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Beaumaris, on the island of Anglesey, is famous for its magnificent castle, but also boasts this very fine church, which dates from the 13th century.
The finest feature of the church is the tomb of William Bulkeley (died 1490) and his wife.
In the unreformed Parliament prior to 1842, Anglesey returned one M.P., and Beaumaris another, and Bulkeley family dominated these.
The church has some fine misericords,
and an 18th century brass commemorating those patrons who donated money to help the poor of the parish. It includes the name of "Tabora the Black", presumably a former slave.
In the porch is this most unusual object.
It is the stone sarcophagus of Joan, the illegitimate daughter of King John, who was married to Llewelyn ap Jorwerth, Prince of North Wales. She died in 1237. In the inscription placed above the sarcophagus, Lord Bulkeley records how in 1808 he discovered it being used as a horse-trough, and rescued it.
He placed it in the church "to excite serious meditations on the transitory nature of all subluminary distinctions": an interesting reversion to the pre-Copernican view of the universe, where the imperfect earth lies at the centre, surrounded by the sphere of the moon, beyond which are the eternal and unchanging heavens.
The island of Gozo lies a short distance north of Malta. The soil has more clay than Malta, so it retains water better and the island is greener and less arid.
We took the ferry across from the port of Cirkewwa to Mgarr, in the south-east of Gozo
From where we were taken on a one-day tour of the island. There was obviously a great deal that we didn't see, but there was plenty to encourage later visits.
Gozo, like Malta, has amazing structures built in the Neolithic period. In Gozo we were shown the Ggantija temples, erected between 3600 and 3000 B.C., which makes them older than Stonehenge. They consist of walls of enormous megaliths, within which are altars of softer stone cut into slabs.
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The interior was once plastered and painted. It appears that cattle were sacrificed here. Some centuries later, the temples were abandoned and forgotten, and only rediscovered in the early 19th century. They were named "Ggantija" in the local belief that only giants could have built such massive structures!
Gozo and Malta were occupied by the Arabs for several centuries, before being conquered by the Norman Kingdom of Sicily in the 12th century. Eventually the islands came under the rule of Spain. With the rise of the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire in the early16th century, the islands came under great pressure. In 1522 the ferocious Arab corsair Dragut devastated Gozo, carrying away all the people he could catch as slaves.
The Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, commonly known as the Hospitallers, were an order of fighting monks established in the aftermath of the First Crusade. When the crusader states were finally destroyed, they established themselves at Rhodes, from where their galleys wreaked havoc on Turkish shipping. Infuriated by this, the great Sultan, Sulemain the Magnificent, resolved to destroy them, but the Knights put up such a stout defence that in 1522, after several months of siege, the survivors were allowed to retire in good order. They were homeless for a while; but then in 1530 the Emperor Charles V granted the Malta and Gozo, in return for the annula tribute of a falcon (as in the legendary movie, "The Maltese Falcon"). From their new home, the Knights continued to annoy the Turks, but were able to survive, just, the great Turkish attack of 1565 (I will describe this in a later post)
The chief city of Gozo, in the centre of the island, is nowadays known as Victoria, in memory of the British queen, who visited and loved the place. It consists of a citadel, strongly fortified by the Knights after the great siege by the Turks in 1565, within which there is a cathedral and other buildings
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Below the citadel is a town called Rabat, which is simply the Arabic word for a suburb
We saw this piece of scratched graffiti, showing a ship of this period.
From the citadel, there is a panoramic view of almost the whole of the island.
The Knights also first built this public wash-house, on the road from Rabat to Xlendi.
Dwejra is on the western coast of Gozo. Here we find the "Inland Sea"; a crater into which the sea flows through a fissure in the cliff. Little boats ferry visitors through this to the open water.
The cliffs inside have colourful lichens, which unfortunately didn't come out well on my pictures.
Also at Dwejra is the "Fungus Rock", where the Knights discovered a rare plant believed to have marvellous medicinal properties, and which they therefore had guarded to prevent any unauthorised access. (It is actually not a fungus at all, but a parasitic plant). The other famous sight here; the "Azure Window", a spectacular natural rock arch; sadly collapsed into the sea in 2017.
We stopped for lunch at Xlendi, a pleasant little bay.
In conclusion, Gozo is well worth a visit!
