Llanfairpwllgwyngyll is a large village and community on the island of Anglesey in Wales,
situated on the Menai Strait next to the Britannia Bridge and across the strait from Bangor.
It is alternatively known as Llanfairpwll, Llanfair PG, or Llanfair­pwllgwyn­gyllgo­gery­chwyrn­drobwll­llanty­silio­gogo­goch).
At the 2001 census the population of the community was 3,040, 76% of whom speak Welsh fluently;
the highest percentage of speakers is in the 10–14 age group, where 97.1% speak Welsh.
It is the sixth largest settlement on the island by population.
The long form of the name was invented for promotional purposes in the 1860s; with 58
characters it is the longest place name in Europe and the second longest official place
name in the world.
Visitors stop at the railway station to be photographed next to the station sign, visit
the nearby Visitors' Centre, or to stamp their 'passport' at the adjacent shop.
Another tourist attraction is the nearby Marquess of Anglesey's Column, which at a height of
27 metres offers views over Anglesey and the Menai Strait.
Designed by Thomas Harrison, the monument celebrates the heroism of Henry Paget, 1st
Marquess of Anglesey at the Battle of Waterloo.
Name The long form of the name is the longest officially
recognised place name in the United Kingdom and one of the longest in the world at 58
characters.
The name means: [St.] Mary's Church [in] the hollow of the white hazel near the rapid whirlpool
[and] the church of [St.] Tysilio with a red cave.
This village was originally known as Llanfair Pwllgwyngyll and was given its long name in
the 19th century in an attempt to develop it as a commercial and tourist centre.
The village is still signposted Llanfairpwllgwyngyll, marked on Ordnance Survey maps as Llanfair
Pwllgwyngyll and known to locals as Llanfairpwll or Llanfair.
The name is also shortened to Llanfair PG, which is sufficient to distinguish it from
the many other Welsh villages with Llanfair in their names.
Other variant forms use the full name but with tysilio mutated to dysilio, and/or with
a hyphen between drobwll and llan.
In Welsh, the initial Ll may be mutated to a single L in some contexts.
Significance of the name
The long name cannot be considered an authentic Welsh-language toponym.
It was artificially contrived in the 1860s to bestow upon the station the feature of
having the longest name of any railway station in Britain, an early example of a publicity
stunt.
The village's website credits the name to a cobbler from the nearby village of Menai
Bridge.
According to Sir John Morris-Jones the name was created by a local tailor, whose name
he did not confide, letting the secret die with him.
The current postmark shows the name Llanfairpwllgwyngyll, but there are contemporary examples of the
full name seen below.
The village was originally known as Llanfair Pwllgwyngyll.
Pwllgwyngyll was the original mediaeval township where the village is today.
Old variants were Llanfair y Pwllgwyngyll the") and Llanfair Ymhwll Gwyngyll from 'n
p', and "yn" = 'in').
The village is split into two smaller villages, Llanfairpwllgwyngyll-uchaf, the original part
of the village, and Llanfairpwllgwyngyll-isaf, the newer area nearer the railway station.
These are occasionally referred to as Pentre Uchaf and Pentre Isaf.
Pronunciation
The full name of the village is [ˌɬanvairˌpuɬɡwɨ̞ŋˌɡɨ̞ɬɡoˌɡɛrəˌχwərnˌdrobuɬˌɬantɨ̞ˌsiljoˌɡoɡoˈɡoːχ], or with [ɪ] for [ɨ̞], [pʊɬ, bʊɬ] for
[puɬ, buɬ], depending on the speaker's accent.
The approximate pronunciation in English orthography is given at the station as: Llan-vire-pooll-guin-gill-go-ger-u-chwurn-drob-ooll-llantus-ilio-gogo-goch.
The ch is a voiceless uvular fricative [χ] or voiceless velar fricative as in "Bach"
in most varieties of German.
The ll is a voiceless lateral fricative [ɬ], a sound that does not occur in English and
is sometimes approximated as [θl] or even [xl] by English speakers.
