History of Newborough

By Iolo Griffiths

Visitors often just pass through Newborough on the way to the Forestry Commission reserve at Newborough Warren, and the adjacent beach, without considering the rich history of this small village.

While Llanddwyn Island with its connection with the Welsh Valentine, and its rich maritime history is indeed worthy of interest, the history of the village itself include a well-preserved medieval princely residence, a medieval "new town", and 18th century political intrigues, when Newborough challenged Beaumaris's domination over Anglesey. 

A centrepiece of the village is a community centre and almshouses, the gift of a successful businessman to his native village.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Iolo Griffiths
• Release date: Aug 21, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393387886

Iolo Griffiths

Iolo Griffiths was brought up in Anglesey, lives in North Wales and has been working for Trinity Mirror North Wales since 1987, firstly as a librarian and then proofreader, and then a journalist. He is now a Community Content Curator for Trinity Mirror North Wales His main interests are genealogy and local history (mainly North West Wales)

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Introduction

The main attraction of the village of Newborough to the general visitor is its beach and its sand dunes. It might be imagined at first sight that the village and its vicinity does not possess a particularly colourful history, but such a notion would be completely erroneous.

The area can lay claim to Wales's answer to St Valentine, a princely palace which was supplanted by a medieval new town, a history of political intrigue during the 18th century (with allegations of interference by a foreign power) as it tried to challenge the importance of the county town Beaumaris, and an unique cottage industry.

Llanddwyn Island may seem a quiet place to escape from the crowds, approached by a beach verging on a pine forest,  but it was once a very prosperous centre of pilgrimage in Medieval times, and in more recent years it had a rich maritime history as the base for Caernarfon's pilots, and a coastguard station.

Prehistoric Newborough

Some people believe that the sea around Llanddwyn island may have been a plain of grazing land  at the time Saint Dwynwen settled in the area in around the 6th century.  Certainly much evidence has been found in the Newborough Warren area to suggest that this was a busy area in prehistoric times, and clearly far more hospitable to human settlement than today's dunes might suggest.

In the summer of 1926 T Pape and Hugh Owen found a lot of flints and fragments of primitive pottery at Newborough Warren, dating from the Neolithic Era and the Transactions of the Anglesey Antiquarian Society of 1927 gives a fuller account of these discoveries. E Neil Baynes, in the same issue, discusses the shell mounds and bone needles, also of Neolithic date, which were again found at Newborough Warren.

The discoveries of chipped flints, and kitchen middens of mollusc shells from an early date, and stone querns from the Neolithic period would suggest that primitive man found it possible to cultivate crops there, and that conditions were far more favourable than the Saharan-type landscape which prevails today.

Some of the flints discovered in the Warren have been dated to about 5,000 BC, and some of the earthenware beaker fragments to about 2,000 BC. The shells discovered were mainly cockle shells, with mussels and periwinkles also being well-represented, which suggests that shellfish formed an important part of the diet of the early inhabitants.

Also in the same area were found some small Roman objects dating from circa 300 AD, such as a small spoon (resembling a mustard spoon) and tweezers, perhaps from a Roman lady's vanity set.

The Welsh Valentine

The island of Llanddwyn, which is nearly a mile in length and quarter of a mile in width can easily be reached by foot at low tide from Llanddwyn beach, across three miles of sandy terrain from Newborough, and has a number of sites of interest.

At the southern extremity of the island (strictly speaking it should be called a peninsula as it is only really an island at high tide) are two gravel-bottomed inlets called Porth Twr Mawr and Porth Twr Bach, with four coves on the eastern side,  namely Pilots’ Cove, Porth y Clochydd, Porth y Halen and Porth y Cwch, all well sheltered and covered with fine sand. There are also two wells. On the west of the island is Porth yr Ogof, near the reputed Ffynnon Dwynwen,  now known as Ffynnon y Ddafaden. The second well is called Ffynnon y Sais.

Dwyn or Dwynwen was the patron saint of Welsh lovers, with her feast in January 25 so she can be compared to St Valentine. She was the daughter of Brychan,  the Irish king of Brycheiniog (roughly the area covered more recently by the county of Breconshire, the southern section of the present-day Powys) in about the 5th or 6th century. Brychan had numerous children, a great number of whom became saints. Her sister Cain or Ceinwen settled in nearby Llangeinwen, while her brother Dyfnan settled a little further away at Llanddyfnan, near Talwrn.

The tale of how she became the Welsh Valentine is as follows. She and Maelon Dafodryll were enamoured of each other, but when he sought her hand she refused him in a fit of caprice or levity. He resented this rejection, and not only kept aloof from her, but cast aspersions on her good name, causing her great sorrow and anguish. Thus pining away in silence, unable to bear this mental torture, she prayed that God would cure her of her love, whereupon an angel appeared to her in her sleep and gave her a philtre which cured her immediately. A similar philtre was administered to the offending lover, who forthwith became frozen into a lump of ice. God also agreed to grant Dwynwen three wishes, the first of which was that Maelon might be unfrozen. Her next wish was that all true-hearted lovers who invoked her might either gain their heart’s desire or be relieved of their passion; and thirdly, that she herself might never wish to be married. The three wishes were granted to her, she took the veil and became a saint.

The well, Ffynnon Fair also called Ffynnon Dwynwen, was in great repute for centuries. Wells have always been sacred even in Pre-Christian times as a source of life and refreshment, and this well, associated with Dwynwen became an oracle for lovers wishing to discover if their beloved was faithful. The well was said to be inhabited by a sacred fish, whose movements indicated the fortunes of love-sick individuals, who would subsequently offer into Dwynwen’s chest.

William Williams of Llandegai described the procedure involved in this divination in an account he wrote in 1800:

There was a spring of clear water, now choked up by the sand, at which an old woman from Newborough always attended, and prognosticated the lovers’ success from some small eels which waved out of the sides of the well, on spreading the lovers’ handkerchief on the surface of the water. I remember an old woman saying that when she was a girl, she consulted the woman at this well about her destiny with respect to her husband; on spreading her handkerchief, out popped an eel from the north side of the well, and soon after another crawled from the south side, and the both met on the bottom of the well; then the woman told her that her husband would be a stranger from the south part of Carnarvonshire. Soon after it happened that three brothers came from that part and settled in the neighbourhood where the young woman was, one of whom made his addresses to her, and in a little time married her. So much of the prophecy I remember. This couple was my father and mother.

St Dwynwen was also invoked for the healing of various aches in the bones, and stitches,  and was also the patron saint of farmers’ beasts. St Dwynwen's well's alternative name was Ffynnon Dafaden, which suggests that it was also associated with healing of warts, though it was also reputed to heal bone complaints, pleurisy and lung diseases.

This somewhat out of the way island was actually at one time a very important centre of pilgrimage,  dedicated to St Dwynwen, the patron saint