Islands, shipwrecks, Dickens & Defoe

Three hundred years ago, one of England’s most famous writers published the first in a series of extracts inspired by his life’s travels.

Titled A Tour Thro’ The Whole Island Of Great Britain, it charted the adventures of Daniel Defoe, who had travelled from his home in London to everywhere from Land’s End in Cornwall to the Highlands of Scotland.

The volumes were released between 1724 and 1727, when Defoe was in his 60s and nearing the end of a long and fascinating life. While he had spells as a merchant trading wool, wine and hosiery, it was writing — with journalism, political pamphleteering and particularly novels — that enshrined his legacy.

Defoe’s most celebrated work, Robinson Crusoe (1719), is claimed to be the world’s second most translated book after the Bible. Telling the fictional story of a shipwreck survivor living on a desert island for 28 years, it took inspiration from the real-life saga of Alexander Selkirk, a young Scottish mariner who was a castaway for over four years on an island off the coast of Chile.

It’s probably fair to say Defoe wasn’t quite as captivated by the rugged islands around his homeland. Take Anglesey, Wales’ largest island, off the country’s northwest coast. “There is nothing of note to be seen in the Isle of Anglesea (sic) but the town and the castle of Beaumaris,” wrote Defoe. Today’s visitors would probably respectfully disagree, especially those who love hiking on the island’s 200km coastal path or discovering Anglesey’s quirky side (one popular photo stop is Llanfairpwllgwyngyll, a village with the longest place name in Britain, at 58 characters in its lengthened form).

Defoe was right to mention Beaumaris, though. Overlooking the Menai Strait, which separates Anglesey (Mon in Welsh) from the mainland, it’s a prim town that grew around a 13th-century fortress, which, though never quite finished (it has been dubbed “the greatest castle never built”) remains an impressive spectacle, its tree-fringed moat reflecting the bulky stone fortifications.

We’re staying a pebble’s throw away at The Bull’s Head, a Castle Street inn dating from AD1472, originally a posting house, but rebuilt, amended, extended and modernised regularly since. Previously Ye Olde Bulls Head, its notable former guests include writers Dr Samuel Johnson and Charles Dickens, who stopped here in 1859. You’d fancy they would still feel at home in the atmospheric low-ceilinged front bar, adorned with vintage weaponry and armour, where locals come for drinks with their partners, friends and dogs.

More contemporary is the spacious lounge across the lobby and the rear bar-restaurant by the courtyard, where I tuck into juicy Menai mussels in a creamy cider sauce followed by a succulent haddock that’s coated in a light batter and served with chunky chips and mushy peas.

Dickens, in contrast, gave a scathing critique of the food here, but the hotel didn’t hold a grudge, naming a bunch of its 31 ensuite bedrooms after Dickens’ characters — including Flora Finching, Mr Pickwick and Ebenezer (Scrooge). Some rooms are upstairs in the main building, others in cottage-like dwellings by the courtyard, which opens onto a side street through what’s billed as the largest single-hinged wooden door in Britain.

One of Dickens’ literary heroes happened to be Daniel Defoe (among the exhibits at the Dickens Museum in London is Dickens’ copy of Robinson Crusoe). Like Defoe, Dickens was an investigative journalist as well as a novelist and he travelled to Anglesey to report on the demise of the Royal Charter, a ship wrecked off the island’s east coast on the last leg of its two-month voyage back to Liverpool from Melbourne. Carrying gold, passengers and crew, the vessel was tossed by hurricane-force winds onto rocks 40m from the shore. Dozens were killed instantly as the ship broke in two. Others drowned, some weighed down by the gold in their pockets. The death count was over 400 and a memorial sculpture stands above the sea in the fishing village of Moelfre, a 25-minute drive from Beaumaris.

Objects from the wreck, including gold rings, cups, saucers and pieces of rope, are displayed at the Maritime Museum in Liverpool. You can read Dickens’ moving account of the tragedy in The Uncommercial Traveller, a 1860 collection of his essays and sketches. In 2012, his great-great grandson, Gerald Charles Dickens, an actor, came to Anglesey and performed readings from Dickens novels at The Bull’s Head. I spend a few fascinating days exploring this island, and partially following in the footsteps of Defoe and Dickens.

I’ve already made my peace that, generations from now, my words won’t be held in the same regard as those two. But if you are interested, I can assure you that, like Dickens’ review of the food at The Bull’s Head, Defoe’s dismissal of Anglesey is way out of date.

+ Steve McKenna was a guest of Visit Wales and Visit Britain. They have not influenced or read this story before publication. fact file + The Bull’s Head offers double rooms with breakfast from around £80 ($159). See inncollectiongroup.com/bulls-head-inn/ + To help plan a trip to Wales and Britain, see visitwales.com and visitbritain.com