There is even a song on iTunes with a lesson on how to pronounce the name.
Rival names There have been several attempts to steal
the village's record: The Carmarthenshire village of Llanfynydd
unofficially and temporarily adopted the name Llan hyfryd dawel lle hynafol y barcud prin
dan fygythiad trienus y llafnau o le in 2004 in protest at plans to erect a wind farm nearby
an historic place with rare kite under wretched threat from blades out of place").
A station on the Fairbourne Railway was named Gorsafawddacha'idraigodanheddogleddollônpenrhynareurdraethceredigion
for promotional purposes.
No such attempts have gained widespread recognition amongst official bodies or transport authorities.
History
A settlement has existed on the site of the village since the Neolithic era, with subsistence
agriculture and fishing the most common occupations for much of its early history.
The island of Anglesey was at that point reachable only by boat across the Menai Strait.
The area was briefly invaded and captured by the Romans under Gaius Suetonius Paulinus,
temporarily abandoned in order to consolidate forces against Boudicca, then held until the
end of Roman Britain.
With the withdrawal of the Roman forces, the area fell under the control of the early mediaeval
Kingdom of Gwynedd.
Under this feudal system, the residents worked small farms for the king.
The rural nature of the settlement meant that the village had a population of only around
80 in 1563.
With the introduction of estates in the 16th century, much of the land was absorbed into
the Earldom of Uxbridge, which later became the Marquisate of Anglesey; the inhabitants
became tenant farmers on enclosures.
In 1844, for example, 92% of the land in Llanfairpwll was owned by just 3 individuals.
The population of the village boomed, with a population of 385 in the 1801 census and
83 houses, most of them in the old village.
In 1826, Anglesey was connected to the rest of Wales by the construction of the Menai
Suspension Bridge by Thomas Telford, and connected with London in 1850 with the building of the
Britannia Bridge and the busy North Wales Coast railway line, which connected London
to the ferry port of Holyhead.
The village decentralised, splitting into Upper Village, which was made up mainly of
the older houses and farms, and the new Lower Village, built around the railway station
and consisting mostly of shops and workshops.
The village became a hub of commerce, as the railways and road network brought traders
and customers from across north Wales.
The first ever meeting of the Women's Institute took place in Llanfairpwll in 1915 and the
movement then spread through the rest of the British Isles.
In popular culture The Welsh band Super Furry Animals called
their debut E.P.
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgoger-ychwyndrobwllantysil-iogogogochynygofod.
The song "Red Cave" by Brooklyn-based indie rock band Yeasayer references
the English translation of the town name with these lyrics: "Mary's house in the hollow
of the white hazel rapid whirlpool at the church of the red cave."
The name was used in the movie Barbarella as the password for the headquarters of Dildano,
the comical revolutionary, and by Peter Sellers in the film The Road to Hong Kong where he
plays a quack doctor who asks Bob Hope to say it instead of the more usual "Ahh" when
examining his teeth.
The name was used as a solution in a crossword compiled by Roger Squires for The Telford
and Wrekin News when royalty visited Ironbridge in 1979 on the occasion of the 200th anniversary
of the first iron bridge, for acceptance by Guinness World Records as the longest word
to appear in a published crossword.
The clue was “Giggling troll follows Clancy, Larry, Billy and Peggy who howl, wrongly disturbing
a place in Wales”, an anagram.
The song "The Boy From..." by Stephen Sondheim and Mary Rodgers features the place name juxtaposed
with a similarly long, but fictional, Spanish place name.
A sign with the town's name in the music video for "See Those Eyes" by Altered Images.
See also List of long place names
Longest word in English Llanfairpwll F.C., the town's football club
References
External links Village website, listed in the 2002 Guinness
Book of Records as the world's longest valid Internet domain name
BBC Article at H2G2 Explanation of village name
Flickr photos photos of Llanfair PG and surrounding area
on geograph Musical "How To" lesson on the correct pronunciation