LLYN LLYWENAN LAKE

A Lakeside Sanctuary
in Anglesey's Rural Heart

Llyn Llywenan is the largest fresh water lake on the Isle of Anglesey and lies in the buccolic heart of Anglesey, deep in the life escape zone that entices me too often these days.

Llywenan Lake is renowned for its Fishing, as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). AND, Heaven help us, shooting from Presaeddfed Hall.

Also, take a step into Anglesey’s religious past with lake baptisms from Ainon Chapel on its north western shore.

The above photograph captures the gentle beauty of this, yet again, unique aspect of Anglesey’s natural treasure trove.

Read on and you will discover its twilight magic.

I’ve referred to Llywenan Lake previously on my

Bodedern to Rhosgoch Rural Drive.

I offer you a link to the two pages that tell you about it. Click Here.

Listen Please tarry a while to learn about Anglesey’s largest freshwater lake.

THESE ARE THE FACTS

If such technical matters could ever represent such a tranquil magnificence

Right. The boring bit:

• The lake is just over half a mile long in old money. That’s 1 kilometre in Euros.
• The lake is just under a quarter of a mile at its broadest. That’s 0.4 kilometres.
• The lake is a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) because of some unique flora and fauna. Most common uncommon species are the needle spike rush, the eight-stamened spring quillwort and the worrying water-wort.
• Wikipedia advises us that because of its shallowness it will be full of silt in about a hundred years time BETTER GET HERE QUICK THEN!
  
  

At twilight, when the light settles affectionately, then heavily over Llyn Llywenan the cries of aquatic fowl can be heard and in the distance a hacking fox.

But foxes are not the greatest enemy of the mallard, teal, wigeon, shoveler, tufted duck and pochard that reside here over Winter and into Spring. There is a shooting school at Presaeddfed.

Shooting for sport is just that: Shooting for sport. If hunters ate the fox they killed then I’d be a bit more settled and balanced in my views.

However, I am fully aware that the rural areas we love require constant management and cash to finance it.

Dr David Bellamy stated once that he is in favour of shooting pheasant and game birds because the shooting clubs finance the management of those species.

So, it’s a difficult one for me.

Anyway, let’s put that to one side and reflect on the grand landscape that is revealed to us through gaps in the rushes.

CAPEL AINON CHAPEL

This chapel at the Pen Llyn (Lake’s End) dates back to 1839 according to local records, though it was renovated fully in 1881.

Intriguingly, other records indicate its presence here in 1824 with 24 members and a Sunday School. Its sister chapel is Tabernacle Baptist Church in Bodedern.

This is such rural church and small enough for one to imagine it as an ancillary of the larger local church in Bodedern. Much like the Chapels of Ease that can also be found on Anglesey.

Lligwy Chapel of Ease springs to mind.

FAITH REVEALED WITH COURAGE

A beautiful resting place in the bosom of Anglesey and also the location of outdoor baptisms in the older tradition.

You will of course be aware of the religious hysteria and fervour that fell upon areas like Anglesey in the middle and late 19th Century.

It must surely have been a test of faith, nerve and physical strength to be baptised from the Llyn Llywenan lakeside in any weather.

Nonetheless, its significance as an act of baptism was incredibly important in a very moral countryside culture of those long ago days.

GETTING TO LLYN LLYWENAN LAKE

View Llyn Llywenan Lake in a larger map

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