4 minute read
A Walking Tour
A trip down memory lane
Lowri Llewelyn reminisces about her upbringing in Menai Bridge…
My Australian friend has come to visit.
As we make our way down through Coed Cyrnol woods, there’s the ghost of a memory I surely can’t remember… me, tiny, pushing my Disney dolls’ pram as its handles escape my We stop to admire St Tysilio’s Church, the current building thought to date back to the 15th Century, and where I always thought I’d get married. It marks the site of the religious cell of St Tysilio, said to have retired here around the sixth century to escape the responsibility of running the prince of Powys’s army.
Behind those trees? The devil pit into which my friend Ben swore villagers would throw in that wretched creature caught walking among them.
As I scour the gravestones for details, I recall a school trip to the island to make brass rubbings of these old graves; over
fists and it rockets down the hill, me darting after it to find a
kindly stranger has caught it at the bottom.
Straight ahead of us is Ynys Tysilio, or Church Island, tide
low and swampy either side of the causeway. At the entrance to the graveyard is an enormous multi-stemmed Monterey Cypress. As we amble round the little island, I point out the resting place of my friend Lucy, who died in our mid twenties.
From the other end of the island is an uninterrupted view there is John Evans “Y Bardd Cocos”, the Cockle Bard, famed
for such inane ditties as the one detailing the aforementioned fat, hairless lions.
of the Britannia Bridge. I tell Connor about the fire which
engulfed the once tubular structure, and the two stone lions hidden either side I like to think protect it from further harm: Pedwar llew tew, Heb ddim blew, Un yr ochr yma, Ac un yr ochr drew.
CLAMBER TO THE HIGHEST POINT ON THE ISLAND AND YOU’LL FIND THE WAR MEMORIAL WHERE A BOY WHO BROKE MY HEART SMUDGED THE STILL-WET CEMENT
Clamber to the highest point on the island and you’ll find the
war memorial where a boy who broke my heart smudged the still-wet cement. Half a lifetime has passed but I still look out for that smudge.
Let’s head back to the mainland, shall we? These waters can engulf the causeway; back in the day, a young boy was assigned the task of alerting churchgoers when it was time to leave.
We meander to Carreg yr Halen along the Belgian Promenade, built by Belgian refugees as a gesture of thanks during the first world war. It’s said the refugees cried when a band
played the Belgian national anthem in welcome to Wales.
I know every branch of these trees on our left, hours and hours spent playing as the mums chattered just out of eyeshot. From our vantage points – me on the lowest branch, my brother a little higher, our friend Lisa always the highest – a view of Menai Straits as it rumbled past, serene to the casual observer. But us locals know it’s as deadly as quicksand.
This part of the Strait is known as the Swellies, the most treacherous part of the Menai which claimed hundreds of ships over the centuries. One notable example is that of the Pwll Fanog Wreck, found carrying 40,000 slates and shedding light on the North Wales slate industry around 500 years
ago. I tell my friend how the town’s much older Welsh name, Porthaethwy, denotes a gateway to a local Celtic tribe of the Middle Ages.
As we pass beneath the Menai suspension bridge, I tell my friend to SHOUT SO WE CAN HEAR THE ECHO. This 1826
masterpiece is that of Thomas Telford’s, a name ready at the lips of any Ysgol Y Borth pupil. From here it’s possible
to truly appreciate the might of the Menai, her currents and whirlpools which make her so exceptionally dangerous.
I point at Pig Island which holds the Anglesey side of the bridge’s foundation, where long before any bridge, drovers allowed their animals to rest en route to the mainland.
Likewise, I explain how gray squirrels from the mainland traversed the bridge and decimated the island’s red squirrel population, and how its height of 100ft allowed tall sailing
ships to pass beneath while navigating this narrowest point of the Straits.
I tell Connor about Joe, a boy a year above me in primary school, who disappeared from this bridge when barely an adult, and how Freckled Angel on the high street is named in his memory.
Next: sustenance. One of my favourite spots in town is the balcony at Dylan’s restaurant, where we share a bread tin washed down with a chilled white wine.
Bellies full, we make our way through town back towards the Cantonese, pointing out the Rownd a Rownd TV set tourists
would mistake for real shops, and the boarded-up Chinese banquet where environmental safety found a seagull in the freezer.
I may no longer live here but this will always be home. n
Lowri Llewelyn is a North Wales based journalist who is endlessly curious [read: nosy] and loves everything to do with this beautiful region that she is lucky enough to call home.
