Mapping Mountains – Trimble Surveys – Carnedd Llywelyn

07.09.14  Ynys Seiriol (SH 650 819)

Ynys Seiriol (SH 650 819)

Ynys Seiriol is situated at the easterly tip of Ynys Môn (Anglesey), at Mean Low Water its shale bank is less than 0.5km from the Trwyn Du promontory on its neighbouring much larger island, because of this it resembles a boulder kicked out to sea by a mythological giant, forever awash and disconnected.

It is the ninth largest island off the coast of Wales and has a long history of occupation first recorded as far back as the 6^th century when Saint Seiriol established a monastic settlement on the island.  It is this saint whose name now lends itself to the Welsh name for the island.  The act of establishing monastic settlements for retreat was well established on Ynys Seiriol as one is mentioned by Giraldus Cambrensis who visited the island in the late 12^th century.

A later addition incorporated a telegraph station that was one of eleven built between Liverpool and Holyhead to establish a better communication system for ships approaching the docks at Liverpool.  The remains of the building are now ruinous but its tower is still a focal point for local boats.

The remains of the old tower at the monastic settlement on Ynys Seiriol

The current English name for the lump of rock is Puffin Island, with its Norse Priestholm being an earlier used name, whilst the island was also known in Welsh as Ynys Lannog.  It is the colony of Puffins that influenced the current English name; this colony was once well established with an estimated 2,000 pairs.  However, the accidental introduction of the Brown Rat in the late 19^th century decimated their number.  A programme to eradicate the Rat was instigated in 1998 by the Countryside Council for Wales, this seems to have been successful and now the number of Puffins is increasing.  The island also has one of the largest colonies of Great Cormorants in the British Isles and nesting birds including the Razorbill, Kittiwake, Guillemot and Shag.

The island is owned by Sir Richard Williams-Bulkeley as part of the Baron Hill Estate.  It was Sir Richard that Adrian Rayner contacted to seek permission to visit.  Permission was duly granted with the provision that those going should contribute £5.00 each towards a charity, with the RNLI being chosen as the benefactor.

Adrian had organised two trips to Ynys Seiriol with the later trip departing on the 26^th October.  Last minute hitches meant that the standard form of boat was changed to the faster RIBs for the trip across.  Meeting time was given as 10.00am next to a kiosk by the pier in Beaumaris.

I arrived at around 9.00am, parked on The Green, put my walking boots on and sauntered in the early morning sunshine toward the pier.  Boats were moored out on the Menai Strait with a low sun casting silver edges to the water.  On the way I came across Gordon Adshead walking toward The Green, even though we had only met once before, we recognised one another, it was good to see Gordon, and we stopped and chatted before I continued toward the pier.

Glimmer on water on the Menai Strait

Soon Douglas Law and Paul Webster arrived; I hadn’t seen Doug for almost two years since the excellent Bagger Rambles that Iain Brown had organised at Cilmeri outside of Builth Wells.  It was good to see him again and meet Paul, a few minutes later and David Purchase came briskly walking down the pier.  One of the great things about such a trip as this is meeting people who you may only see once a year or so, and in David’s case it again was around two years since we last met.  It was good to see David, a person who I’ve been in contact with for many years.

I then came across Mark and Louise Trengove relaxing over a soon to be delivered morning coffee in a pleasant corner café.  By the time I walked back to the pier Rob Woodall, Adrian Rayner and Alex Cameron had all arrived.  Once everybody was accounted for we took a customary group photo and headed toward the RIB.

Our group assembled (L-R) David Purchase, Gordon Adshead, Douglas Law, Adrian Rayner, Alex Cameron, Rob Woodall, Mark Trengove, Louise Trengove and Paul Webster

The Seawake RIB just before departure

The RIB was operated by Seawake and the skipper was Mike, as we pulled away from the pier and headed toward the island I thought Mike more a pilot as the RIB became a sea going version of a bucking bronco.  I hung on at the back trying to work out how not to fall overboard whilst taking photos.

The view back to whence we came

Approaching Ynys Seiriol

Spray, sea and views whizzed past as the engine pierced its way toward our target.  The island seems to be protected by small cliffs baring any safe landing; thankfully one steep sided shale beach is exposed on its southerly side.  Soon Mike was maneuvering the RIB toward the beach and we all clambered out on to dry land.

The island has a steep shale bank which is used for landing

Seawake were charging by the hour with half hourly add ons after the first hour, therefore the longer we spent on the island the more expense it would incur.  As we grouped on the beach Rob, Doug, Paul and David headed up on what looked like the start of a path.  Within a few metres any semblance of path had been overrun with vegetation, a foreteller of things to come.

