Page:The National Gazetteer - A Topographical Dictionary of the British Islands, Volume 2.djvu/294

Rh HOLYHEAD. 286 HOLY ISLAND. harbour, -where the Dublin Company's mail steamers lie, which leave Holyhcud twice, and sometimes oftener every day for Kingston, doing the distance of 63 miles in less than four hours, and thus reducing the time between London and Dublin to eleven hours by the mai train. The town, which appears to have been an im- portant post from the earliest times, as being the nearesi spot of English ground to Ireland, appears to have been a Roman station from the discovery of numerous Roman coins and relics in the island at different times. The most remarkable of these remains is probably the Roman wall surrounding the churchyard, which appears to have been a portion of an ancient fortification. The Hamlet copper mine was also worked by this people. It is the Caer Gybi of the Welsh historians, and was occupied for a time by some Irish pirates in the 5th century. It has been the chief mail packet station for Ireland since the time of William III., but it is only of late years that its admirable site has been made the most of as a postal station and harbour of refuge. The great Holyhead road was laid out by Telford in 1815 as durably as a Roman way, and the first steamer, the Talbot, of 120 tons; with Napier's engines, went to Dublin in 1818. The old harbour was formed by Rennie at the cost of 142,000. The island and pier are connected with the main land of Holy Island by an iron bridge, across which the road and railway are carried. At the pierhead is a lighthouse displaying a white light, and on the land side is an arch of Mona marble, to com- memorate the landing of George IV. on his way to Ireland in 1821. On the opposite rock side of the estuary is an obelisk to Captain Skinner, commander of one of the Dublin mail steamers, who was washed over- board in 1833, off the North Stack rocks. In the bay outside the harbour are the Platters, Peibio, Stag, and Nimrod rocks, and at the western extremity of the island are the South Stack rocks and lighthouse, which last is connected with the main island by a suspension bridge. Outside the harbour is Holyhead Bay, which since the construction of the new harbour is never used. It has the Skerries light on the N. Within the bay is a colossal breakwater, running from Soldier's Point N.E. by E., then E.S.E., and then E.N.E. It was originally intended to be of the form of a crescent, but was subsequently enlarged, having been first undertaken by government in 1848, under the superintendence of Mr. IJendel. The grants already made for it by government amount to nearly 2,000,000. The greater portion of its length has been formed in seven and eight fathoms of water. It affords partial shelter to a roadstead of 350 acres, and complete protection to a harbour of 260 acres. It is 1J mile long, and has almost attained its intended length. Notwithstanding the Cyclopean character of these works, a great portion of the end of the wood scaffolding was carried away in the gale of October, 1859, the same in which the Royal Charter was wrecked. A ship telegraph formerly communicated the arrival of vessels in the offing to Liverpool in three minutes, but it has latterly been superseded by the electric telegraph wires, which are carried along the turnpike road, to the South Stack Lighthouse. The greater part of the town is built immediately adjoining the harbour, and presents a peculiar appearance from the steepness of the streets, which run somewhat abruptly up from the water's edge. The long rows of new built houses between the town and harbour of refuge are extremely ugly, but the ancient part of the town, adjoin- ing the old church, has a primitive and even picturesque appearance. It contains a custom-house, two banks, savings-bank, hotels, landing pier, and graving docks. The only manufactures carried on are shipbuilding and ropemaking, but on a very small scale. The popu- lation has of late years rapidly increased, chiefly owing to the influx of engineers, mechanics, labourers, and others employed upon the harbour works, so that it has nearly quadrupled since the beginning of the century, when it was a little over 2,000 ; in 1851 the parlia- mentary borough contained 5,622, which had increased at the census of 1861 to 0,193. The permanent popu- lation are chiefly engaged in the coasting and shipping trade, and as fishermen or pilots. It unites with Ainlwch, Beaumaris, and Uangefni, in returning one member to the imperial parliament, and is a polling place for the coimty of Anglesey. The living is a perpet. cur. in the dioc. of Bangor, val. 287, in the patron, of Jesus College, Oxford. The church, dedicated to St. Gybi, stands in a camp or fort 221 feet by 130, surrounded by Roman walls. It was made collegiate by Hwfa-ap-Cyn- ddelw about 1140, and having been rebuilt is now a tine cruciform structure of the time of Edward III. Others assert that St. Gybi founded a small monastery here about the year A.D. 380 ; and Maclgwyn Gwynedd built a college at the close of the 6th century. The head of the college was called Penclas or Pencolas, and was one of the spiritual lords of Anglesey, the archdeacon of the isle being another, and the Abbot of Pcnmon the other ; the number of prebendaries was at least twelve. The exterior of the church is remarkable for its sculp- ture, a good deal of which has nearly mouldered away, except on the S. transept, which has an embattled parapet, and under the S. porch, which contains a figure of St. Gybi under a canopy. Besides the parish church, there is a new church recently erected at a cost of nearly 5,000. The Wesleyan and Calvinistio Methodists, Independents, and Baptists have chapels. There are National and British schools, with accom- modation for 1000 children, the former having been rebuilt in 1860 at an expense of 2,000. The charities produce about 75 per annum, including the endow- ment of Wynne's school and almshouses. In the vicinity are many remains of antiquity. On the summit of the Holyhead mountain, or Caer Gybi, 790 feet high, are traces of early fortifications, together with a rudely built circular tower, supposed to have answered the purpose of a pharos or watch tower. On Caer Twr Hill are remains of a camp, and at Towyu y Capel is a mound, supposed to have been the site of an ancient church. At a little distance are two cromlechs ; and at various places coins of Constantine, spear-heads, bronze rings, &c., have been found. At the telegraph station is a magnificent panorama, embracing, towards the W., the Irish coast and the Wicklow mountains, to the 8. the whole of Holyhead island and a large part of Anglesey, with the mountains of Snowdonia in the distance, while to the N.E. are the Skerries islands, will lighthouse 117 feet above high water. Market day is Saturday. HOLY ISLAND, or HOLYHEAD ISLAND, called by the Welsh Ynys Gybi, lies on the W. side of Angle- sey, from which it is divided by a strait, or traeth, which dries at low water, and is crossed by the embankment and bridges of the great Irish coast road and the Chester and Holyhead railway, and also by an ordinary stone Bridge, which spans the arm of the sea at its narrowott Doint. It lies N.W. and S.E., being about 7 miles 1 3 broad, but narrowing in the middle. It is div; into the parishes of Holyhead and Rhoscolyn. ' general character of the island is hilly and barren, but it includes some good pasture for sheep, and a propoitife j of fair arable soil. The rocks belong to the Silurian I slates and grits of Caernarvon and Merioneth, but have >een altered by geologic changes into chlorite and niica schists, and in other spots into quartz rock, accompanied >y flexures of the beds. Variegated marble is found, as | also verd antique and_soapstone. In many places along , the coast, as at the" South Slack rocks, thoso hard chloritic schists have been perforated by the action of he waves into vast caverns, frequeufcecl by innumerable quantities of seabirds, including gulls. cormoraaU, razor-bills, guillemots, and even peregrine foliwns, which here breed in security, as they are prohibited tu >e shot, on account of the services that they rcnder_t vessels in foggy weather, by surrounding thorn will oud cries immediately a gun is fired. In the precipitous' r acepf the cliffs of the mainland 380 steps have been cut, eading to a suspension bridge which spans the ch leparating the South Stack rock with its lighthouse he main island. The lighthouse was erected in 1809,