Stories: Mairwen Hughes

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Mairwen Hughes, a retired head teacher, lives in Rhosmeirch near Llangefni. She researched her family history at Cwningar, in Newborough Forest, and shares some fascinating stories.

“My mother’s family lived in Cwningar in the 1850s,” says Mairwen. “The land belonged to Lord Boston. My grandfather also farmed Gwladys, Tir Capten, Tir Mawr, Ty’n Llidiart, and Tyddyn Bach.”

Thomas Jones married Catherine Rowlands, and raised four children. When her father went to live with the family he brought along two cows, a heifer, three pigs, and chickens: “They were not poor,” remarks Mairwen. “Records show that in addition to planting potatoes and onion crops, by 1860-1881 the family had a horse and cart, cows, sheep, pigs, geese, ducks and chickens.”

The family sold the washed sheeps’ wool in Caernarfon, and milked the sheep – the cows’ milk was used for butter for sale. Rabbits were also trapped and sold – one record shows the purchase of 120 traps.

Mairwen relates how, until 1815, there was 100 acres of common land in the Newborough area; after the closure, whole families worked the Marram grass to replace lost income from rabbits and produce from the land. “Two-year old grass was the best,” recalls Mairwen. “It was cut in August, stacked to dry – it turned nearly white – and then carried to the village to be worked into mats, and baskets. The women could plait and sew a mat each day – made of 65 plaits with 11-13 strands each, 4″ wide and eight Welsh yards (40 inches, rather than 36 inches) long.”

As Mairwen recalls from her mother’s stories, the storm of Christmas 1931 buried several small farms with sand from the beach, the majority between Llanddwyn and Newborough. Ironically, it was the Marram grass that provided income for the local people that had previously (since an Elizabethan decree prohibiting its cutting) grown profusely and stabilised the dunes.

Catherine, her two daughters and her father died within a few years of each other, leaving the remaining son (Mairwen’s grandfather Richard Jones) who married Rebecca Jones from Malltraeth. They lived at Rhedyn Coch, and raised 11 children.

Mairwen says that, before Rebecca bought the farm in 1912, rent had to be paid to the Church in Wales, to the vicar in Penrhos Lligwy.  “In 1720, the Queen Anne bounty money was given by the church to the vicar at Penrhos Lligwy because the stipend was so low that the family went hungry and the children starved.”

And, as Mairwen relates, it was a long walk to pay the rent: “He would leave in the morning about 7 o’clock, walked to Malltraeth then to Lon Bost, and along Cob Bach to Llangefni. From there, he would go up Saeth Aelwyd to Rhosmeirch, across Mynydd Bodafon and down to the church house.” At his destination, Richard would have a cup of tea and some bread to prepare him for the long walk back to Rhedyn Coch by nightfall. A long walk indeed!

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