Mystery of Wooden Posts Stretching Across Stunning North Wales Beach
Dotted along a Welsh beach, a series of unassuming wooden stakes stretch across the sand. To the casual observer, they might seem like forsaken groynes left to limit sand movement. Visitors are often left wondering about their origin. Speculations include remnants of a maritime disaster or structures for fishing. Some even think it could be the remains of an ancient sunken forest like that of Trearddur Bay – but the regularity of these posts suggests a different story.
These pillars are relics from the 1940s, and this fact holds the key to their true purpose. The expansive shoreline stretching from Llanddona to Red Wharf Bay in Anglesey is famed for various reasons, including tales of witchcraft, but its connections with the wartime era and aviation history have largely been lost in the sands of time.
Most notably, Llanddona Beach is the birthplace of the iconic Land Rover – where engineering director Maurice Wilks initially drew up the design before trialling the prototypes of the vehicle here and on the nearby sands of Newborough. A less documented chapter of history is the area’s usage as an experimental flight area, built by an extraordinary aviation pioneer, reports North Wales Live.
Born to a quarryman from Bethesda in 1881, William Ellis Williams displayed exceptional aptitude in mathematics and subsequently rose to be a professor of electrical engineering at Bangor University. By 1910, he had constructed an “aeroplane shed” at Llanddona, located at one end of the beach and covering about 10 square miles – one of the biggest in North Wales. After designing and building his own monoplane inspired by the French aircraft Antoinette, he piloted a brief flight in 1911.
However, it wasn’t until 1913, now with a more powerful engine, that he completed his first test flight, soaring to a height of 7ft while flying at 37mph on a plane he dubbed the Bamboo Bird. Prof. Ellis Williams’ experiments came to a halt with the onset of World War I, as the beach was identified as a potential landing site for enemy forces, leading to heavy fortification during World War II.
Fearing a potential invasion, the beach was identified as a possible landing site for enemy forces. The area was heavily fortified with barbed wire and other anti-invasion measures, including a concealed gun battery constructed overlooking the beach at Llanddona, camouflaged as a white-washed Welsh cottage. To counter the risk of enemy aircraft landing on the beach, wooden posts were embedded into the sand between the high and low watermarks. These posts, left behind after the war, served as perfect markers and obstacles for prototype Land Rovers.
Nowadays, only their stumps remain, along with the deteriorating gun-house that lost a gable in a storm in the 1960s. Both stand as visible reminders of the era when the threat of German invasion was a significant concern in Wales.