Menai Bridge Cemetery

The town existed as Porthaethwy for centuries and still has a house which dates from the 17th century. The name derives from Porth (harbour) + Daethwy (the name of a local Celtic tribe and later of a local medieval commote). It is likely that a community existed here in Roman times as it is the shortest crossing of the Menai Strait. In the 9th century, St Tysilio lived here as a hermit on Church Island. A ferry across the Menai was first recorded in 1292. When the bridge opened in 1826, the ferry closed, but connections with the sea remained through the import, export and shipbuilding trades. Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass (1872) mentions the Menai Bridge in chapter 8 in a…

At the eastern edge of the town is Cwm Cadnant Dingle which is now by-passed by a modern bridge constructed in the 1970s. The Afon Cadnant drains into the Menai Strait at this point and this small estuary provides a natural haven for small boats crossing from the mainland. This was the location of the landing stage for the Bishops of Bangor who had their residence at Glyn Garth on Anglesey but whose cathedral was in Bangor on the mainland. There are a number of small islands in the Menai Strait some of which are connected to the town by causeways, including Ynys Faelog, Ynys Gaint, Ynys Castell and Ynys y Bîg east of the suspension bridge and Church Island (Ynys Tysilio in Welsh) west of…