Gwynedd Archaeological Trust

Ymddiriedolaeth Archaeolegol Gwynedd

01248 352535

The Menai Straits 2000 years of history

The Llanfaes ferry was in the hand of the Welsh princes in the thirteenth century. Llanfaes was the royal 'maerdref' of the commote of Dindaethwy. A survey of Crown interests in Anglesey, immediately after the English conquest in1283, was compiled and provides some information on the ferry. The ferry (passagium) was worth £12 to the king. In addition there were rent charges on the tenements of 'five ferrymen of the port who owe ferrying work in the king’s boat at their own charge, for 1 carucate and 2 bovates of land which they hold: value:15s.8d.’

The king paid the cost of providing the boat and it seems clear that these ferrymen were tied estate workers on the demesne of the former Prince. There is good reason to suppose that the Llanfaes ferry plied from the southern end of Llanfaes township where the ‘Green’ now stands at Beaumaris, some distance from the anchorage, or port of Llanfaes, in Friars’ Bay.

A new town and castle, on Cerrig y Gwyddel land (soon to be called Beaumaris) was established at the edge of defunct Llanfaes in 1295. From 1303 the ferry was accounted for with Beaumaris and held by the community of the town, for the king, until 1562 when it passed to the burgesses in perpetuity. The ‘ferrymanwarth’, or warf, at the Green (originally within the township of Llanfaes) became incorporated into the demesne of the castle.

The Beaumaris ferry was unusual in that travellers to Beaumaris had to make their own way across a vast expanse of tidal sand to reach the ferry. The ferry boats only worked the short stretch of deep water channel (about 250m) close to the Anglesey shore. Nevertheless, travellers departed from the landward route and took to the sands as early as Penmaenbach, rather than face the rigours of negotiating the headlands of Penmaenbach and Penmaenmawr (10-12km). Travellers from Conwy would cross the salt marsh and dunes of Conwy Morfa, seaward of Conwy mountain as far as Penmaenbach before venturing onto the tidal sands, keeping close to the shore until Penmaenmawr. If the sands were dry, travellers continued along the beach, skirting Penmaenmawr. If the tide was in, a route out of Conwy to Dwygyfylchi could be taken, south of Conwy mountain and through the pass at Sychnant and on to Penmaenmawr where the road rose up to round the headland. This route was notoriously dangerous, particularly in bad weather. Beyond Penmaenmawr the route branched out across the open sands to within shouting distance of Beaumaris.

Maps of the 17th and 18th centuries show the course of the routes across the Lavan Sands to Beaumaris. Greenville Collins’ Coasting Pilot of 1693 and John Ogilby’s route maps surveyed earlier than 1675, are among the most informative. Evans, in the 1790s, also shows a crossing of the sands from Aber. Aber was a royal maerdref in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and possibly a centre of lordship before that. When Joan, wife of Llywelyn ap Iorwerth, died at Aber, in 1237, her body was transported across to Llanfaes for burial in a consecrated enclosure on the shoreline, the site that was to become Llanfaes Friary.

By the end of the 17th century changes in the nature of the channel caused the relocation of the ferry to Gallows Point, a short distance to the south

Beaumaris Green and the castle

Lavan sands from the mainland at Aber