Llan Farm in Llanelian village is the only thatched building in the village. It was given Grade II listed status on 30th January 1968. This traditional three-unit, four-bay, cruck-framed hall house dates from the late medieval period and originally would have been an open two-bay hall. Lateral chimneys and a wing have been added along with rebuilt stone walls in the late 15th century. In 2013 the elderly thatched roof shown was replaced with a magnificent new thatch roof.

 

Llanelian's White Lion Inn may have been serving beer 1,200 years ago giving the inn good right to the claim of oldest pub in North Wales. The current pub building (only!) dates from the 14th or early 15th century however but St. Elian's church next door was first recorded as a place of worship in 540AD and texts from 722AD mention that the Elders of the church 'retired to the ale house next door for their free monthly ale'.

 

Welsh Bishop George Lloyd (1561-1615) remembered for Bishop Lloyd's Palace in Chester was father of Meredith Lloyd of Llanelian-yn-Rhos. Rector of Heswall, he became Bishop of Sodor and Man in 1600 and Bishop of Chester in 1605. His other daughter Anne married Thomas Yale and then Theophilus Eaton and emigrated to New England in 1637 on the ship Hector and was a founder of the New Haven Colony

 

Fynnon Elian, one of the most famous holy wells in the UK, and once famed as both a cursing and healing well is located in Llanelian. Read more about it here

 

The Royal Commission for Ancient Monuments commissioned the Oxford Dendrochronology Labs to visit the late medieval St. Elian's church Llanelian in 2011 to date the remaining rood screen beams. The amazingly precise results revealed that the wood used was felled between 1498-1528.

 

The late Georgian neoclassical grade II listed Coed Coch House sits 3.1km south east of Llanelian church. Designed by Henry Hakewill (architect to Rugby School and designer of Rugby’s Gothic buildings and chapel) the house is surrounded by 18th century parkland including an artificial lake and perimeter tree planting. From 1940’s until the 1970’s this impressive house was the boys prep. school Heronwater. Much of the property and land around Llanelian was originally built or owned by the Coed Coch estate. The estate is now privately owned but in 1996 the Coed Coch library furniture was sold to the Museum of Welsh Life in Cardiff and can be seen on display in St Fagans Castle library.

 

William Davies (d 27 July 1593) was a Catholic martyr beatified in 1987 by Pope John Paul II. It’s thought that he was born in 1555 in Groes yn Eirias an old name for the area along Groes Road between Llanelian and Colwyn Bay. With his patron Robert Pugh he secretly produced Y Drych Christianogawl, probably the first book ever printed in Wales in a sea cave on the little Orme.

 

The poet and leicographer Robert Ellis (Cynddelw) published one of the first Welsh only dictionaries (Geiriadur Cymreig Cymraeg) in 1868. Between 1836 and 1840 he was also a Baptist minister for Llanelian and Llanddulas

 

St. Elian's church 19th century stained glass windows are from the studio of James Ballantine & Son who in 1843 also provided windows to the House of Lords

 

The 1254 taxation records refer to Llanelian as "Ecc'a de Bechwylemyn" (Bodlenyn). By 1291 the village was referred to as "Eccl'ia de Bodwelennyn" Sometime after 1291 this was superseded by the name of its founder, St Elian with the Valor Ecclesiasticus of 1535 naming the village "Rectoria de Llan Elian".