page_title: Llanfaes Friary
section_title: Henllys and Fryars
hierarchical_section_title: Llanfaes Friary / Henllys and Fryars
caption_attribution_description: English: Henllys, the Anglesey home of HPB Originally a mansion house, this building was later for several years in the 1950s a Franciscan Friary until the monks found they were unable to meet the costs of its maintenance. It was later extended and became a hotel which, despite developing an 18-hole golf-course in its grounds, was never financially successful. After lying empty for some years it was bought by Holiday Property Bond, who converted and conserved the former mansion into 25 self-catering apartments and constructed 63 cottages and apartments in the grounds for the use of bond-holders. One wonders what the monks might make of their old place now.
context_page_description: Llanfaes Friary was a Franciscan friary in the now vanished medieval town of Llanfaes, close to what is now Beaumaris, in south east Anglesey, Wales. It was founded around 1237 in memory of Joan, wife of Llywelyn ab Iorwerth. The Friary survived the depopulation of the town, but was dissolved in 1538 and most of the buildings dismantled soon afterwards. The land became an estate on which, in 1623, Rowland Whyte built a house which he called Friars. It became one of the many properties of the Bulkeley family, and was substantially rebuilt in 1866. By the 20th century the house and grounds were owned by James Hartley Burton. In 1939 they were requisitioned for wartime use, adapting and repairing flying boats, by Saunders-Roe, who continued after the war with a wide variety of light engineering activities. The industrial uses finally came to an end in the late 1990s. An archaeological dig on the site in 1991 identified substantial buried remains of the friary church and other monastic buildings. The site is a Scheduled monument.
context_section_description: Near to Llanfaes was Henllys, in early medieval times the principle seat of one of the 15 tribes of North Wales. When Llanfaes was de-populated at the start of the 14th century, Henllys survived as a residence of note, and after 1460 it was granted to William Hampton, by then the Deputy Governor of Beaumaris Castle. The name Henllys means the 'old llys', acknowledging its former status as a royal court, and is first recorded in 1584. The Hamptons became the principle family of the locality and the family retained Henllys, expanding their land holdings such that by 1630 they held most of the former township of Llanfaes, and continued to do so until the mid-20th century. Henllys was rebuilt and expanded over the centuries, most recently in the 1850s. At the outbreak of the second world war it was requisitioned for wartime use to house engineering workers at the Fryars site. After the war Henllys was owned by a Franciscan order during the 1950s, before becoming a hotel and in 2003 became a part of the Holiday Property Bond.
  At the same time as the Hamptons were expanding their landholdings, the Bulkeleys were the principle Beaumaris family. At the dissolution of the Friary in 1539, it was the Bulkeleys who took the lease on the site, and plundered its building stone for use in Beaumaris. The next leaseholder, from 1563, was Ellis Wynne (White), and his descendant, Rowland Whyte built a house in 1623, which he named Friars. The Bulkeley family, with their huge mansion at nearby Baron Hill re-took possession of Friars from the Whytes and thus the two major landholders of the area, the Hamptons and Bulkeleys, divided Llanfaes between them. In 1866 Friars (which came to be spelled Fryars) was rebuilt and by the start of the 20th century Fryars had been bought by James Hartley Burton, originally from Birkdale, Lancashire. They had triplets, two boys and a girl. The two sons, Alfred and Richard, were both killed in World War I and are recorded on the Beaumaris war memorial.
caption: Henllys, the ancient Llys and mansion site last rebuilt in the 1850s by the Hampton family
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