A view across the Sound to Bardsey Island from the site of St Mary's Church, Aberdaron, once a stopping place for Medieval pilgrims to Bardsey.
A view across Bardsey Sound from 'St Mary's Church' site, NW of Mynydd y Gwyddel, Aberdaron, showing the distinctive slug-like profile of Bardsey Island, two miles off the SW tip of the Lleyn (Llyn) Peninsula, North Wales. Remains of a rectangular stone building set within a banked enclosure. Traditionally the remains of a Medieval church where pilgrims prayed & rested before embarking for Bardsey Island, but a drawing of 1783 appears to show the ruin of a typical C17th house. Medieval cultivation ridges are visible on the south-facing slopes adjacent to the enclosure. On Bardsey, Mynydd Enlli rises to 167m (548ft) on the east, sheltering a fertile plain to the west. Considered a sacred isle, known in Welsh as Ynys Enlli, often referred to as "the island of the twenty thousand saints", it has been a burial place, and home to Celtic saints and hermits, since early Christian times. A Celtic monastery was traditionally founded on the island in the sixth century AD. By 1200, St Mary's Abbey had been taken over by Augustinian canons under a Prior, and for several centuries Bardsey became one of the three great pilgrimage places of Wales along with St David's and Holywell.
Size: 5574px × 4128px
Location: St Mary's Church site & Bardsey Island, Aberdaron, Lleyn Peninsula, Gwynedd, Wales, UK
Photo credit: © Mick Sharp / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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