Llanddaniel Fab (or Llanddaniel-fab) is a village and

community A community is a social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place, norms, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, tow ...

Anglesey Anglesey (; cy, (Ynys) Môn ) is an island off the north-west coast of Wales. It forms a principal area known as the Isle of Anglesey, that includes Holy Island across the narrow Cymyran Strait and some islets and skerries. Anglesey island ...

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...

. At the 2001 census it had a population of 699, increasing to 776 at the 2011 census. It is near the

prehistoric Prehistory, also known as pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the use of the first stone tools by hominins 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use of ...

monument of

Bryn Celli Ddu Bryn Celli Ddu is a prehistoric site on the Welsh island of Anglesey located near Llanddaniel Fab. Its name means 'the mound in the dark grove'. It was archaeologically excavated between 1928 and 1929. Visitors can get inside the mound through ...

which was constructed in the late

Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts ...

period. In the east of the community, by the

Menai Strait The Menai Strait ( cy, Afon Menai, the "river Menai") is a narrow stretch of shallow tidal water about long, which separates the island of Anglesey from the mainland of Wales. It varies in width from from Fort Belan to Abermenai Point to from ...

, stands the country seat of the

Marquess of Anglesey Marquess of Anglesey ( cy, Ardalydd Môn) is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1815 for Henry Paget, 2nd Earl of Uxbridge, a hero of the Battle of Waterloo, second in command to the Duke of Wellington. The Marquess ...

, Plas Newydd, parts of which date from the 14th century. The house has been owned by the

National Trust The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and ...

since 1976. In the 16th century the poet Catrin ferch Gruffudd ap Hywel lived here. Her Welsh poems are preserved and they include an

Awdl In Welsh poetry, an ''awdl'' () is a long poem in strict metre (i.e. ''cynghanedd''). Originally, an ''awdl'' could be a relatively short poem unified by its use of a single end-rhyme (the word is related to ''odl'', "rhyme"), using cynghanedd; ...

with a religious theme written in 1555. During the

2001 United Kingdom foot-and-mouth crisis The outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in the United Kingdom in 2001 caused a crisis in British agriculture and tourism. This epizootic saw 2,000 cases of the disease in farms across most of the British countryside. Over 6 million cows and ...

, many sheep and cattle were slaughtered in the area. The village has its own

community council A community council is a public representative body in Great Britain. In England they may be statutory parish councils by another name, under the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007, or they may be non-statutory bodies. In ...

and its county council representative is Hywel Eifion Jones, who has held the post since May 1999. Amenities include a post office, primary school (Ysgol Parc y Bont), and a 12-hole golf course. Probably the village's most famous son is

Tecwyn Roberts Tecwyn Roberts (10 October 1925 – 27 December 1988) was a Welsh spaceflight engineer who in the 1960s played important roles in designing the Mission Control Center at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas and creating NASA's worldw ...

(1925-1988), who became

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

’s first

Flight Dynamics Officer Flight controllers are personnel who aid space flight by working in such Mission Control Centers as NASA's Mission Control Center or ESA's European Space Operations Centre. Flight controllers work at computer consoles and use telemetry to mon ...

with

Project Mercury Project Mercury was the first human spaceflight program of the United States, running from 1958 through 1963. An early highlight of the Space Race, its goal was to put a man into Earth orbit and return him safely, ideally before the Soviet Un ...

that put the first American into space. Roberts was born at Trefnant Bach cottage in Llanddaniel Fab and was a former pupil of Ysgol Parc y Bont. After serving as a member of the

Avro Arrow The Avro Canada CF-105 Arrow was a delta-winged interceptor aircraft designed and built by Avro Canada. The CF-105 held the promise of Mach 2 speeds at altitudes exceeding and was intended to serve as the Royal Canadian Air Force's (RCAF) p ...

project team and the

Space Task Group The Space Task Group was a working group of NASA engineers created in 1958, tasked with managing America's human spaceflight programs. Headed by Robert Gilruth and based at the Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, it managed Project Merc ...

, Roberts transferred to NASA where he eventually became chief of the Manned Flight Support Division, chief of the Network Engineering Division during the Apollo Program and later Director of Networks at

Goddard Space Flight Center The Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) is a major NASA space research laboratory located approximately northeast of Washington, D.C. in Greenbelt, Maryland, United States. Established on May 1, 1959 as NASA's first space flight center, GSFC empl ...

. The village was struck by an F1/T2 tornado on 23 November 1981, as part of the record-breaking nationwide tornado outbreak on that day.

Church

St Deiniol's Church is a small 19th-century church in the village. The first church in this location is said to have been established by St Deiniol Fab (to whom the church is dedicated) in 616. The current building incorporates some material and fittings from its predecessor, which probably dated from about the 16th century. The church is no longer in use, and the village is now served by a church in

Llanfairpwllgwyngyll Llanfairpwllgwyngyll, or Llanfair Pwllgwyngyll (), is a large village and local government community on the island of Anglesey, Wales, on the Menai Strait next to the Britannia Bridge and across the strait from Bangor. Both shortened (Llanfa ...

. It is a

Grade II listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

, a designation given to "buildings of special interest, which warrant every effort being made to preserve them", in particular because it is regarded as "a good example of a simple 19th-century rural church".

References

External links

A Vision of Britain Through Time

British Listed Buildings

Geograph

Llanddaniel

Office for National Statistics
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