National Screen and Sound Archive of Wales preserves and celebrates the sound and moving image heritage of Wales, making it accessible to a wide range of users for enjoyment and learning. Its film collection reflects every aspect of the nation’s social, cultural and working life across the 20th century, giving a fascinating insight into Welsh filmmaking, both amateur and professional.
This film is part of Free
Llanddwyn Island
Sea pinks and samphire, lighthouses and church ruins – Llanddwyn’s charms are many and varied.
From the collection of:
Overview
The beauties of Llanddwyn filmed by artist Charles F Tunnicliffe who lived at Malltraeth on the Cefni estuary. Pinks bloom, black hens peck about, a white pony is led to water and has a few sips. Tunnicliffe’s artist wife Winifred (nee Wonnacott) wears a dark coat and scarf, and there are shots, it is believed, of Elizabeth Llanddwyn-Jones, one of the island’s sea pilots who also worked with the RSPB to protect the roseate tern from the predations of egg-collectors.
Llanddwyn – “the church of Dwynwen” - is only an island at the highest of tides and is part of the Newborough Warren National Nature Reserve. 5th century Dwynwen is the Welsh St Valentine, celebrated on 25th January. Unsuccessful in love, but still its champion, she retreated to the almost-island to live as a hermit. The ruins of a 16th century church named after her are a feature of the island as are the cottages once lived in by the sea pilots who guided ships carrying slate into the Menai Strait, assisted by the lighthouses T?r Bach and T?r Mawr. Tunnicliffe (1901-79), a gifted etcher, engraver, teacher and illustrator, lived at ‘Shorelands’, Malltraeth, from 1947, a home that doubled as a bird hide.
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