1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bangor (Carnarvonshire)

BANGOR (formerly Bangor Fawr, as distinguished from several other towns of this name in Wales, Ireland, Brittany, &c.), a city, municipal (1883) and contributory parliamentary borough (Carnarvon district), seaport and market-town of Carnarvonshire, N. Wales, 240 m. N.W. of London by the London & North Western railway. Pop. (1901) 11,269. It consists of Upper and Lower, the Lower practically one street. Lying near the northern entrance of the Menai Straits, it attracts many visitors. Buildings include the small cathedral, disused bishop’s palace, deanery, small Roman Catholic church and other churches, the University College of N. Wales (1883), with female students’ hall, Independent, Baptist, Normal and N. Wales Training Colleges. The cruciform cathedral, with a low pinnacled tower, stands on the site of a church which the English destroyed in 1071 (dedicated to, and perhaps founded, about 525, by St Deiniol). Sir G. Scott restored the present cathedral, 1866–1875, after it had been burned in the time of Owen Glendower, destroyed in 1211, and, in 1102 and 1212, severely handled. Bishop Dean (temp. Henry VII.) rebuilt the choir, Bishop Skevyngton (1532) added tower and nave. Lord Penrhyn’s slate-quarries, at Bethesda, 6 m. off, supply the staple export from Port Penrhyn, at the mouth of the stream Cegid.

The Myvyrian Archaeology (408-484) gives the three principal bangor (college) institutions as follows:—the bangor of Illtud Farchawg at Caer Worgorn (Wroxeter); that of Emrys (Ambrosius) at Caer Caradawg; bangor wydrin (glass) in the glass isle, Afallach; bangor Illtud, or Llanilltud, or Llantwit major (by corruption), being a fourth. In each of the first three were 420 saints, succeeding each other (by hundreds), day and night, in their pious offices.