Welsh Country - Issue93 - Mar-Apr 20

Discover Welsh Towns & Villages
Gaerwen
Gaer - Caer…fortified wall - fortress. Wen - gwyn…
white. White fortress. Gaerwen is situated four
miles from Llangefni, sixteen miles from Caergybi
(Holyhead) and eight miles from Bangor. Village life was
once closely tied to the mills in its northern section - Melin
Maengwyn, Melin Sguthan (Union Mill) and Melin Berw.
The three can still be seen gracing the landscape - two are
unused whilst the third has been beautifully renovated into a
dwelling.
The A5 - the Holyhead Road (Ffordd Caergybi) threads
through Gaerwen. North of the village is the A55 - the
Expressway. The North Wales Main Line (Rheilffordd
Arfordir Gogledd Cymru) en route from Bangor to Holyhead
crosses south of Gaerwen. The Anglesey Central Railway
however, ran north through her lands from 1864 until 1993,
connecting to Llangefni and through to Amlch on the coast.
Now unused, the railway corridor is home to an assortment
of wild flowers, grasses and shrub nesting birds, with present
plans to either re-open the rail service or create a walking
and cycling path.
Gaerwen’s countryside was once thickly forested,
sandwiched between Afon Braint to the east and Afon
Cefni in the west. The Malltraeth Marsh is southwest and
beyond thrives the Niwbwrch (Newborough) Forest - here
was the project focus to re-establish the native red squirrel
dominance vs. the grey squirrel on Yns Môn. The success is
seen at Gaerwen as red squirrels with their tufted ears can be
seen scampering along branches and chattering over seeded
“
Gaerwen with her sheep and
cattle farms surrounding the
homes and businesses has an air of
timelessness.
”
finds. The fields are also a haven for rabbits. Brave rabbits
sitting on hummocks of tufted grass and shy ones, bolting at
the snap of a twig underfoot.
On Gaerwen’s southeast, travelling towards Llandaniel Fab
is Bryn Celli Ddu. The Mound in a Dark Grove. No longer in
a dark, thickly treed grove, Bryn Celli Ddu is in a wide open
field. It dates back to the time when pyramids were under
construction - 3,000 BC plus.
Bryn Celli Ddu is a Neolithic burial chamber. Burial
chambers were built to protect the remains of ancestors
and as cemeteries today, enabled the paying of respect to
predecessors. Bryn Celli Ddu has an additional element - a
passage tomb. This is where more than one burial chamber
is connected by a passage. Archaeological exploration has
surmised that its use as a passage tomb was added later - about
1,000 years or so after. That is one theory. The other is that the
passage tomb and burial mound with the standing stones were
both created simultaneously. Items found inside include flint
arrowheads, quartz pieces, a stone bead, mussel and limpet
shells, in addition to burnt and unburnt human bones.
Stepping stones across Afon Braint © David Purchase (cc-by-sa/2.0)
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