The Island of
Twenty Thousand Saints
Bardsey has been continuously inhabited, prayed over, farmed, fished and argued about for at least four thousand years. This is the story of one small Welsh island and the extraordinary weight of history it carries.
The Welsh name for Bardsey is Ynys Enlli — the Island in the Currents. The English name may derive from a Viking chieftain called Barda, or from the island of the bards. Both versions suit the place. It has always attracted those who sought something — sanctuary, salvation, solitude, or a kingdom of their own.
The island is small: less than two miles long, half a mile wide, 180 hectares. Three people live here year-round as of 2025. And yet its history encompasses early Christianity, papal indulgences, Viking raids, a line of kings, an apple tree that may be unique in the world, and a legend connecting it to King Arthur, Merlin, and the isle of Avalon.
Four thousand years of habitation
The earliest evidence of people on Bardsey is flint — pieces shaped by human hands, found on the western coast and the slopes of Mynydd Enlli, dating to between 2,000 and 1,000 BC. The Neolithic hut circles visible near Penrhyn Gogar on the north side of the island suggest settlement around 5,000 years ago. People have been here, in some form, for most of recorded human history.
The island was almost certainly considered sacred long before Christianity arrived. Islands at the far edge of the land, accessible only by a crossing through difficult tidal waters, held a particular significance in Celtic culture — threshold places, between the human world and whatever lay beyond it. Bardsey sits at the very tip of the Llŷn Peninsula, with the Irish Sea on three sides and the mainland coast receding behind you on the crossing. The sense of departure is still palpable.
The land of indulgences, absolution and pardon — the road to Heaven, and the gate to Paradise.Medieval bards on Ynys Enlli
Saint Cadfan and the first monastery
In 516 AD — or thereabouts, the records are uncertain — a Breton nobleman named Cadfan arrived on Bardsey and established a monastery. It is believed to be the first monastery in Great Britain. He received the island from Saint Einion, King of Llŷn, and brought monks with him from Brittany to form the founding community.
Cadfan ruled the monastery for twenty-six years. Under his guidance, the island became a centre of Celtic Christianity at a moment when the faith was still finding its shape in Britain. The Celtic monastic tradition he brought with him — contemplative, ascetic, deeply connected to the natural world — suited Bardsey perfectly. The island’s isolation was not a weakness but the point.
Other saints followed. Saint Deiniol, the Bishop of Bangor, was buried on Bardsey in 584. Saint Dyfrig — Dubricius, who had resigned as Archbishop in favour of Saint David — retired here. Saint Leuddad, Cadfan’s successor, added a remarkable element to the island’s growing reputation: he put it about that anyone who died on Bardsey would not go to hell. The legend caught on. Pilgrims began arriving in numbers.
The island became, in medieval Christian geography, one of the holiest places in Britain. Bards called it the land of indulgences and the gate to Paradise. By the High Middle Ages, three pilgrimages to Bardsey were held to equal one to Rome — a papal indulgence that drew visitors from across Wales and beyond. King Edward I visited in 1284. The island was sometimes called the Iona of Wales.
The Island of Twenty Thousand Saints
The reputation of Bardsey as a burial place for saints accumulated over centuries. So many monks, pilgrims and holy men came to die here — seeking the guarantee of salvation that Leuddad’s legend offered — that by the High Middle Ages the island claimed to hold the remains of twenty thousand saints. A local belief persisted that you could not dig anywhere on Bardsey without finding bones. A comprehensive excavation at Tŷ Newydd in the 1990s revealed 25 medieval graves in a small area, suggesting the legend was not entirely without foundation.
The original Celtic monastery gradually evolved. By 1212, the abbey of St Mary belonged to the Augustinian Canons Regular — the same order that ran many of England’s great medieval abbeys. Gerald of Wales, writing in his Itinerarium Cambriae, described a community of very religious monks. The bell tower visible today in the abbey graveyard was built in the 13th century and stands about 8 metres tall — all that survives of what was once a substantial building.
Vikings raided the island during the 8th and 9th centuries, as they did most coastal sites in the British Isles. The abbey survived. The pilgrimage continued. For nearly a thousand years from Cadfan’s arrival, Bardsey remained one of the most important religious sites in Wales.
The Dissolution — and what came after
In 1537, under the orders of Henry VIII, the abbey of St Mary was dissolved and its buildings demolished. The choir stalls, two screens and the bells were transferred to the church at Llanengan on the mainland, where they can still be found today. What had been a living religious community for over a thousand years was ended in a single administrative act.
