Qualla: Capel Lligwy

Capel Lligwy: Introduction

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Sometime in the 19th century, a fox went to ground in the ruins of a small medieval chapel near Moelfre on Anglesey, and the men who came to dig her out discovered something the chapel had been hiding for three hundred years. Beneath the floor of the south chapel was a vault containing several human skeletons, which - according to the local account that has come down the years - 'crumbled into dust, when exposed to the air.' Capel Lligwy is that kind of place: ruined, quiet, easy to miss, and full of pieces of medieval Anglesey that the centuries have not quite cleared away.

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Capel Lligwy: Built When the Vikings Stopped

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The oldest stones in Capel Lligwy were laid in the first half of the 12th century. That timing matters. For most of the previous two hundred years, Anglesey had been a target for Viking raiders - the same Norsemen who used the Isle of Man as a base and treated Welsh coastal monas...

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Capel Lligwy: Lligwy House and the Last Worshippers

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The chapel was extended in the 14th century - you can see the change in the masonry style about five feet up the walls, where the original large blocks give way to smaller rubble. In the 16th century someone built the unusual south chapel with its vaulted burial chamber underneat...

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Capel Lligwy: What Survives

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The walls are built from local rubble masonry, and traces of plaster still cling to the interior. In the nave, a stone about two feet square with a hole bored through its top - possibly the base of a churchyard cross - lies where it has lain for centuries. The south chapel vault ...

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