Qualla: Salt Island, Anglesey

Salt Island, Anglesey: Introduction

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Velela, Public domain. Walk to the end of London's most famous road and you finish at a triumphal arch on a small piece of land that used to be an island. The A5 begins at Marble Arch in Hyde Park, runs 260 miles through the Midlands and Snowdonia, crosses Telford's Menai Suspension Bridge, threads the width of Anglesey, and ends here, at Admiralty Arch on Salt Island. The arch was put up in 1821 to mark the moment King George IV stepped off a boat from Ireland and onto Welsh ground, just before construction of the road that made his journey possible was finally completed. The whole apparatus - the arch, the pier, the lighthouse fifty metres away - was built to do one job: move post and people between Great Britain and Ireland as fast as steam and horses allowed.

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Image: Velela | Public domain

Salt Island, Anglesey: The Name Was a Factory

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit 瑞丽江的河水, CC BY-SA 4.0. Before the engineers arrived, the island had a more modest industry. Sea water was pumped into shallow pans, boiled down with peat or coal, and the resulting salt was scraped up, dried, and sold. That factory gave the island its name. Holyhead's Old Harbour curls in behind Salt I...

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Image: 瑞丽江的河水 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Salt Island, Anglesey: Two Royal Departures

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Eric Jones, CC BY-SA 2.0. Admiralty Pier opened in the same year as the arch, 1821, reaching about 300 metres east into the sea on cut limestone. It has been handling ferry traffic ever since. The pier saw royalty twice in the 19th century, both times for the same reason: Ireland. On 7 August 1821, King G...

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Image: Eric Jones | CC BY-SA 2.0

Salt Island, Anglesey: Reclaimed for the Modern Crossing

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Eric Jones, CC BY-SA 2.0. In February 2001, contractors began driving piles into the seabed off Salt Island's eastern edge. Over the following months, an average of 7,000 tonnes of rock and mud a day was added to the perimeter. The island grew by 11 acres at a cost of £10 million. The new land became bert...

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Image: Eric Jones | CC BY-SA 2.0