Cribinau facts for kids
Cribinau and St Cwyfan's church from the air
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 Cribinau
Location in Anglesey
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| Geography | |
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| Coordinates | 53°11′06″N 4°29′35″W / 53.185°N 4.493°W |
| OS grid reference | SH336682 |
| Adjacent bodies of water | Caernarfon Bay |
| Administration | |
| Lieutenancy | Gwynedd |
| Unitary authority | Isle of Anglesey County Council |
| Community | Aberffraw |
Cribinau is a tiny island located off the southwest coast of Anglesey in Wales. It's a special kind of island called a tidal island. This means you can walk to it when the ocean tide is low, but it becomes completely surrounded by water when the tide comes in! Cribinau is found near the village of Aberffraw, about 1+1⁄4 miles (2 kilometres) to its west.
The island is famous for its very old church, St Cwyfan's. People often call it Welsh: eglwys bach y môr, which means "the little church in the sea."
The Little Church in the Sea
St Cwyfan's Church has stood on Cribinau since at least the year 1254. Over the centuries, it was made bigger in the 1300s and 1400s.
However, the building later started to fall apart. By the late 1800s, parts of the church had been taken down, and the remaining section didn't even have a roof! Luckily, people raised money to build a new roof. Around the 1970s, all the church windows were fixed. Today, the building needs more care, and efforts are underway to restore it again.
How Cribinau Became an Island
Long ago, Cribinau wasn't an island at all. A map from 1636 shows that the church was actually on the mainland of Anglesey.
Over time, the sea slowly wore away the soft boulder clay cliffs around the coast. This process, called coastal erosion, caused the land connecting the church to the mainland to disappear. By the 1800s, the sea was so close that graves in the churchyard were starting to fall into the water! To protect the church and the remaining graves, a strong seawall was built around the island. This wall helps to stop the sea from eroding the land further.
