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MÔN MAM CYMRU: the Guide to Anglesey—by Philip Steele & Robert Williams
£17.95
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This in-depth award winning English-language guidebook to Anglesey is the only one of its kind. It has more than three hundred full-colour illustrations, including artists’ reconstruction drawings of many of the island’s ancient sites. There are three parts to the book – an introduction sets the scene, a detailed gazetteer covers every part of the island, and a directory section presents a classified listing of things to do and places to see. There are many inset features, including a series of profiles of the island’s notable people and its natural history. Three longer articles summarise Anglesey’s seafaring history, its architecture and its cultural heritage. A fold-out map is included.
Accommodation listings are not included in the guidebook. The island’s tourist brochure provides up-to-date information about where to stay. Telephone the Tourist Information Centre – 01248 713177 – for a free copy.
“This is the third edition of this guide to Anglesey and it maintains its position as by far the best one available – an introduction to Anglesey in all its variety. Highly recommended … read before a visit it will be an excellent preparation and after a visit it can be studied at leisure.”
— from a review in the ‘Transactions’ of the Anglesey Antiquarian Society & Field Club.
The 264-page guide, in a pocketbook format 123mm wide x 220mm high, has a durable softback binding.
A HISTORY OF THE ISLAND OF MONA‘Including an Account of its Natural Productions, Druidical Antiquities, Lives of Eminent Men, the Customs of the Court of the Antient Welsh Princes, etc.’
—by Angharad Llwyd (1780–1866).
£14.95
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The Victorian guidebook to Anglesey. The only new edition since publication in 1833 of the prizewinning essay for the 1832 Beaumaris Eisteddfod.
The book includes a new introduction illustrated by a carte-de-visite photograph (shown above, by arrangement with the Denbighshire Record Office) of Angharad Llwyd and the unabridged text of her first edition, including its illustrations, biographical sketches, lists of the island’s bards, sheriffs and members of parliament, and a full account of the Beaumaris Eisteddfod, together with an index.
Angharad Llwyd’s readable and informative guidebook takes us on a tour of ‘Mona’ as it was in the early decades of the nineteenth century, recounting the history of the island—so far as it was understood at the time—along the way.
“This edition brings to those interested in the history of Anglesey, in all its aspects, a rich resource which has been hitherto relatively difficult to access and it is a welcome addition to other volumes published by Llyfrau Magma about Anglesey.”
— reviewed in the latest edition of the ‘Transactions’ of the Anglesey Antiquarian Society.
Softback, 256 pages, 170mm wide x 248mm high. ISBN 978-1-872773-73-5, Llyfrau Magma, 2008. This title is published as the companion volume to Magma’s up-to-date and comprehensive guidebook to the island, Môn Mam Cymru’.
MONA ANTIQUA RESTAURATAA facsimile reprint of the 1723 first edition of Henry Rowlands’s book
—“An Archaeological Discourse on the Antiquities, Natural and Historical, of the Isle of Anglesey, the Antient Seat of the British Druids.”
£65
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Henry Rowlands (1655-1723) was born on Anglesey at Llanedwen and became rector of Llanidan Old Church. He wrote about farming practice in ‘Idea Agriculturæ’ and in 1710 produced ‘Antiquitates Parochiales’ about the ancient monuments of the locality. His best known work was ‘Mona Antiqua Restaurata’ (1723)—literally ‘Ancient Anglesey restored’—in which he mistakenly linked the island’s Bronze Age sites with the Druids, the priests and lawgivers of the ancient Celts. This fanciful anachronism, compounded by the English antiquarian William Stukeley, was seized upon in Victorian times and still persists today. However Rowlands does deserve credit for focussing attention on the island’s ancient sites.
This limited edition book is now in very short supply.
A HISTORY OF THE ISLAND OF ANGLESEY—‘from its first Invasion by the Romans, until finally acceded to the Crown of England; together with a distinct Description of the Towns, Harbours, Villages, and other Remarkable Places in it; and of several Antiquities relating thereforeto never before made public’.
Fifteen guineas / £15.75
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This is a casebound same-size facsimile reprint of the first edition, which was ‘printed for J. Dodsley in Pall-Mall’ in 1775.
The book is described on its title page as ‘A Supplement to Rowlands’s Mona Antiqua Restaurata’ (of which a second edition, edited by Dr Henry Owen, had been published in 1766). Often referred to as the ‘Dodsley' History of Anglesey, after its London publisher, the authorship of this History has been attributed to the Reverend John Thomas of Llandegai. After John Thomas's death in 1769, his manuscript seems to have been edited (some say plagiarised, although his name appears nowhere in the book) by an aspiring antiquary, Rev. Nicholas Owen, who was born in 1752 at Llandyfrydog in Anglesey. The volume also includes appendices: ‘A Catalogue of the Rectories, Vicarages and Chapels in the Isle of Anglesey’, and an account of the life of Owain Glyndลตr by Rev Thomas Ellis (1625-73).
(The book is discussed in a paper by TPT Williams in the 2006 edition of the ‘Transactions' of the Anglesey Antiquarian Society, and a review of this new facsimile edition appears in its latest issue.)
Hardcover, 96 large-format pages, 220mm wide x 290mm high.
ISBN 978-1-872773-87-2, Llyfrau Magma, 2008
BEAUMARIS: the town’s story / hanes y dref—by Philip Steele & Robert Williams
£9.95
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Seven centuries ago the south east coast of the island of Anglesey was a powerful centre of Welsh culture and rule. Invaders from England decided to build an impregnable fortress in this Welsh heartland.
On a ‘beautiful marsh’—‘Beau Marais’—a castle rose next to the sea.
Today, the little town of Beaumaris is one of the most interesting in Britain.
An eventful history and a spectacular setting bring visitors from all over the world to see the World Heritage site for themselves. The story in this book—in words and many pictures—tells of Welsh princes and medieval knights, farmers and fishermen, bards and battles.
“An excellent introduction to one of the most interesting historic towns in Wales. It is the illustrations above all which make this such an attractive book; they are varied, well chosen and well reproduced. They include reproductions of documents, topographical prints and old and recent photographs.
“… This is a high-quality publication in which the image and the written word complement each other and it deserves to succeed.”
— from a review in the ‘Transactions’ of the Anglesey Antiquarian Society.
48 pages, 210mm wide x 205mm high. Bilingual (English/Cymraeg).
Includes a pull-out guide describing a half-hour walking tour of the town’s principal buildings and attractions.