The remarkable auction that sold off entire island village
MUCH OF COUNTY TOWN ALSO WENT UNDER THE HAMMER IN MASS SELL-OFF
EVEN by the standards of the day, it was an extraordinary sale. Going under the hammer was not just an entire Anglesey village but also a “large portion” of the county town. For good measure, a corn mill, tannery, several farms and tenements, and a small acreage of meadow land were also to be auctioned.
The vendors were the great and good of Anglesey. Offering the bulk of the lots, under instructions from its trustees, was part of the estate of the “Late Most Noble The Marquis of Anglesey”, including 91 houses in Bridge Street and Mill Street, Llangefni.
Others included Lady Dinorben of the Llysdulas estate, who was selling the “whole of the village of Pensarn”. Smaller parcels of land were being offered by baronet Sir RBW Bulkeley of the Baronhill estate, Sir Harry Dent Goring, 8th baronet of Highden in Sussex and Lord Boston, who owned land in Lligwy, Moelfre.
On the rostrum was the mighty William Dew, an auctioneer who presided over many of the mid 19th century sales in North Wales. Whenever a hotel went bust, or a landed family had the misforture not to produce an issue (a surviving male heir), Mr Dew was often the man wielding the hammer.
Four days had been set aside for the sale at the Bull Hotel, Llangefni. A fifth day was to be added on Saturday, September 27, “if necessary”. The “late Most Noble The Marquis of Anglesey” was presumably Field Marshal Henry Paget, hero of Waterloo and the 1st Marquess. Although he had died 13 years previously, the 2nd Marquess was still very alive in 1867. He died two years later.
Less than three weeks after losing a leg at Waterloo, Henry Paget was made Marquess of Anglesey. A year later, an 89ft high monument to his heroism was erected at Llanfairpwllgwyngyll, close to his country retreat at Plas Newydd. The column is due to reopen this autumn after renovations.
It is not known why the Plas Newydd estate disposed of its Llangefni holdings in 1867. Perhaps the 2nd Marquess just needed the money. That same year he splashed out on Hednesford Lodge, Staffordshire. A holiday home built 36 years earlier by the son of Sir Robert Peel, twice the UK’S Prime Minister, the 2nd Marquess later rebadged it the Anglesey Arms, a name which stuck until 2015.
In reality, land and property transactions were commonplace at the time. Owners often juggled their assets. The Bull Hotel auction was just one of a dozen listed in the September 7 edition of the North Wales Chronicle in 1867.
Also going under the hammer were 64 “beautiful” building sites in Britannia Park, on the banks of the Menai Strait “between the far-famed Menai Suspension and Britannia Bridges”. Buyers had just one condition - that they spent at least £500 on building their new terraces and villa residences and by June, 1870
Again, William Dew was the auctioneer. He was a busy man, presiding over another huge land sale on October 1-2, again at the Bull Hotel. This time the lots included the 2,550-acre Parciau estate in Llaneugrad, northeast Anglesey - apparently the “best side of the island”.
Comprising nearly the whole parish of Llaneugrad, with “many very fine farms in capital condition”, the estate was firmly pitched at sporting enthusiasts, it being “noted for the earliest flight of woodcock” on Anglesey. In the same sale, farms and 2,800 acres of land in the island’s southwest were to be auctioned in 48 lots
And so it goes on: the Royal Madoc Arms Hotel in Tremadog, the post office in Penmaenmawr, “genteel residences” and the Albion Hotel in Bangor. All were due to be sold in late September and early October.
In his street poster for the four-day sale, Mr Dew promoted the financial benefits of acquiring “Pensarn” (Pen-ysarn) - due its proximity to the “Great Parys Copper Mines”. This was a village that had expanded rapidly in the late 18th century with the arrival of copper miners. Also springing up were ancillary trades such as blacksmithing, baking and clog-making.
The land was then owned by Lady Dinorben of Llys Dulas estate, her father William Lewis Hughes having amassed a vast fortune from the Parys mountain copper mine, the biggest in Europe. When she died in 1871, leaving an estate of just under £10,000, she bestowed a short-lived legacy for the area’s miners, many of whom suffered from rheumatic fever after breathing in sulphuric acid fumes from piles of burning ore.
For relief, some miners practised their own medicine, such as mixing an ounce of gunpowder in a pint of spiced beer. Others also suffered from dyspepsia because they drank too much tea or coffee.
Lady Dinorben’s gift to them was the new Dinoben cottage hospital, opened in Amlwch in 1872, a year after her death. Built at a cost of £600, perhaps it was part-funded from the sale of Pen-y-sarn village? Sadly, the hospital closed in 1893.
As Sir RBW Bulkeley was also dispensing several “moieties” - plots of land - at the sale, this offers an intriguing possibility. At the time, William Bulkeley Hughes chaired Anglesey Central Railway (ACR), whose secretary was our old friend William Dew. Began in 1864, the railway aimed to connect Gaerwen with the port of Amlwch.
It was opened in sections, reaching Amlwch in 1867. But, short of funds, the final section, to Amlwch port, couldn’t be built. In April 1867, Mr Dew wrote that “the affairs of the railway are in such a critical and pressing state”.
Being a keen railway prospector, did Sir RBW Bulkeley sell off land to keep ACR afloat? Whatever the case, the final port link was never built and the line was sold to the London and North Western Railway in 1876, for £80,000.