The Anglesey Arms, Menai Bridge

link_to_welsh_translationlink_to_french_translation

The Anglesey Arms, Menai Bridge

This inn was the first to be built on Anglesey in response to the construction of Thomas Telford’s Menai Suspension Bridge, which opened in 1826. The name commemorates the Earl of Uxbridge (1768-1854), who lost a leg at the battle of Waterloo in 1815 and was created Marquis of Anglesey in 1815 as a reward for his leadership on the battlefield. The central meeting point of roads in Menai Bridge was named Uxbridge Square in his honour.

The Anglesey Arms was erected on the closest suitable ground to the bridge, with a view to tapping the new trade which was passing this way. Previously the commercial focalpoint of Porthaethwy, as the village was then known, was down at the shore where ferryboats departed for the often hazardous crossing of the Menai Strait.

The JW Lees brewery bought the building from William Ellis in 1935. He continued to manage it until 1945. One of the rooms is named the Ellis Room after him.

In 1892 the hotel’s proprietor, EG Humphreys, went bankrupt.

In November 1917, when the First World War was grinding on, the army’s director of recruiting for Wales, Major General Lord Treowen, stayed at the Anglesey Arms while touring the region in search of more men to join the war effort. After the war, a special tea was held at the hotel in April 1919 to congratulate Ernest Salt of Bodedern for winning the Distinguished Conduct Medal. He was a Sergeant Major in the Royal Welsh Fusiliers and had taken command of his company after all of its officers had been killed on the Western Front in August 1918.

There have been tales of paranormal entities in the building, including the ghost of a small elderly man.

Postcode: LL59 5EA View Location Map

Website of the Anglesey Arms

Other HAUNTED HiPoints in this region:
Anglesey Arms, Caernarfon – by the former “hanging tower”
Pensychnant House, near Penmaenmawr – ghost of maid who was murdered by gardener

Wales Coastal Path Label Navigation anticlockwise buttonNavigation clockwise button
National Cycle Network Label Navigation previous buttonNavigation next button
National Cycle Network Label Navigation previous buttonNavigation next button
Telfords Irish Road Tour label Navigation previous buttonNavigation next button