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Llandudno b&b, guesthouse and hotel accommodation

Visit Llandudno and the surrounding villages and stay in bed & breakfast accommodation:

Llandudno, Conwy. The place where St Tudno set his church was apparently unknown to Daniel Paterson in 1811, when he compiled his Direct and Principal Cross Roads for the use of travellers by coach. In his day, it was nothing more than a tiny hamlet on the shore of the Irish Sea between Conwy Bay and Colwyn Bay. It was set around Great Orme's Head, a bold promontory 700 ft high of carboniferous limestone sheering the waters above the eastward end of Anglesey. St Tudno's small church, founded in the 7^th century by the early Christian missionary whose name it bears, still stands in its place on the head of Orme. Crowds of holiday-makers who flock to Llandudno in the summer attend its open-air services, most of them brought to the top by the cable-railway; and they can understand why the saint chose that spot. The views over Anglesey and into the great massif of Snowdonia, the shore of Strathclyde, and the coast of Conwy, are such as to inspire man with a sense of the divine. Below, at the foot of Orme, a motor road, naturally called the Marine Drive, allows drivers to have a panoramic procession for a small charge.

At the end of it are the slight remains of Gogarth Abbey and the hotel that was once known as Pen Morfa (Sea-Land Height), and was the home of Dean Liddell, whose daughter, in her youngest days, was the original of the Alice famous as the explorer of Wonderland and the worlds beyond the looking-glass. “Lewis Carroll” (the Rev. C. L. Dodgson) is popularly supposed to have stayed here with the Liddells, but in the light of available evidence this belief has been questioned. On the West Shore is the memorial to Carroll, erected in 1933 and showing the White Rabbit studying his watch. It was designed by W. Forrester, a local sculptor. The Orme has become a nesting-place of guillemots.

The eastern side of Llandudno is contained by Little Orme's Head. Its height is only 463 ft, but its cliffs are wilder and more precipitous. The sands in this bay are excellent for bathing, firm and safe; those on the further side of the Great Orme, on the West Shore, are inclined to be muddy, and the intake through the Menai Straits draws the tides far out, so that various inland swimming-pools have been constructed. Since 1850, Llandudno has grown to its present shape by careful town-planning and with an architecture that responds to the beauty of its setting.

It was, however, a place of very ancient human settlement. The principal street, called Mostyn, running towards the Great Orme, touches the system of great natural caves that are found in it. In 1879 one Thomas Kendrick, who used one such cave-entrance for a workroom, decided to enlarge it. His excavation disclosed some broken stalactite formations and, buried with them, bones both animal and human. Short-horned oxen of very ancient type, brown bear and boar, and four human skeletons were mingled together. It is assumed that the New Stone Age people may have used the place for burials; but the presence of bones belonging to men and beasts in so many caves along the sea-coasts of Wales and elsewhere is a mystery of archaeology for which some find the answer in natural cataclysms. Earlier than this, in 1849, men working the copper-mines on the Orme broke into a large cavern from whose roof stalactites hung in brilliant colours. But they had not been the first to enter it. Romans had been there before them; and wooden benches and tools for mining were found as they had been abandoned. Even mutton-bones from the lunch-boxes of the workmen remained, impregnated with copper by the long passage of the centuries.

Near Llandudno is Pabo Hill, again with magnificent views and again a memorial to a saint, contemporary with Tudno, who came to worship and convert.

Conwy with its noble castle and recollections of half-forgotten wars is within easy reach: and the small holiday resort of Deganwy, or Dinas Conwy (Fort on the Conway), should he visited by anyone interested in the history of Wales. Its half-vanished castle is a monument to Welsh resistance; one expedition after another of the Anglo-Norman forces came to a halt here as they attempted to drive into Gwynedd, and its latest Norman structure was destroyed by Llywelyn the Last in his triumph over the forces of Henry III in 1260 — which was to be reversed some twenty years later near Builth.

In a green valley, on the other side of the hills over which Llandudno sprawls away from the sea, is Gloddaeth, a remarkable survival of the late medieval great house, with perfect floors, windows, and ceilings. It was the home of that Archbishop Williams who had some difficulty in deciding for which side he held the Castle of Conwy during the Civil Wars. It is now an excellent school for boys in the old tradition. But the lovely step-gabled roof of its 17^th century dovecote can be seen from the highway.

Nearby towns: Colwyn Bay, Conwy, Deganwy, Llandudno Junction, Penrhyn Bay, Rhos-on-Sea

Nearby villages: Aber, Betws-yn-Rhos, Caerhun, Colwyn, Dalgarrog, Eglwysbach, Llanbedr-y-Cennin, Llanddulas, Llandrillo-yn-Rhos, Llanelian-yn-Rhos, Llanfair Talhaiarn, Llanfairfechan, Llangelynin, Llangernyw, Llangoed, Llanllechid, Llysfaen, Mochdre, Old Colwyn, Penmaenmawr, Penmon, Tal-y-Cafn

Have you decided to visit Llandudno or the surrounding villages? Please look above for somewhere to stay in:

• a Llandudno bed and breakfast (a Llandudno B&B or Llandudno b and b)
• a Llandudno guesthouse
• a Llandudno hotel (or motel)
• a Llandudno self-catering establishment, or
• other Llandudno accommodation

Accommodation in Llandudno:

Find availability in a Llandudno bed and breakfast, also known as B&B or b and b, guesthouse, small hotel, self-catering or other accommodation.