Eglwys Santes Fair
Saint Mary's Church

Enwogion o Fri/
Famous people

Yn 1840 teulu Vivien oedd perchnogion Plas Gwyn. Yr Arglwydd Vivien a werthodd y tir lle adeiladwyd yr ysgol arno yn 1863. Heddiw Mrs Margaret Eleanor Lowrie yw perchenog Plas Gwyn. Ei gwr cyntaf oedd Claude Panton Vivian . Ailbriododd ar ol i Vivian gael ei ladd yn yr Ail Ryfel Byd yn 1944 yn 24 mlwydd oed.

Plas Gwyn was built by William Jones, 1688-1755. It is a house with three floors, built of red brick and a slate roof. The house was completed in 1754. John Jones was the son of Plas Gwyn and he was born in 1650. He died in 1727. He became Dean of Bangor Cathedral. He opened a school at Pentraeth in 1719, a school to teach 10 children to read Welsh, English, write and do sums.

He left £100 in his will to run the school. We do not know much about the school but it was the first school at Pentraeth and the pupils did not have to pay a penny for being taught.

In 1787 the schoolmaster’s name was Robert Owen. The only thing we now about him is that he had attacked someone called John Williams. This happened on September 8th. Poor John Williams was badly beaten. Robert Owen, the schoolmaster had to go before the court at Beaumaris but we do not know what happened there. In 1756 Paul Panton married the Plas Gwyn heiress, Jane, the daughter of William Jones.

It is said that Paul Panton took his duties as the squireof Plas Gwyn seriously. He showed interest in Welsh literature although his grasp of Welsh was weak. He was given a collection of manuscripts after Ieuan Fardd after his death in 1787. The Plas Gwyn family owned the majority of the houses around Pentraeth and the majority of the farms.

In 1840 the Vivien family were the owners of Plas Gwyn. It was Lord Vivien who gave the land on which the school was built in 1863. Today Mrs Margaret Eleanor Lowrie is the owner of Plas Gwyn. Her first husband was Claude Panton Vivian. She remarried after Vivian was killed in the Second World War in 1944 at 24 years of age.

Yr Afon/River 

Afon Nodwydd ydyw yn rhestr Williams o afonydd Mon,1908,a chyfeiria W. Davies at Aber Nodwydd fel ei haber, eto yn 1908. Nodwydd yw ei henw ar fapiau cyfredol yr Arolwg Ordnans hefyd.

Yn ol pob golwg enw disgrifiadol yw hwn. Amgryma Syr Ifor Williams ei fod yn disgrifio afon fain. Mae'r gair nodwydd wrth gwrs yn awgrymu hyn ac mae'r afon fwy nei lai ar ei hyd yn hynod o syth a chul. Nid yw'r enw'n hollol unigryw; mae afon arall o'r enw Nodwydd ger Llandegfan yng ngogledd orllewin Powys. Mae'r rhan o'r afon sy'n llifo drwy bentref Pentraeth yn cael ei galw'n Nant Y Felin gan bobl yr ardal.

River Nodwydd is a small river that springs to the south-west of Pentraeth and flows to the sea at the top of Red Wharf Bay(Traeth Coch). It is obvious that the name is old. It was at Abernodwydd, where this river flowed to the sea, that Einion ap Gwalchmai jumped his remarkable jump at the end of the twelfth century.

It is River Nodwydd in Williams’ list of the rivers of Anglesey, 1908, and W. Davies refers to Aber Nodwydd as its estuary, again in 1908. Nodwydd is its name on current Ordnance Survey maps as well.

In all probability this is a descriptive name. Sir Ifor Williams suggests that it describes a narrow river. The word ‘nodwydd’(needle) of course suggests this and the river more or less in its entirety is remarkably straight and narrow. The name is not entirely unique; there is another river called Nodwydd by Llandegfan in the north west of Powys. The part of the river that flows through the village of Pentraeth is called Nant y Felin by the local people.

pennaeth@pentraeth.anglesey.sch.uk
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