St. Mary & St. Nicholas, Beaumaris, Anglesey

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.