Martin Crampin: 'Ellin’s Tower' (2023)

Description

Lede
The castellated whitewashed tower on the cliffs near South Stack is known as Ellin’s Tower or Twr Elin.

Story
The two-storey folly was erected in 1868 for Ellin or Ellen Stanley. Ellen came from the Williams family of Bodelwyddan near St Asaph in north Wales and married William Owen Stanley of Penrhos in 1832. They lived at Penrhos mansion near Holyhead, once the centre of a large estate, but demolished in the mid-twentieth century having fallen derelict after the Second World War.

William Owen Stanley was a Liberal MP for Anglesey from 1837 until 1847, and subsequently an MP for Chester and then Beaumaris. He was Lord Lieutenant of Anglesey from 1869 until his death in 1884. He was well-known as an antiquary and led excavations at various sites in Anglesey, publishing in the journal Archaeologia Cambrensis. Some of his archaeological finds, including those found at the hut circles on Holyhead Mountain, were kept in Ellin’s Tower, before they were given to the British Museum. His collection included a variety of prehistoric and Romano-British vessels, Stone Age or Bronze Age axe heads, Romano-British tankard handles, and an early medieval penannular brooch.

W.O. Stanley was an important patron of Holyhead, contributing £4000 towards the restoration of St Cybi’s church in the late 1870s. He had also been responsible for the building of the Market Hall in 1855, now home to the town library. Ellin predeceased her husband in 1876, but set aside funds in her will for a chapel and a remarkable memorial to William Owen Stanley in St Cybi’s. The memorial was not completed until long after his death in 1884. Stanley’s effigy was carved with large angels at his head and his feet by the London sculptor Hamo Thornycroft in 1897 and a window above the memorial was made by the firm of Morris & Co., also in 1897. It is an unusual window for its date, with foliage and fruits but without any figures. By contrast, friends of Ellin Stanley provided stained glass in her memory that was added to a window in the chapel, which has figures of three female saints, Dorothy, Theresa and Agnes. The window was also the work of Morris & Co, using figures designed by Edward Burne-Jones.

Family tradition remembers Ellin as ‘a saintly woman and much given to good works’, in contrast to the violent temper of her husband William. He was the younger twin brother of Edward John, who inherited the title of second baron Stanley of Alderley. His nephew Henry, the third baron, converted to Islam and became the first Muslim member of the House of Lords in 1869. This didn’t prevent him from paying for the restoration of churches at Llanbadrig and Bodewryd in northern Anglesey, which were furnished with decorative glass in an Islamic style. He may have influenced the avoidance of figures in the east window of the Stanley Chapel at St Cybi’s with fruits and flowers by Morris & Co. The connection with Morris & Co. may have been made through W.O. Stanley’s sister Rosalind, who married George James Howard, ninth earl of Carlisle. They were both close friends of William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones, although Morris died in 1896 and Burne-Jones probably had little to do with either commission.

Ellin’s Tower is now an information centre for the RSPB.

• https://perma.cc/LG7Y-ANH2 (link opens in new window)