England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Llangefni St Cyngar

The Parish

The parish of Llangefni lies in the eastern part of central Anglesey roughly 8 miles northwest of the Menai Bridge. Llangefni sits a little over a mile northeast of the main artery, the A55 expressway, which cuts across the island from Menai Bridge to Holyhead. Llangefni is a place much grown in relatively modern times, early gazetteers describe it as "a small and inconsiderable village, consisting only of two or three solitary houses" in the years prior to the establishment of its Thursday market in 1785. Llangefni has now grown from minor market town to becoming the administrative capital of the island, taking that role from less well-place Beaumaris, and the location for many light industrial enterprises. From those humble beginnings we now have a substantial market town which spreads for almost 2 miles along the "old Holyhead Road" which is its main street, more modern developments have added the island's college of further education and late 20th century housing developments. At the time of this transcript the parish was purely agricultural with a mixture of both arable and pastoral methods in operation. Railway developments have come and largely gone, a line linking through Llangefni to Amlwch is now closed and disused. More modern still is the speedy A55 expressway taking heavy traffic through Llangefni parish and on to the port of Holyhead. A band of soft rock type created a low-lying and marshy belt across the island from Red Wharf Bay to Malltraeth Sands it makes for intricate drainage of Llangefni parish with the indistinct watershed determining whether the Irish Sea is reached through the former or the latter. Llangefni sits just high enough above the marsh, at 15 metres above the sea level, to keep dry, higher ground just breaks the 100 metre contour to the northeast roughly half way to Benllech. Llangefni parish was typically sized for the island covering close to 2,300 acres and supporting a population at the end of the tracsipt period of close to 1,750 parishioners, the growth happened through the period of this transcript with the volume of marriages indicating an average of closer to 1,000. Like most of Wales Llangefni is not mentioned in Domesday Book which did not cover this area,

The Church

St Cyngar's church stands a little to the north of the main crossroads at the heart of the town, Church Street heading north east comes to a roundabout swiftly followed by a left turn into a large parking area which sits below the church site. Sadly not many of the participants of these marriages would recognise the church as it is an early 19th century replacement for a prior medieval building, it was completed in 1821 largely at the expense of Viscount Bulkeley. A single fragment of the ancient predecessor has been reused, an early doorway which now sits to the west of the vestry. Pevsner describes the church's style as "Georgian Gothic" and notes that it was a very early replacement church, a fashion which became more frequent in Victorian times. Despite the relative modernity there has been time for modifications, a restoration of 1858 was followed by work in 1889 which added a short chancel in a contrasting Perpendicular style, With a large car park below parking is straightforwards, the church sits beyond elaborated arched gates in a cramped site which has steep ground to its rear which is heavily wooded, views are limited to those from below in the car park.