The new vicar had organised a working party to bring some order to the long-neglected churchyard, and we began the daunting task of hacking our way through the brambles and the ground-ivy. In one particularly dank and overgrown corner we uncovered some broken chunks of granite, pinkish in colour, that must once have surrounded a grave. But the only one nearby was still mostly bare earth, which the surrounding weeds had only just begun to colonise.
"Well, isn't that odd!" said Philip, our vicar. He turned to our oldest member, who had lived in the village all her life, and asked, "Do you know anything about this, Polly?"
Polly considered. "I remember that when I was a little girl my grandmother said I must never go down to this corner of the churchyard", she said. "She didn't tell me why; but I learnt from other people that it had something to do with the lady who used to own the pub, ages ago. Perhaps she was buried here".
"The pub? You mean the empty place at the edge of the village? Nobody lives there now: it's been vacant for ages".
"Yes. The Queen's had been plenty of different owners over the years, but none have stayed long. Some have died, and the rest have just moved away, without saying why".
"But it can't be anything to do with her", someone argued. "Because this grave is clearly very recent. Look at that bare earth."
"Unless, of course, it's been deliberately disturbed!" someone else contributed, clearly with the intention of introducing a frisson of fear.
"Well, it's all a mystery", said Philip, "We'd better just continue with our work for now. Then before our next meeting we can ask around and see what we can find out. I'll have a look in the parish records".
On the way home I asked Polly, "The Queen is a rather odd name for a pub, surely? Shouldn't it be the Queen's Head, or something like that?"
"Yes, it is odd. Various landlords over the years tried to change the name, but something always went wrong. They put up a new inn sign, and it got blown down: that sort of thing".
"There's certainly no sign there now!"
"No. Granny said there was once a sign there, and a very nasty one it was. The face on it looked nothing like any queen she'd ever heard of: really ugly, and quite frightening. Children used to dare each other to throw stones at it, she said; but somehow they never quite had the nerve, and their parents used to warn them not even to think about doing it!"
"And what became of the lady who ran it?"
"I never found out. Granny wouldn't tell me. I think there were odd stories going around the village, but I never found anything out".
I must have been thinking too much about Polly's story, because that night I experienced a frightening dream. I was standing in the churchyard, beside the grave, which however was now covered with its granite. But something stirred beneath, and suddenly, to my inutterable horror, the stones rose up, cracked and fell away. The earth below was heaving, as if a giant mole was about to throw up its hill. But what emerged was not a mole. I watched, unable to move, as a dark figure clawed itself out from under the soil and rise to its feet. It was stooped, and a little less than human size. I couldn't see its face, but somehow I knew it was a woman, and of a great age. I was terrified that she would turn and see me, but instead she gathered her ragged black clothing around herself and drifted, rather than walked, towards the village. At this point I awoke in a sweat of fear. It was still night-time outside. I did not dare open the curtains even when it was broad daylight, from an irrational terror that she might be there, peering into the room.
At the next meeting of our gardening group, Philip told us, "I've been thinking about that grave. The surrounds are all broken, but I don't see how you could break granite in pieces without a heavy sledgehammer, and these have been snapped as if they were rotten twigs or biscuits. It's very strange. Oh, and I found something unusual in the archives. One of my predecessors was asked to conduct an exorcism! It came from the landlord at the pub. He said a ghost had been peering through his windows and frightening his children".
"And did he exorcise the ghost?"
"No: he rather pooh-poohed the idea; he thought it was all silly superstition. Soon afterwards the landlord put the pub up for sale and left the village".
At this stage I thought I'd tell them about my dream.
"Aye, that's what would have happened!" said Polly. "Granny said that the lady would come back, to see who'd taken her pub. Maybe she was just being curious, but I don't like to think of what might happen if she ever got in!"
"Oh, and one other thing", said Philip. "I had a dream rather like yours. Then, the next day, looking round the church, I discovered that a small amount of the communiion wine had been left in the chalice. I've no idea how this happened: it's most irregular. I wondered what to do. Then, on an impulse that I can't properly explain, I went and sprinkled it on that grave. Looking back, I know it was very silly; and you must promise you won't tell the archdeacon, please! I wonder what will happen now?"
We all wondered. The answer was, and still is, absolutely nothing. We try to avoid that corner of the churchyard, but the last time I looked, the grave had not been disturbed any further, and weeds had continued to colonise it. Whether Philip's unorthodox behaviour had had this effect, I cannot say. But the pub is still unoccupied and up for sale. I doubt if anyone familiar with the village will be buying it.
