Biography
Nidan of Anglesey
About Nidan of Anglesey
Nidan is remembered on Anglesey as a Welsh saint of the seventh century and a confessor at the monastery of Penmon. The local church’s history places the foundation of his church at Llanidan in 616. These are the traditions attached to his name, rather than a surviving contemporary account of his ministry.
Baring-Gould and Fisher collected the older evidence for his cult. They describe him as a priest and record the name Idan as a variant. The genealogy they reproduce makes him a descendant of Urien Rheged. They also identify Welsh manuscript calendars and seventeenth-century prayer books that commemorate him on September 30. This calendar evidence preserves his remembrance without supplying a detailed life.
The surviving old church is medieval, not a standing building from Nidan’s lifetime. Its north aisle and central arcade were fifteenth-century additions. Much of the structure was demolished during the nineteenth century, leaving part of the building in use as a private chapel. The remains therefore witness later generations of worship at the site.
A replacement church near Brynsiencyn was built between 1839 and 1843 to John Welch’s design. It kept Nidan as its patron, and the font and late medieval reliquary were transferred there from the old church.
The parish preserves the tradition that the reliquary contains Nidan’s remains. That attribution is presented as a tradition, not an established identification of the bones.
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