Any semblance of path soon disappeared

The route we had chosen gained ground on the westerly side of the island, we were soon in to plantations of nettles, after being stung on numerous occasions I donned over trousers and continued following the jungle hackers in front.  At points the scene in front of me resembled something out of a bad 1950’s American B Movie as the undergrowth seemed to be swallowing people whole.  Whoever was in front would suddenly disappear from view as ten foot high nettles and elder trees submerged all before them.  This was proving fun!

Gordon is just about to be swallowed whole by the vegetation

The vegetation on Ynys Seiriol has run amok since the copious amounts of rabbits were wiped out through an outbreak of myxomatosis.  As we pushed forever inward and upward I wished the bunnies had been re-introduced a few years before our visit.  By now Louise and David had decided to head down towards the comfort of the shale beach, leaving Doug, Paul, Rob, Gordon and me to continue upward, with Mark, Alex and Adrian trying another line of attack.

The worst bits were the Elder trees as these are stunted and proved rather problematic for an oversized person carrying a variety of camera gear and a rucksack, their branches were defended by copious amounts of bramble, together they proved almost impenetrable.  I knew progress was being made when we fell out of the undergrowth back in to sunlight which directed us up to the limestone summit ridge.

In many places the nettles were higher than my head

By now I was bloodied and dishevelled with my legs tingling from earlier encounters with nettles, Paul’s legs were covered in bloodied scratches, as was his head.  We ploughed on up and headed for the easterly side of the upper ridge where the 58m spot height appears on the map.  Rob had a six figure grid reference for the summit from Hill Bagging and was leading the way with Doug and Paul in close pursuit.  I’d noted a ten figure grid reference from the spot height on the enlarged Geograph map and used the Trimble to pinpoint where this was on the ground.  Within a few metres of this point we found the remnants of what must have been the old summit cairn, which was now entangled in more undergrowth.

Adrian had joined us just before reaching this cairn and Gordon departed soon after to head down through the jungle of vegetation.  Further north on the island is the remains of the old monastic tower which the Ordnance Survey had used as an Intersected Station and as Rob, Paul, Doug and Adrian bashed their way through the Elder trees toward this now ruined building I set the Trimble up on the cairn whilst treading down the near undergrowth.  Once it was placed and ebbing down to its required 0.1m accuracy before data can be logged, I retired amongst the Elder trees and sneaked out occasionally to check on its downward progress.  Once the 0.1m accuracy had been achieved I hid amongst the trees again and waited for it to collect ten minutes of data.

Gathering data at the summit of Ynys Seiriol

During this time the others returned from their adventure to the old tower and were quickly videoed in the undergrowth, we then heard voices heading our way from the south; it was Mark and Alex who had bashed their way to the summit using a different route to the one we had fallen in to.  Once the Trimble was switched off we took a series of photos and some of us then stumbled through the undergrowth back toward the RIB, whilst others found a sightly easier route down by keeping close to the cliff edge on the south-easterly side of the island.

Beside the summit cairn

Mike the skipper maneuvers the RIB toward the shale beach

We had a few minutes on the shale beach as Mike manoeuvred the RIB in to place for us to clamber aboard and off we went.  We then went around the island in the RIB giving us good views of the old monastic tower before heading across the waters back to Beaumaris.  Sitting in the back now gave me views behind toward Ynys Seiriol and across the waters to Gogarth (Great Orme).  The RIB roared its way through the water with spray thrown up as our brambled encounter with the island disappeared in to the distance.

Heading back to Beaumaris

Looking across the water to Gogarth

On the naughty step (again) with Rob and Louise at the back of the RIB

Ynys Seiriol, rounded and squat and full of exotic vegetation

It proved a great couple of hours and as we clambered off the RIB we paid Mike our £40.00 and mulled about in the sunshine.  Some then headed toward Ynys Lawd (South Stack), while others went for lunch and some headed home.  Alex and I decided to head up to the north of Ynys Môn and three attractive P30’s close to the coastal path.

Back on dry land with Mike the skipper on left

It had been a great experience hacking our way to the top of Ynys Seiriol and thanks go out to Adrian Rayner for organising the trip.

Survey Result:

Ynys Seiriol

Summit Height:  58.6m (converted to OSGM15) 

  

Summit Grid Reference:  SH 65050 81992

Bwlch Height:  N/A (sea)

Bwlch Grid Reference:  N/A (sea)

Drop:  58.6m 

Dominance:  100.00%

  

For further details please consult the Trimble survey spreadsheet click {here}