Llyn y Felin and Llyn Gas, Menai Bridge

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Link to Welsh translationLink to French translationLlyn y Felin and Llyn Gas, Menai Bridge

The high tide covers the ground west of the path here and north of the causeway which leads to Ynys Tysilio (Church Island). One of the historic names for this area is Llyn y Felin (“mill pool”). It was the site of a tidal mill (melin heli) and a fish trap (cored) for many centuries. The tidal movement powered the mill machinery, and the trap stopped fish swimming back out to the Menai Strait with the ebb tide. Documents from the 14th century record a Melin Bach (“little mill”) here.

Some of the stone walls of the mill and traps can be seen clearly at low water. Other fish traps in the area included those on Ynys Gorad Goch (a small island), which you can read about on our page about the grave of two former residents of the island.

A gasworks was erected in 1858 on land which became known as Gasworks Field (now the rugby ground, on your right across the tidal pool). It closed in 1952. From 1885, the gasworks supplied Menai Bridge with gas to light the streets at night, initially in winter only. Locals referred to the tidal pool as Llyn Gas, or Llyn Gias. 

There was also a ford here which gave its name to a row of houses called Rhyd Menai (“Menai ford”), built in 1919. 

With thanks to Prof Hywel Wyn Owen, of the Welsh Place-Name Society, and Menai Bridge Town Council

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