LLANFAIR STATION (BRITAIN)

Welshvillage'snameleavestrainspottersbreathless

Photos by Yomiuri Shimbun Photographer Koichi Nakamura

By Shin Usami

Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer

A small village in Wales has a station name 58 letters long — LLANFAIRPWLLGWYNGYLLGOGERYCH-WYRNDROBWLLLLANTYSILIOGOGOGOCH.

Locals call the station Llanfair.

Located in the southern part of Anglesey, an island on the Irish Sea that is 350 kilometers northwest of London, the Welsh-speaking village has a population of 3,000, who claim their village has the longest station name in the world.

The name of the village originally was Llanfair, but a local poet stretched it in the middle of the 19th century, according to John Roberts, a 57-year-old village council member familiar with the area's history.

The Welsh name means "The church of Mary in the hollow of the white hazel near a rapid whirlpool and the church of St. Tysilio of the red cave."

All letters are pronounced in Welsh, unlike silent ones in English such as the "b" in lamb, said Edward Evans, 70, who lives near the station. He said the name of the station sounded really good.

Born and raised in Wales, Evans learned English only after he started working outside the area at the age of 13.

When his youngest daughter married an Englishman last year, Evans wrote a poem for the groom.

Evans also said he wondered which language to write in, but decided on English. He wrote that he thought the groom would certainly have an eventful life with his Welsh daughter.

The parking lot in front of Llanfair Station is usually packed with buses filled with tourists who want to visit the station with the longest name in the world.

On the station platform, a group of high school students from Worcestershire surrounded a sign bearing the station's name.

Helen Kennedy, 17, one of the students, said they were playing with the 58 letters to create English words. But she said it was no easy job, as there were no U's and too many L's.