(58 Letters long) is a village on the island of
Anglesey in
Wales , situated on the
Menai Strait close to
Menai Bridge and
Bangor . It is best known for having the longest officially recognised place name in the
United Kingdom , and one of the
Longest In The World . It is signposted on surrounding roads as ''Llanfairpwllgwyngyll'', marked on Ordnance Survey maps as ''Llanfair Pwllgwyngyll'' and generally known as ''Llanfairpwll'' or ''Llanfair'' locally. The name is also seen shortened to ''Llanfair PG'', which is sufficient to distinguish it from the many other Welsh villages with ''Llanfair'' in their names. Other variant forms use the full name but with "tysilio"
Mutated to "dysilio", and/or with a hyphen between "drobwll" and "llan". In
Welsh , the initial "Ll" may be mutated to a single "L" in some contexts.
The village is a popular tourist destination. People stop at the
Railway Station to be photographed next to the station sign, visit the nearby Visitors' Centre, or have 'passports' stamped at a local shop. Another tourist attraction is the nearby Marquess of Anglesey's Column (see left), which at a height of 27 m offers views over Anglesey and the Menai Strait. Designed by
Thomas Harrison , the monument celebrates the heroism of
Henry Paget, 1st Marquess Of Anglesey at the
Battle Of Waterloo .
The first ever meeting of the
Women's Institute took place in Llanfairpwll in 1915 and the movement (which began in Canada) then spread through the rest of the British Isles.
A settlement has existed on the site of the village since the
Neolithic era, with
Subsistence Agriculture and
Fishing the most common occupations for much of the village's early history. The island of
Anglesey was at that point only reachable by boat across the
Menai Strait . The area was briefly invaded and captured by the
Romans under
Gaius Suetonius Paulinus , but quickly abandoned in order to consolidate forces against
Boadicea .
With the withdrawl of the Roman forces, the area fell under the control of the
Kingdom Of Gwynedd , an early
Mediaeval kingdom. Under this
Feudal System , the residents worked small farms for the king. The rural nature of the settlement meant that the village had only a very small population, of around 80.
However, with the introduction of estates in the 16th century, much of the land was absorbed into the Earldom of Uxbridge, currently under the
Marquess Of Anglesey , and the population forced to work as
Tenant s on
Enclosure s. However, the population of the town boomed, with a recorded population of 385 by the 1801 census.
In 1826, the town was connected to the rest of Wales by the construction
Menai Suspension Bridge , built by
Thomas Telford , and with
London 1850, with the building of the
Britannia Bridge and the busy
North Wales Coast Railway Line , which connected
London to the ferry port of
Holyhead . The village decentralised, spliting into Upper Village (''Pentre Uchaf''), which was made up mainly of the older houses and farms, and the new Lower Village (''Pentre Isaf''), built around the railway station and consisting mostly of shops and workshops. The village became a hub of commerce, as the railways and road network brought traders and customers from across northern Wales.
The village's long name cannot be considered an authentic . According to Sir
John Morris-Jones the name was created by a local tailor, whose name he does not give. A translation into
English would yield "St Mary's church in the hollow of the white hazel near to the rapid whirlpool and the church of
St Tysilio of the red cave".
St Mary's Church]]
The village was originally known as ''Llanfairpwllgwyngyll'' (''St Mary's church in the hollow of the white hazel''), and there was a nearby hamlet called ''Llantysilio Gogogoch'' (''the church of
St Tysilio of the red cave''). The names were linked by an in-between feature, the ''chwyrn drobwll'', or rapid
Whirlpool . Although when written and read in English, the name has 58 letters, in Welsh it has only 51 because ''
Ll '' and ''
Ch '' are each regarded as a single letter.
The name was used in the movie ''
Barbarella '' as the password for the headquarters of Dildano, the comical revolutionary.
The village is split into two, smaller, villages, Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch-isaf (Lower Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch) and
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch-uchaf (Upper Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch).
speakers]]
:(''WAV file at the village Web site is here
{Link without Title} .)
The full name of the town is pronounced or
Voiceless Velar Fricative as in the pronunciation for "Bach" (; see
Ach-laut ) in most varieties of
German . The "ll" is a
Voiceless Lateral Fricative , a sound that does not occur in English and is sometimes approximated (rather poorly) as (''thl'' as in ''athlete'') or even by English speakers.
There have been several attempts to steal the village's record. The
Carmarthenshire village of
Llanfynydd unofficially adopted the name ''Llanhyfryddawelllehynafolybarcudprindanfygythiadtrienusyrhafnauole'' in 2004 in protest at plans to erect a
Wind Farm nearby (the name means "a quiet beautiful village; a historic place with rare kite under threat from wretched blades" in English). A station on the
Fairbourne Railway was named ''
Gorsafawddacha'idraigodanheddogleddollônpenrhynareurdraethceredigion '' (translated as "the
Mawddach station and its dragon teeth at the Northern Penrhyn Road on the golden beach of
Cardigan Bay ") for promotional purposes. No such attempts have gained widespread recognition amongst official bodies or transport authorities.
