Where to Stay in Anglesey

Anglesey is an island of ancient sanctity, dramatic coastline and a living Welsh culture that gives it a character and an identity entirely its own. Separated from the Welsh mainland by the Menai Strait and connected by two remarkable bridges — Thomas Telford’s elegant suspension bridge of 1826 and Robert Stephenson’s tubular railway bridge alongside it — it is an island that feels genuinely apart from the rest of Wales while remaining easily accessible for visitors arriving from across the country.

The coastline is the island’s greatest treasure, an almost unbroken succession of headlands, sandy bays, sea cliffs and sheltered coves that has been designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in its entirety. The beaches of Rhosneigr, Newborough and Llanddwyn are among the finest in Wales, their white sand and clear water rivalling anything the broader British Isles can offer, while the dramatic sea cliffs of the north and west coast provide some of the finest coastal walking and sea cliff climbing in the country. Llanddwyn Island, accessible on foot across the beach at low tide, is one of the most romantic and historically resonant places in Wales, its ruined chapel and lighthouse standing above a beach of extraordinary beauty.

Anglesey has a depth of prehistoric and early Christian history that is remarkable even by Welsh standards. The island was the last stronghold of the Druids in Britain and a centre of Celtic spiritual life whose significance echoes through the landscape in a remarkable concentration of burial chambers, standing stones and ancient monuments. Bryn Celli Ddu, a Neolithic passage tomb of considerable sophistication, is among the most important prehistoric sites in Wales.

Holyhead, the island’s largest town and the principal ferry port for Ireland, has a long maritime history and a strategic importance that has shaped its character over centuries. Beaumaris, on the eastern shore of the island, is home to one of the finest and most complete concentric castles in the British Isles, its elegant symmetry and watery setting making it one of the most beautiful of Edward I’s Welsh fortresses.

Whether you are looking for a beach holiday on the sands of Newborough, a coastal walk around the Anglesey Coast Path, a journey through the prehistoric monuments of the island’s interior or a ferry crossing to Ireland from Holyhead, Anglesey is an island of rare beauty and ancient depth that offers one of the most rewarding and distinctly Welsh experiences in the country.