But this astonishing name, like most others in the Principality, is (or was originally) descriptive, and contained almost as much local information as a guide-book. Done into English it means “the church of Saint Mary in the hollow of white hazel, near to the rapid whirlpool of Saint Tysilio and a red cave.” The church of St. Mary may, indeed, be found in the deep hollow at the foot of an incredibly steep lane and by the shores of the Menai, where whirlpools of sorts are created by the tides that set so strongly through the Straits, and rise and fall over twenty feet; but the red cave is not now to be discovered, and they are oaks and elms rather than white hazels that to-day enshroud the hollow.
Llanfair church has been rebuilt and is uninteresting. In its churchyard, close to the shore and almost in the shadow of the great Britannia Tubular Bridge that carries the mail trains between Anglesey and the mainland, one may find the decaying monument, overgrown with bushes, erected to the memory of fifteen men who lost their lives on the bridge works between 1846 and 1850. The bridge itself, “that ’ere great, long, ugly iron thing,” as the coachmen whom it drove off the last length of road called it, bulks large from this point of view, with an irrevocable air in its straight, clear-cut lines and massiveness, and a stern and solemn grandeur—like that of some Egyptian monument; in sharp contrast with the Menai Suspension Bridge, spanning the waters in the distance like the product of some fairy wand.
THE BRITANNIA BRIDGE.
It was in April 1846 that the foundation stone of this great structure on the then Chester and Holyhead Railway was laid, on the Britannia Rock in the middle of the Straits. The rock itself obtained its name from the “Britannia,” a vessel wrecked some years before at this point, and in its turn suggested the very appropriate title of the bridge. The width of the Straits, here about 1,100 feet, presented an even graver problem to Robert Stephenson than had been faced by Telford, over twenty years before, for not merely a suspended road-bridge, but a rigid structure to sustain the burden of trains weighing 200 tons had to be designed. The Admiralty, jealous to preserve the navigation, forbade an arched bridge of any less height than a clear hundred feet above high water, and moreover refused to allow the interruption of the passage for a single day during the construction. Arches were out of the question, and eventually Stephenson resolved what was then the novelty of a bridge on the beam principle, consisting of rectangular iron tubes supported at intervals by giant masonry piers. There are three of these supports: the Britannia pier and tower, midway, and one on either shore. The two spans, or main tubes as they are called, across the water are each 472 feet in length, and that of the side spans 230 feet each; the whole length of the bridge 1841 feet, the weight of iron 10,000 tons, and the cost £602,000. The idea of this vast mass of riveted iron being elastic, seems grotesque, but when Stephenson designed the bridge he had sufficient forethought to allow for the expanding and contracting properties of iron under extremes of heat and cold. This precaution for securing free movement of the tubes, that would otherwise have broken down the supporting piers, took the form of allowing their ends to rest on cast-iron rollers and balls in a clear space left in the masonry. Experience has shown the expansion and contraction to be fully twelve inches. The first train ran through on March 5th, 1850, completing the present railway route from London to Holyhead; and although the weight of locomotives and trains has doubled since then, the bridge still serves its purpose.
A near sight of the Bridge is generally sought for, and when one has climbed the railway embankment and walked along the line to its gloomy entrance, it can scarce be denied that the expedition is worth the while. There are the two parallel tubes for up and down lines, and above them the masonry of the Anglesey tower; on it deeply carved the name of Robert Stephenson and the date. On either side the colossal granite figure of an Egyptian lion crouches on its pedestal, guarding the approach, and with sphinx-like inscrutable gaze seeming to bide the coming of an appointed day. The impression of weird mysticism they give at twilight; the inky blackness of the two railway tubes in between; the evening mists gathering over the Snowdon heights in the background; and the last rays of the setting sun flushing the Britannia tower with a dusky red, is indescribable. Suddenly as one gazes, a hollow rumbling is heard, gradually increasing until with a hellish clang and the reverberation of a million echoes, a train dashes out, bringing with it a taste of the sooty air that lingers in the tubes, the product of fifty years, and abominably like that of an unswept chimney.
But the curiosities of Llanfairpwllgwyngyll are not yet exhausted. One other remains, in the shape of a colossal granite statute of Lord Nelson, claimed to have been “designed” by Lord Clarence Paget, placed ridiculously on an undersized pedestal on the sea-weedy rocks by the Menai. It is, as a matter of fact, an exact copy of the well-known statue crowning the Nelson Column in Trafalgar Square, with empty sleeve pinned across the breast and cocked hat on head. Here, lonely in a meadow, beside the water he stands, with a very fine view of nothing in particular, and looking as though left to be called for. The curious who seek to know all about it may make the circuit of the slippery rocks and find the date 1873, and, facing the water, Nelson’s famous signal, “England expects that every man will do his duty.” But why the statue should find a place here, in so remote a spot, is not revealed.
LV
From the old toll-house at Llanfairpwllgwyngyll to Holyhead it is only twenty-one miles, but there are no fewer than five toll-houses on the way, all in as good and sufficient repair as though they had only retired from business yesterday. And indeed it is not so long since the gates were swept out of existence, and this remote corner of the country freed from these irritating taxes on the farmers and villagers. It is a curious fact that to the Holyhead Road belongs the distinction of having been under the control of turnpike trusts for a longer period than any road in the kingdom. That portion of it lying in Bedfordshire and Bucks was the first road placed in the care of trustees, instead of in the hands of the parish surveyors, and is described in the Act of 1706, handing it over to the new jurisdiction, as “now and for many years past the common post-road towards Ireland.” The greater number of the gates were swept away from 1860 to 1870, but Shropshire was not rid of them until November 1st, 1883, nor Denbighshire and Merioneth until a year later; while, under the Annual Turnpike Continuance Act of 1884, the Carnarvonshire gates levied toll until November 1st, 1890, and by the Act of that year the Anglesey gates were continued until November 1st, 1895.
