The fairly little UK island the place ‘Merlin is buried in a glass coffin’ | UK | News | EUROtoday

For an island of simply 1.5 by 0.6 miles lengthy there positive is so much packed into Bardsey simply two miles off the Welsh coast.

It has a wealthy wildlife, dramatic coast and fascinating historical past and legends.

Topping the invoice is the longstanding declare that Merlin, the mythological wizard from the Legend of King Arthur, was buried on the island.

The legends fluctuate from him “sleeping in a glass tomb or castle” to being in a cave, however in all instances, he’s surrounded by the 13 treasures of Britain.

It is price noting that there are a number of different alleged resting locations of the wizard, together with

Marlborough Mound, a 62-foot mound in Wiltshire and Merlin’s Grave, a website on the east financial institution of the Tweed within the Scottish Borders, north of Drumelzier Church.

There are additionally two alleged websites in France, at Broceliande Forest in Brittany and the Tombeau de Merlin, a ruined megalithic grave.

But, the Arthurian legends do not cease there with some claiming that the island is, in actual fact, the legendary island of Avalon, and due to this fact additionally the ultimate resting place of King Arthur.

It has been a vacation spot for Christian pilgrims for the reason that sixth century and options the ruins of an abbey.

The island is simply two miles off the southern tip of the Llŷn Peninsula.

In the sixth Century, St Cadfan based a monastery on the island and his successor St Leuddad invented a fable that anybody who died on the island wouldn’t go to hell.

It led to it changing into one of many holiest locations in Britain attracting 1000’s of pilgrims every year.

From the early Middle Ages it was additionally claimed that 20,000 saints had been buried on the islands, regardless of its tiny body.

In newer historical past, the island had its personal king.

Now with simply 11 properties, about 100 years in the past it was dwelling to a group of fishermen and crofters totalling about 200.

They elected their very own “king”, the final of which was topped in 1918, referred to as Love Pritchard. He died in 1927 and is buried in Aberdaron churchyard close to the seaside.

The small island additionally has a chook observatory and huge number of wildlife, which has given it SSSI protected standing, as a nationwide nature reserve and website of particular scientific curiosity (SSSI).

In 1979 the island was bought by the Bardsey Island Trust and is now managed by the Trust with recommendation from Natural Resources Wales.

Rising to a top of 167 meters, the entire island has a floor space of 180 hectares, most of which is farmland.

There are simply 12 Grade II listed properties on the island – one is a non-public letting to the Evans household (who’ve lived on Bardsey for 3 generations).

Nine properties are let loose by the Bardsey Island Trust as vacation lettings.

In February 2023 it turned the primary place in Europe to be made an International Dark Skies Sanctuary (IDSS) following a 13-year marketing campaign to be named an official website for stargazing.

This was resulting from its “exceptional” astronomical shows resulting from its solely mild seen at evening coming from the celebs and a really distant glow from Dublin.