Valley is a village on Anglesey just over three miles from Holyhead and situated by the crossroads where the A5, A5025 and the B4545 meet. Not far from the crossroads is the Stanley Embankment, designed by Thomas Telford and constructed in 1822/3; it's 1,170 metres long and connects Anglesey to Holy Island via the A5 and the North Wales Coast railway line. During the embankment's construction a dip was formed in the flat land on the Anglesey side and a workers' hamlet was built around it; over the years this has grown into the medium-sized village it is today, and even though the dip in the land has long since gone the village is still known as Valley.
Some distance from the village is RAF Valley, a Royal Air Force station which provides pilots with fast-jet training and search-and-rescue helicopter training. The base also acts as a civilian airport providing a twice daily passenger service to Cardiff airport in South Wales.
At the crossroads in the village itself are a number of shops and businesses - a barbers, petrol station, bathroom and kitchen showroom, newsagents, take-away, the Valley Hotel and Stermat, the garden, hardware and homecare centre. It's one of those stores which sells everything other than food and clothes, and even if you don't want anything when you go in there you'll more than likely find something you didn't realise you wanted until you saw it. It's one of my favourite stores, and a stay on Anglesey just wouldn't be complete without a visit to Stermat at Valley.
