Bardsey Island (), known as the legendary "Island of 20,000 Saints", is located off the Llŷn Peninsula in the Welsh county of Gwynedd.Encyclopædia Britannica : Bardsey Island Retrieved 16 August 2009 The Welsh name means "The Island in the Currents", while its English name refers to the "Island of the Bards",Samuel Lewis, A Topographical Dictionary of Wales, p. 86, 1849, S Lewis and Co, London, 474 pages or possibly the Viking chieftain, "Barda". At in area it is the fourth largest offshore island in Wales. it had a year-round population of three.
The north east rises steeply from the sea to a height of at Mynydd Enlli, which is a Marilyn, while the western plain is low and relatively flat cultivated farmland. To the south the island narrows to an isthmus, connecting a peninsula on which the lighthouse stands.Gwynedd Archaeological Trust : Bardsey Retrieved 16 August 2009 to 2010 Since 1974 it has been included in the community of Aberdaron.Ordnance Survey : Election Maps : Gwynedd Retrieved 16 August 2009
The island has been an important religious site since the 6th century, when it is said that the Welsh king Einion Frenin and Saint Cadfan founded a monastery there. In medieval times it was a major centre of pilgrimage and, by 1212, belonged to the Augustinian Canons Regular. The monastery was dissolved and its buildings demolished by Henry VIII in 1537, but the island remains an attraction for pilgrims, marking the end point of the North Wales Pilgrims Way.
Bardsey Island is famous for its wildlife and rugged scenery. A bird observatory was established in 1953. It is a nesting place for Manx shearwaters and choughs, with rare plants, and habitats undisturbed by modern farming practices. The waters around the island attract dolphins and porpoises and grey seals.
In 2023, the island became the first site in Europe to be awarded International Dark Sky Sanctuary certification.
Geology
Like the western and northern parts of nearby Llŷn, the island is formed from rocks of the late Precambrian Gwna Group, itself a part of the Monian Supergroup. The rocks are a mélange, often referred to as the Gwna Mélange, which contain an extraordinary mix of clasts of all sizes up to across and of very varied types, including both sedimentary and igneous origin. Blocks of sheared granite within this mélange are visible in the northwestern coastal cliffs of the island. Elsewhere clasts of quartzite, limestone, sandstone, mudstone, jasper and basalt can be found. The deposit is interpreted as an olistostrome, a giant underwater landslide possibly triggered by an earthquake some time after 614 million years ago.
A dolerite dyke of Ordovician age intrudes the melange at Trwyn y Gorlech in the north whilst an olivine dolerite dyke of Tertiary age is seen at Cafn Enlli in the southeast. Further dykes occur in the cliffs at Ogof y Gaseg and at Ogof Hir.
A thin spread of glacial till stretches across the centre of the island, a relict of the late Devensian Irish Sea Icesheet. There is a small patch of blown sand at Porth Solfach on the west coast and a landslip at Briw Cerrig at the foot of the cliffs on the east coast.British Geological Survey 1:50,000 scale geological map sheet 133 (England and Wales) Aberdaron and Bardsey Island (BGS, Keyworth, Notts) (with 1:10,00 inset map of Bardsey)Howells, M.F. 2007 British Regional Geology: Wales (BGS, Keyworth, Notts) pp. 15–20
History
The island was inhabited in Neolithic times, and traces of hut circles remain. During the 5th century, the island became a refuge for persecuted Christians, and a small monastery existed.Mysterious Britain and Ireland : Bardsey Island Retrieved 16 August 2009 Around 516, Saint Einion, king of Llyn, invited the Breton Saint Cadfan to move to the island from his first residence in Tywyn.Baring-Gould, Sabine & al. The Lives of the British Saints: The Saints of Wales and Cornwall and Such Irish Saints as Have Dedications in Britain, Vol. II, pp. 422 ff. Chas. Clark (London), 1908. Hosted at Archive.org. Accessed 18 November 2014. Under Cadfan's guidance, St Mary's Abbey was built.British Broadcasting Corporation : Pilgrims : The Northern Path Retrieved 16 August 2009 For centuries, the island was important as "the holy place of burial for all the bravest and best in the land".
Bards called it "a direct path to heaven" and "the gates of Paradise", and in medieval times three pilgrimages to Bardsey were considered to be of equivalent benefit to the soul as one to Rome.Aberdaron and District Tourist Link : Places to Visit Retrieved 16 August 2009
In 1188, the abbey was still a local institution but, by 1212, it belonged to the Canons Regular. Many people still walk the journey to Aberdaron and Uwchmynydd each year in the footsteps of the saints,Aberdaron and District Tourist Link : Aberdaron Retrieved 16 August 2009 although today only ruins of the old abbey's 13th century bell tower remain.University College London Institute of Archaeology : Bardsey Island Retrieved 16 August 2009 A Celtic cross amidst the ruins commemorates the 20,000 saints reputed to be buried on the island.Edge of Wales Walk : History Retrieved 16 August 2009
Saint Einion is sometimes claimed to have joined the community on the island,Bardsey Island Trust. "The Early Saints ". Bardsey Office (Pwllheli), 2014. Accessed 18 November 2014. although his relics are claimed by Llanengan on the mainland. Saint Deiniol, the Bishop of Bangor, was buried on the island in 584.St Deiniol's Library : St Deiniol : Abbot, Bishop and Confessor Retrieved 16 August 2009 Saint Dyfrig was also buried on Bardsey Island, although in 1120 his remains were transferred to Llandaff centuries later.