The island passed into private ownership. It became part of the Newborough Estate, held by the Wynn family and their successors for centuries. Between 1870 and 1875, Lord Newborough rebuilt the island’s farm buildings — the semi-detached farmhouses that are now the Trust’s holiday cottages, and which still bear the names their tenants gave them.
Life continued, but differently. The island became a working farming community rather than a religious one. Families farmed the land, fished the waters, and maintained a small but resilient population. At its peak in the 19th century, the community numbered around a hundred people. The Reverend W.T. Jones, visiting in 1875, described it as a Paris of a place — busy, sociable, full of life.
Brenin Enlli — the island monarchy
From at least the late 18th century, Bardsey had its own king — elected by the islanders and crowned by Lord Newborough or his representative. The crown, made of tin, is now held at the Storiel gallery in Bangor. The succession lasted just over a century, ending when the last king led the remaining islanders off the island for good in 1925.
The first recorded king of Bardsey is known only from a letter to Lord Newborough in 1826, which mentions that “the poor old King of Bardsey is dead and buried on the island.” His name has been lost. He died in the same year the crown was first formally used for his successor’s coronation.
John Williams of Cristin Uchaf was crowned in August 1826 in the first recorded use of the tin crown. His reign appears to have been brief and troubled — he was eventually deposed and died in the poorhouse in Pwllheli. His son, John Williams II, was born one day after his father’s death.
The son of John Williams I, he became king in the late 19th century. His reign ended around 1900 when he was asked to leave the island — he had become an alcoholic. A photograph survives of him wearing the crown, though he removed it quickly after the picture was taken.
The last and most remarkable king of Bardsey. Born at Tŷ Pellaf in 1842, he assumed the kingship around 1911 by simply declaring — in one account — “I am the oldest; I am going to be King now.” He was a farmer and fisherman, not of the Cristin royal lineage, but a true islander to his core.
At the outbreak of the First World War, Love Pritchard offered himself and the men of Bardsey for military service. He was refused — considered too old at 71. Pritchard, reportedly offended, declared Bardsey a neutral power. Whether this declaration had any legal standing is unrecorded.
In 1925, aged 80, Love Pritchard led the remaining islanders off Bardsey for good. “We have not enough men to row boats off for us and look after the cattle,” he told the Daily Sketch. He died the following year. The crown passed eventually to Gwynedd, where it remains.
The island reborn
After the last residents left in 1925, the island passed through private ownership until 1979, when the Bardsey Island Trust purchased it following a campaign supported by the Church in Wales and Welsh academics and public figures. The trust has managed the island ever since — maintaining the cottages, protecting the wildlife, and welcoming visitors.
The Bardsey Bird and Field Observatory was established in 1953, founded by birdwatchers from across Wales and the UK who recognised the island’s extraordinary position on European migration routes. It has been running continuously ever since — one of the longest-running bird observatories in Britain. When the Trust advertised for a tenant for the island’s 180-hectare farm in 2000, they received 1,100 applications.
The island’s cultural life continued through the 20th century. Artist Brenda Chamberlain lived at Carreg from 1947 to 1962 and twice won the Gold Medal for Art at the National Eisteddfod. Dilys Cadwaladr, a former schoolteacher on the island, became the first woman to win the Crown at the National Eisteddfod in 1953. In 2023, Bardsey became the first site in Europe to receive International Dark Sky Sanctuary certification.
What the legends say
Some Arthurian scholars identify Bardsey as Avalon — the mystical island to which the mortally wounded King Arthur was taken to heal. The Welsh name Ynys Afallach means Island of Apples. A single ancient apple tree still fruits on Bardsey, genetically distinct from all known varieties. DNA testing at the National Fruit Collection confirmed it is unique. Cuttings from it are sold to raise funds for the Trust.
The legend that Merlin rests on Bardsey — sleeping in a glass castle, or a glass cave, waiting for Arthur’s return — is ancient and persistent. Lewis Morris, the 18th-century scholar, placed Ty Gwydr (the House of Glass) on Bardsey specifically. No single cave is definitively identified as Merlin’s — which only adds to the appeal of looking.
Medieval bards called Bardsey the land of indulgences and the gate to Paradise. Saint Leuddad is said to have declared that anyone who died on the island would not go to hell. This remarkable guarantee attracted pilgrims from across Wales and beyond for centuries. Three pilgrimages here equalled one to Rome.
The Welsh name Ynys Enlli means Island in the Currents — a practical description of the tidal race that makes the crossing hazardous and the island feel genuinely separate from the mainland. The English name Bardsey may derive from a Viking chieftain called Barda, or it may mean Island of the Bards. Both origins suit it.