20th century Archives - Anglesey History

29 November 2025

The Little Girl’s Lighthouse

Readers of this blog will know that I’m regularly trawling eBay for old postcards depicting Anglesey sights (or more recently, the Lighthouses of Wales, while writing my new book). Every day I get email notifications of new listings. Usually they are the same old scenes I’ve seen many times before, but occasionally a unique, unusual and very interesting item pops...

19th century/20th century/family history/lighthouses/postcards Comments: 0

23 May 2022

Saving Anglesey’s Windmills

On the road again. I’m setting off for a week-long tour of the south of England, but first I’m taking the well-travelled road to Aberystwyth. I worked there for a few years and have visited regularly ever since. I’m on my way to the National Library of Wales. Perched on the hill overlooking the town, the Library is the iconic...

20th century/Mills/Windmill Comment: 1

17 January 2021

Revisiting the Windmills of Anglesey

My Anglesey History web site had its beginnings in 1995 as a single page on my main business site for Kovach Computing Services. Five years later I hived it off to a separate web site, Anglesey-History.co.uk, and started expanding it with various new major sections. In 2008 I added a completely new section on the Windmills of Anglesey. The inspiration...

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2 January 2021

The Many Ages of Mary Owen

During the Christmas/New Year break my wife and I have been talking a lot about local Pentraeth history. A freshwater ecologist, she has been building up a thread on Twitter about the Afon Nodwydd, the river that runs through Pentraeth to the sea at Red Wharf Bay/Traeth Coch. The thread explores its ecology, history, and local importance. Yesterday we were...

19th century/20th century/cemeteries/database/graveyards/Uncategorized Comments: 2

23 March 2020

The Mystery of the Non-Existent Castle

I get regular notifications from eBay for new items listed related to Anglesey history, particularly old postcards showing scenes from the past century. As I live in Pentraeth I was particularly intrigued by one postcard, showing a large castellated building with two towers. It was labeled “Pentraeth Castle”. What??!! I know there is no place like this in or around...

20th century/Old Houses/postcards/Uncategorized Comment: 1

4 February 2018

‘Spheres of Influence’ – Day-conference

Yesterday’s ‘Spheres of Influence’ day-conference at Plas Cadnant had a wide ranging cast of characters: the prominent medieval founder of many of Anglesey’s landowning families, the incomer who took on the indigenous families, the bards and musicians who praised and entertained the gentry, the Spanish Armada, and even a very fluffy cat. Also included were tales of feuds and murders, but...

13th century/14th century/15th century/16th century/17th century/18th century/19th century/20th century/biography/Old Houses Comments: 2

8 January 2018

From Anglesey to Bodelwyddan

Yesterday I went from Anglesey to Bodelwyddan Castle in Denbighshire. Nothing unusual there; I often drive by it, promising myself that I will one day stop to have a closer look, but never managing it. So, I made a special trip out there. As I toured around and looked at the story of its various owners I discovered that the...

15th century/19th century/20th century/biography/museum/Old Houses Comments: 4

2 September 2017

Romantic View of Beaumaris Castle

I’m not a huge collector of postcards, but given my interest in old buildings of Anglesey, I do keep an eye on eBay for new listings of particularly interesting old images of past and present structures. I usually go for ones that show intriguing differences between then and now, or simply attractive ones. My latest acquisition ticks both boxes. The...

13th century/20th century/castles/postcards/Uncategorized Comments: 0

8 January 2017

On The Trail of Edward Greenly

One thing leads to another. While working on the new section of my Anglesey History website on Prehistoric Monuments I wanted to compare the geology of one site to the types of stone that were used to build the monument. I thought I had a geological map of Anglesey, but couldn’t find it, so ordered a new one. It arrived yesterday, and...

20th century/biography/cemeteries/geology/graveyards Comments: 0

Category: 20th century