The Suppression of Religious Houses Act 1535, on the orders of Henry VIII, resulted in St Mary's Abbey being dissolved and its buildings demolished in 1537.Bardsey Island Trust : The Island : History Retrieved 16 August 2009 The choir stalls, two screens and the bells were transferred to Llanengan, where the parish church was then being built.
In the 16th century, Bardsey was owned by Sir John Wynn (an ancestor of the Newborough barons), who was standard bearer to Edward VI at Kett's Rebellion in Norfolk in 1549.
For many years Bardsey Island formed part of the Newborough Estate, and between 1870 and 1875 the island's farms were rebuilt; a small limestone quarry was opened, and a lime kiln constructed. Carreg and Plas Bach are separate buildings, but the remaining eight were built as semi-detached houses, each pair with outbuildings set around a shared yard. The buildings are Grade II listed and, in 2008, Cadw approved a grant of £15,000 to cover the first phase of repairs.Cadw : 15 January 2008 : Funding Announced in January to Restore Some of Wales's Historic Buildings Retrieved 16 August 2009 Only one of the original croglofft cottages, Carreg Bach, survives. Given the choice of a harbour or a new church, in 1875 the islanders asked the estate to provide a place of worship; a Methodist chapel was built.
The island had a population of 90 by 1841.The National Cyclopeaedia of useful knowledge, Vol II, (1847) London, Charles Knight, p. 859. It had increased to 132 in 1881; by 1961 it had fallen to seventeen.A Vision of Britain Through Time : Total Population : Bardsey Island Civil Parish Retrieved 16 August 2009 By 2014, the population had dropped to eleven. In 2019 there was still a long-term population of eleven, of whom four lived on the island during the winter. By 2025, the population had dropped to three. The island's small school opened in a former chapel in 1919 and closed in 1953.
The Bardsey Island Trust () bought the island in 1977, after an appeal set up by the Bardsey Bird and Field Observatory and supported by the Church in Wales and many Welsh academics and public figures. The trust is financed through membership subscriptions, grants and donations, and is dedicated to protecting the wildlife, buildings and archaeological sites of the island; promoting its artistic and cultural life; and encouraging people to visit as a place of natural beauty and pilgrimage.Bardsey Island Trust : The Trust Retrieved 16 August 2009
When, in 2000, the trust advertised for a tenant for the sheep farm on the island, they had 1,100 applications.Abigail Hole, Etain O'Carroll and John King, Lonely Planet : Wales, 2007, Lonely Planet Publications, Footscray, 356 pages, The tenancy was held by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds;Royal Society for the Protection of Birds : 14 May 2008 : News : Wildlife Wins on Bardsey Island Retrieved 16 August 2009 and the land is managed to maintain the natural habitat. Oats, turnips and swedes were grown; goats, ducks, geese and chickens kept; and there is a mixed flock of sheep and Welsh Black cattle. The RSPB pulled out of the agreement when the tenancy ended.
Bardsey apple A gnarled and twisted apple tree, discovered by Ian Sturrock growing by the side of Plas Bach, is believed to be the only survivor of an orchard that was tended by the monks who lived there a thousand years ago. In 1998, experts on the varieties of British apples at the National Fruit Collection in Brogdale stated that they believed this tree was the only example of a previously unrecorded cultivar, the Bardsey Apple (). The cultivar has since been propagated by grafting and is available commercially. Since its discovery it has led to a resurgence in the discovery and propagation of other Welsh apple varieties.
Bardsey Lighthouse
Bardsey Lighthouse stands on the southerly tip of the island and guides vessels passing through St George's Channel and the Irish Sea.Genuki : A Topographical Dictionary of Wales 1833 by Samuel Lewis Retrieved 16 August 2009 It was built in 1821 by Joseph Nelson.Douglas Bland Hague, Lighthouses of Wales Their Architecture and Archaeology, 1994, Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales, Aberystwyth, 102 pages, Unusually for a British lighthouse, it is square in section and is painted in red and white bands. Y Storws, sometimes referred to as The Boathouse, was built a few years before the lighthouse, near to the landing place at Y Cafn.
Wildlife The island was declared a National Nature Reserve in 1986, and is part of Glannau Aberdaron ac Ynys Enlli Special Protection Area. It is now a favourite birdwatching location, on the migration routes of thousands of birds. Bardsey Bird and Field Observatory, founded in 1953, The West Midlands Bird club created a bird observatory, and also saw the opportunity to studying the ecology of a small island.
The island was designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest for its maritime communities; internationally rare lichens; bryophyte, vascular plant and bird species; and intertidal communities. Nationally important flowering plants include sharp rush, rock sea lavender, small adder's tongue and western clover, and the rare purple loosestrife is found in places.Celtlands : Ynys Enlli : Fauna Retrieved 16 August 2009 Two nationally rare heathland lichens are found on the slopes of Mynydd Enlli: the ciliate strap lichen and golden hair lichen; and there are over 350 lichen species in total.Bardsey Island Trust : Natural History Retrieved 16 August 2009 The leafcutter bee, named after its habit of cutting neat, rounded circles in rose leaves, used to seal the entrance to its nest, is native.Y Cafn : Winter 2007 : Leafcutter Bees Retrieved 16 August 2009
Thousands of birds pass through each year on their way to their breeding or wintering grounds. Chiffchaffs, goldcrests and wheatears are usually the first to pass through, followed by sedge warblers and willow warblers, whitethroats and spotted flycatchers.