Gwynedd Archaeological Trust

Ymddiriedolaeth Archaeolegol Gwynedd

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The Menai Straits 2000 years of history

The great majority of the headland of Cerrig y Borth, Porthaethwy, was intractable common land. The principal activity concerned the operation and servicing of the ferries. The only road of consequence was that which hugged the shoreline of the Straits, providing access to landings, and struck north from Jackson’s coaching stables at Porth y Wrach towards central Anglesey and Holyhead.

The Act of Union of January 1801, had provided a catalyst for action and an alternative solution to the ferrries. Politicians now, as well as the general public, required safe and speedy connections between London and Dublin. The eventual solution was an engineering masterpiece, the Menai Suspension Bridge designed and engineered by Thomas Telford. Construction of the bridge was begun in 1818 and completed in January 1826. The immediate impact on Porthaethwy was dramatic.

At the height of activity in 1821, four hundred men were at work on the bridge and at the limestone quarries near Penmon. Lodgings were provided, shops opened to supply groceries and hardware, men stayed and married locally. The former ferry lands became Crown property.

In the 1820s, a Llangefni general-store keeper, Richard Davies, saw the potential of shipping-in goods to a captive market at a cheap price for cash-on-the-nail. With the ferries closed at Menai Bridge and the population increasing rapidly, Davies began to set up business at Menai Bridge. In 1828 Davies obtained a lease from the Marquis of Anglesey of nearly half an acre of land on the waterfront which included a warehouse, already built by Davies, and an associated timber yard.

Population and a ready market, access to good communications by road and sea, land available for development, opportunity and energy – all came together to create an entrepreneurial environment that would transform Menai Bridge during the mid-nineteenth century. In the words of Henry Rees Davies, grandson of Richard Davies of Llangefni, pencilled in his notebook before a St. David’s Day speech in Menai Bridge, in 1913: ‘Richard Davies and Sons … took over the old coach stables [The George's coaching stables] and leased some adjoining property ... and presently proceeded (there being no watchful Urban District Council to say them, nay!) to squat on and to enclose certain of the lands reserved for the ferry. A little later they build the wharf to which the Prince’s Pier is now attached and cargoes began to be imported from England and abroad. Menai Bridge had now become the business!’

The wharf lies between Porth y Wrach, on the south side, and Porth Daniel to the north. The inlet of Porth y Wrach served as a convenient landing for the former Bangor Ferry, plying from the Caernarfonshire shoreline at the George Hotel, from at least the 1770s.

Richard Davies and Sons' warehouses (now two, end to end) were built sometime before 1828 with an addition in the late 1830s or early 1840s. To the south of the warehouses stood Min y Don, the private house of the Davies family (built in the 1840s and now sadly demolished), looking directly eastward towards the slipway of Porth y Wrach and the Straits.

Messrs Davies took the opportunity of making good use of this, now untenanted, land. John Davies, then running the Davies family business, installed a steam engine, saw mill and smithy at the head of the Porth Daniel inlet and built the Porth Daniel wharf at the same time, around 1837-8.

During the late 1830s, John Davies had taken shares in a number of locally built ships, bringing timber and general goods to Menai Bridge. A steam-powered saw mill implies the presence of a significant quantity of raw material to process. Later there would be saw pits and timber yards on Bonc Mostyn and Bonc Peggy too. North America was the main source of imported timber and in 1843 the Davies family bought their own North American ship at Liverpool. The Chieftain, built at St John, New Brunswick, was bigger, faster and more manoeuvrable than his previous locally built vessels, at 42m in length and 795 tons burden

An important trade had developed across the Atlantic, carrying emigrants and slates to America and bringing back cargoes of timber. The Davies business diversified into three related components. These included the shipping business, later registered as Richard Hughes and Co; a wholesale grocery business trading under the name of John Edwards and the timber yard in Menai Bridge, which continued to trade until recently on the original site, as William Roberts. All of this was focussed on the warehouses, timber yards and wharf either side of Packet Street on the Menai Bridge shoreline at Porth Daniel.

An example

The Chieftain sailed from Liverpool for Quebec in May 1843 and arrived back at Menai Bridge with her cargo of timber on the 1st October. In just over a month in the Straits, loading slates and taking on emigrants, the Chieftain sailed for New Orleans, arriving back at Liverpool at the beginning of June, 1844. Another ship was bought the following year, two more in 1845 and another two in 1846. Four ships were purchased in 1847 and two more in 1848. These were the busiest years in the Straits.

Menai Bridge in the 19th century

Water Street Warehouses

Wharf and Warehouses

Porth Daniel wharf