<p>Beaumaris, Anglesey’s county and assize town, was a seaport, resort and castellated borough situated at the northern entrance to the Menai Straits almost five miles east of Porthaethwy (later Menai Bridge) and three miles north across the Straits from Bangor in Caernarvonshire.<fn> <em>Parl. Gazetteer of England and Wales</em> (1844), i. 139.</fn> Its decaying port had lost trade to Amlwch and Holyhead, but neither could equal its 190 entries in Pigot’s <em>National and Commercial Directory</em> for 1828-9.