Canopy at Evans Hotel

Image: © Richard Hoare Taken: 25 Oct 2023

This was one of the earliest buildings in the area of Llandudno north of the rail station. Its windows faced towards Snowdonia, exploiting the view over the lowland which was obscured by later buildings. The hotel was named after one of its earliest owners, possibly its founder. During the Second World War the hotel was earmarked for use by the security service, MI5, to hide some of Britain's top double agents, part of the country's biggest wartime intelligence network. An operation codenamed "Mr Mills' Circus" was named after the senior MI5 officer in charge, Cyril Bertram Mills, whose family ran the Bertram Mills Circus. It involved MI5's North Wales agent, Captain Finney, finding accommodation for the double agents, their families and armed minders. He made arrangements to house them at the Evans, Risboro and White Heather Hotels in Llandudno, the Eagles Hotel in Llanrwst and the Swallow Falls Hotel in Betws-y-Coed. Within a few weeks, Captain Finney reported to his superiors in London that he'd "completed arrangements of the animals, their young, and their keepers". By 1943 the plans had been scrapped, as the course of the Second World War had changed and the possibility of invasion receded. https://evanshotel.co.uk/history/

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