanvairˌpuɬɡwɨ̞nˌɡɨ̞ɬɡoˌɡɛrəˌχwərənˌdrobuɬˌɬantɨ̞ˌsiljoˌɡoɡoˈɡoːχ, or with [ɪ] for [ɨ̞], [pʊɬ, bʊɬ] for [puɬ, buɬ], depending on the speaker's accent.
The approximate pronunciation in English orthography is given at the station as: Llan-vire-pooll-guin-gill-go-ger-u-queern-drob-ooll-llandus-ilio-gogo-goch, although "chwurn" would be a far better representation of the middle syllable than "queern", and "llantus" would be more accurate than "llandus". The ch is a voiceless uvular fricative [χ] or voiceless velar fricative
Voiceless velar fricative
The voiceless velar fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The sound was part of the consonant inventory of Old English and can still be found in some dialects of English, most notably in Scottish English....

 as in "Bach" ([bax]: see ach-Laut) in most varieties of German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

.

The ll is a voiceless lateral fricative [ɬ], a sound that does not occur in English and is sometimes approximated as [θl] (thl as in athlete) or even [xl] by English speakers.
There is even a song on iTunes with a lesson on how to pronounce the name.

Rival names

There have been several attempts to steal the village's record. The Carmarthenshire
Carmarthenshire
Carmarthenshire is a unitary authority in the south west of Wales and one of thirteen historic counties. It is the 3rd largest in Wales. Its three largest towns are Llanelli, Carmarthen and Ammanford...

 village of Llanfynydd
Llanfynydd
Llanfynydd is a village in Carmarthenshire, Wales.In protest over plans to erect a wind farm nearby, on 19 July 2004 the village adopted the new name of Llanhyfrydawelllehynafolybarcudprindanfygythiadtrienusyllafnauole...

 unofficially adopted the name Llanhyfryddawelllehynafolybarcudprindanfygythiadtrienusyrhafnauole in 2004 in protest of plans to erect a wind farm
Wind farm
A wind farm is a group of wind turbines in the same location used to produce electric power. A large wind farm may consist of several hundred individual wind turbines, and cover an extended area of hundreds of square miles, but the land between the turbines may be used for agricultural or other...

 nearby (the name means "a quiet beautiful village; a historic place with rare kite under threat from wretched blades" in English). A station on the Fairbourne Railway
Fairbourne Railway
The Fairbourne Railway is a gauge miniature railway running for from the village of Fairbourne on the Mid-Wales coast, alongside the beach to the end of a peninsula at Barmouth Ferry, where there is a connection with a pedestrian ferry across the Mawddach estuary to the seaside resort of...

 was named Gorsafawddacha'idraigodanheddogleddollônpenrhynareurdraethceredigion
Gorsafawddacha'idraigodanheddogleddollônpenrhynareurdraethceredigion
Golf Halt is a small railway halt on the Fairbourne Railway in Gwynedd, North Wales.Until 2007 the station was known as Gorsafawddacha'idraigodanheddogleddollônpenrhynareurdraethceredigion -Overview:...

(translated as "the Mawddach
River Mawddach
The River Mawddach is a river in North Wales which has its source in a wide area north of Dduallt in Snowdonia. The river is much branched and many of the significant tributaries are of a similar size to the main river...

 station and its dragon teeth at the Northern Penrhyn Road on the golden beach of Cardigan Bay
Cardigan Bay
Cardigan Bay is a large inlet of the Irish Sea, indenting the west coast of Wales between Bardsey Island, Gwynedd in the north, and Strumble Head, Pembrokeshire at its southern end. It is the largest bay in Wales....

") for promotional purposes. No such attempts have gained widespread recognition amongst official bodies or transport authorities.

History

A settlement has existed on the site of the village since the 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...

 era, with subsistence agriculture
Subsistence agriculture
Subsistence agriculture is self-sufficiency farming in which the farmers focus on growing enough food to feed their families. The typical subsistence farm has a range of crops and animals needed by the family to eat and clothe themselves during the year. Planting decisions are made with an eye...

 and fishing
Fishing
Fishing is the activity of trying to catch wild fish. Fish are normally caught in the wild. Techniques for catching fish include hand gathering, spearing, netting, angling and trapping....

 the most common occupations for much of the village's early history. The island of Anglesey
Anglesey
Anglesey , also known by its Welsh name Ynys Môn , is an island and, as Isle of Anglesey, a county off the north west coast of Wales...

 was at that point only reachable by boat across the Menai Strait
Menai Strait
The Menai Strait is a narrow stretch of shallow tidal water about long, which separates the island of Anglesey from the mainland of Wales.The strait is bridged in two places - the main A5 road is carried over the strait by Thomas Telford's elegant iron suspension bridge, the first of its kind,...

. The area was briefly invaded and captured by the Romans
Roman Britain
Roman Britain was the part of the island of Great Britain controlled by the Roman Empire from AD 43 until ca. AD 410.The Romans referred to the imperial province as Britannia, which eventually comprised all of the island of Great Britain south of the fluid frontier with Caledonia...

 under Gaius Suetonius Paulinus
Gaius Suetonius Paulinus
Gaius Suetonius Paulinus, also spelled Paullinus, was a Roman general best known as the commander who defeated the rebellion of Boudica.-Career:...

, temporarily abandoned in order to consolidate forces against Boudicca, then held until the end of Roman Britain.

With the withdrawal of the Roman forces, the area fell under the control of the Kingdom of Gwynedd
Kingdom of Gwynedd
Gwynedd was one petty kingdom of several Welsh successor states which emerged in 5th-century post-Roman Britain in the Early Middle Ages, and later evolved into a principality during the High Middle Ages. It was based on the former Brythonic tribal lands of the Ordovices, Gangani, and the...

