Former railway goods shed, Llangefni

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Link to French translationFormer railway goods shed, Llangefni

This building, now home to furniture and interiors shop The Last Trading Post, was originally Llangefni’s railway goods shed. Railway wagons carrying goods from around Britain were shunted into the building, where the cargo could be stored temporarily or transferred under cover to carts or lorries for local distribution.

You can still see where the railway wagons entered the building if you walk down to the car park and look back at the north gable. The large door used to slide to the right to enable wagons to enter or leave. The raised ground now hides the bottom section of the door but the building’s full height is still visible from the lower part of the car park. The shop window covers the wide opening where goods would be loaded onto road vehicles.

There were several sidings where today you see the car park, whose triangular shape shows how the sidings fanned out. The apex at the northern end is where a track connected the goods yard to the main railway. The sidings were mostly used for livestock travelling to and from local farms. On the far (northern) side of the site there was a platform with livestock pens, similar to those in a cattle market. Outbound animals were kept there until appropriate wagons were shunted alongside.

Livestock trader Henry David Jones often came here to collect animals which he would herd along the roads to his farm, Tan yr Allt in Llangristiolus. One day in the 1940s he began the walk with sheep which had arrived by train from Craven Arms, Shropshire. Some of the sheep veered off into the Golden Eagle store (now Boots), where they knocked over sacks of peas, beans and other dried foods. Henry had to compensate the shopkeeper for the damage.

The railway through Llangefni was built by the Anglesey Central Railway, to connect the metal mining area around Amlwch to the Chester-Holyhead main line at Gaerwen. Passenger trains to Llangefni began in 1865. They were withdrawn in 1964 but the railway was used to transport chemicals to Amlwch until 1993. The former Llangefni station building, now a house, stands along the western edge of the car park. Beyond it, the rusty railway track remains in place.

Postcode: LL77 7NA    View Location Map