, an early Medieval kingdom. Under this feudal system, the residents worked small farms for the king. The rural nature of the settlement meant that the village had a population of only around 80.

However, with the introduction of estates in the 16th century, much of the land was absorbed into the Earldom of Uxbridge, currently under the Marquess of Anglesey
Marquess of Anglesey
Marquess of Anglesey is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1815 for Henry Paget, 2nd Earl of Uxbridge, a hero of the Battle of Waterloo...

, and the population forced to work as tenants
Tenant farmer
A tenant farmer is one who resides on and farms land owned by a landlord. Tenant farming is an agricultural production system in which landowners contribute their land and often a measure of operating capital and management; while tenant farmers contribute their labor along with at times varying...

 on enclosure
Enclosure
Enclosure or inclosure is the process which ends traditional rights such as mowing meadows for hay, or grazing livestock on common land. Once enclosed, these uses of the land become restricted to the owner, and it ceases to be common land. In England and Wales the term is also used for the...

s. The population of the village boomed, with a population of 385 in the 1801 census.

In 1826, the village was connected to the rest of Wales by the construction of the Menai Suspension Bridge
Menai Suspension Bridge
The Menai Suspension Bridge is a suspension bridge between the island of Anglesey and the mainland of Wales. Designed by Thomas Telford and completed in 1826, it was the first modern suspension bridge in the world.-Construction:...

 by Thomas 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:...

, and connected with London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 in 1850 with the building of the Britannia Bridge
Britannia Bridge
Britannia Bridge is a bridge across the Menai Strait between the island of Anglesey and the mainland of Wales. It was originally designed and built by Robert Stephenson as a tubular bridge of wrought iron rectangular box-section spans for carrying rail traffic...

 and the busy North Wales Coast railway line
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...

, which connected London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 to the ferry port of Holyhead
Holyhead
Holyhead is the largest town in the county of Anglesey in the North Wales. It is also a major port adjacent to the Irish Sea serving Ireland....

. The village decentralised, splitting into Upper Village (Pentre Uchaf), which was made up mainly of the older houses and farms, and the new Lower Village (Pentre Isaf), built around the railway station and consisting mostly of shops and workshops. The village became a hub of commerce, as the railways and road network brought traders and customers from across north Wales.

The first ever meeting of the Women's Institute took place in Llanfairpwll in 1915 and the movement (which began in Canada) then spread through the rest of the British Isles.

In popular culture

The name is celebrated in the song "Red Cave" by the band Yeasayer
Yeasayer
-History:The band's three core members, Chris Keating, Ira Wolf Tuton, and Anand Wilder, first came to attention after appearing at the SXSW festival in early 2007. Their first single consisted of a double A-side of the tracks "Sunrise" and "2080"...

, which features the band repeating the lines "Mary's house in the hollow of the white hazel rapid whirlpool and the church of the red cave."

In a reference to the village, the Welsh band Super Furry Animals
Super Furry Animals
Super Furry Animals are a Welsh rock band that lean towards psychedelic rock and electronic experimentation. Since their formation in Cardiff, Wales in 1993, the band has consisted of Gruff Rhys , Huw Bunford , Guto Pryce , Cian Ciaran and Dafydd Ieuan Super Furry Animals are a Welsh rock band...

 called their debut E.P. Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgoger-ychwyndrobwllantysil-iogogogochynygofod (in space)

The name was also used in the movie Barbarella
Barbarella (film)
Barbarella is a 1968 Franco-Italian science fiction film based on Jean-Claude Forrest's French Barbarella comics. The film was directed by Roger Vadim and stars Jane Fonda, who was Vadim's wife at the time.-Plot:...

as the password for the headquarters of Dildano, the comical revolutionary and by Peter Sellers
Peter Sellers
Richard Henry Sellers, CBE , known as Peter Sellers, was a British comedian and actor. Perhaps best known as Chief Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther film series, he is also notable for playing three different characters in Dr...

 in the film The Road to Hong Kong
The Road to Hong Kong
The Road to Hong Kong starring Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, and Joan Collins, was the last in the long-running Road to … series and the only episode not produced by Paramount Pictures, though reference to the other films in the series are shown in Maurice Binder's opening title sequence...

 where he plays a quack doctor who asks Bob Hope
Bob Hope
Bob Hope, KBE, KCSG, KSS was a British-born American comedian and actor who appeared in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in radio, television and movies. He was also noted for his work with the US Armed Forces and his numerous USO shows entertaining American military personnel...

 to say it instead of the more usual 'Ahh' when examining his teeth.

The name was used as a solution in a crossword compiled by Roger Squires
Roger Squires
Roger Squires is a British crossword compiler, living in Ironbridge, Shropshire, who is best known for being the world's most prolific compiler....

 for The Telford and Wrekin News when royalty visited Ironbridge in 1979 on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the first ever bridge made of iron. The Telford & Wrekin asked for it so it would be accepted by Guinness Records as the longest word to appear in a published crossword. It was deemed necessary to make it an anagram: “Giggling troll follows Clancy, Larry, Billy and Peggy who howl, wrongly disturbing a place in Wales (58)”.

See also

  • Long place names
  • List of long place names
  • Longest word in English
    Longest word in English
    The identity of the longest word in English depends upon the definition of what constitutes a word in the English language, as well as how length should be compared...

  • Llanfairpwll F.C.
    Llanfairpwll F.C.
    Llanfairpwll F.C. are a football team based in Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, near Bangor, that plays in the Cymru Alliance League .-Club history:...

    , the town's football club

External links

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