The Welsh Government’s decision to make 2017 the Year of Legends is good news for Caergwrle Castle. Although it stands in ruins today, Caergwrle Castle is closely associated with key events in Welsh medieval history. Its story is entwined with that of the legendary conflict between the Welsh Princes themselves and with King Edward I of England. The HLF-funded Caergwrle Sense of Place Project has provided an opportunity for the village to rise to the occasion and to promote itself. What follows is a sneak preview of what will eventually be a bilingual leaflet to promote the Castle as a gateway into key aspects of Welsh history.The Project has enabled a team of local specialists to utilise their skills for the benefit of the community. Michael Roberts, himself a legendary medievalist and illustrator, has provided the some fantastic artwork. Delwyn Ellis, noted for his stunning local photography, has agreed for his work to be used. Yours truly is providing the text and local design specialist, Bill Smuts, will be drawing everything together. The exact format of the leaflet may change but what follows are the basic ideas behind ‘The Rise and Fall of Caergwrle Castle.’ The leaflet is but one aspect of the work of the Project. The work builds on memories sessions and feedback from guided tours which took place last year. Several other community engagement initiatives were also supported by the project team. It is the intention to re-establish the guided tours of both the Castle and the village in warmer weather, produce a published guide to the heritage of the village and establish a local heritage archive in Hope Community Library.
North Wales itself has been named among the top places in the world to visit in 2017 according to Lonely Planet’s Best Travel list. The economic impact of tourism in Flintshire alone is valued at £220 million per annum. Let us hope that 2017 provides an opportunity for visitors to enjoy the delights of our heritage. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the policy of Flintshire County Council. Readers are welcome to contact the author with any news or views on the local heritage at DHealey204@aol.com or by telephoning 01978 761 523.
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The Temperance Movement was a dynamic and militant failure. It mobilised thousands against what it considered to be the greatest social evil of its time – the demon drink. However, unlike its American counterpart, it failed to establish Prohibition in Britain and it failed to win the hearts and minds of the vast proportion of the British population. Perhaps the grand failure of the Movement accounts for the fact that it is often overlooked as an important social phenomenon. More importantly, perhaps this explains why some of the buildings associated with Temperance are now faced with the prospect of being left to crumble. The Temperance Movement was established in Britain in the early half of the nineteenth century and initially advocated moderation in drink. However, as communities became more industrialised it became clear that an increasing number of hard-working men were spending their wages in public houses to the detriment of their families. The Temperance Movement moved from a position of moderation to one of total abstinence of alcohol. The Movement drew strength from members of Nonconformist Chapels who used non-fermented wine for Holy Communion as an alternative to alcohol. It grew in strength in Wales during the second half of the nineteenth century because of the strong attachment to Nonconformity. Battles were fought out in the towns and villages of Wales between the ‘drys’, who believed in Temperance and the ‘wets’ who did not. Some of the buildings in Caergwrle stand as a testament to the vigour with which dry crusaders fought for their cause. In Wales the Temperance Movement achieved a victory when, in 1881, Gladstone’s Liberal Government passed the Sunday Closing (Wales) Act which made it illegal for public houses to sell alcohol in Wales. However, one of the loopholes in the Act was that licensees were allowed to sell drinks to ‘bone fide travellers’ who were passing through and needed refreshment. The local impact of the new legislation was to put Caergwrle’s Bridge Inn under the spotlight for all of the wrong reasons.The Bridge Inn was next to the railway station and it had a thriving business based on the large numbers of Merseysiders who travelled to Caergwrle on Sundays. Meanwhile, local people, who lived in the village, were not legally entitled to buy a drink. The Bridge Inn was therefore the obvious place for less well-known local people to use if they wanted to buy a drink on a Sunday because they could mingle with the crowds and pretend that they were travellers. In 1891 it was said that “the Chief Constable received more complaints of Sunday drinking at the Bridge End Inn than anywhere else in the Mold Division.” It became customary for the licensee to require Sunday customers to produce a railway ticket to show that they were ‘bone fide travellers.’ The Chief Constable was not the only person to be concerned about the close proximity of the Bridge Inn to the railway station and the temptation which it offered for travellers. The local members of the Temperance Movement opened a strategically placed Temperance Tearoom on the opposite side of the road to that of the Bridge Inn. This offered alternative refreshment to that of alcoholic beverage. The building is now recognised to be a Building of Local Interest but it is currently in an extremely poor condition. It it is a fundamental part of the story of the battle that was fought out between the ‘wets’ and the ‘drys’ within the locality. It is sad to see this part of our social history is at such serious risk. It is to be hoped that the building may yet be given a new lease of life so that it can be retained as evidence of this aspect of the heritage of the village. Chronologically the Temperance Tearoom was not the earliest example of a local Temperance building. The Friends of Temperance built the building known as ‘Trewynfa’, 50 Derby Road, in 1883, from funds raised by public subscription, so that young men could find non-alcoholic refreshment there. The Hall became the meeting place of a local group of the Independent Order of Rechabites, a Friendly Society which was committed to the principles of Temperance. The Rechabites took their name from Jonadab, son of Rechab, who founded an order of abstainers from drinking wine in Biblical times. As they were a nomadic people the Society adopted a unit of organisation known as a ‘Tent’. The local ‘Estyn Tent’ was active in collecting subscriptions for a sick fund for members and in securing medical assistance from a surgeon. It attempted to sustain its membership by organising events and non-alcoholic refreshments in the Hall. Their cause was strengthened by involvement of the Salvation Army who used the premises for meetings until 1884, when they moved to their own Citadel in Castle Street. An advertisement, dated 1886, shows that entertainment at the Workmen’s Hall included singing by members of the Wesleyan Choir.The Temperance Movement nationally had been given a boost by the passing of the Act of 1881 and the local Tent was active in writing to prominent politicians, including W E Gladstone, to oppose plans to compensate publicans as part of the Local Government Bill in 1888. In 1890 it passed a resolution favouring the establishment of a junior ‘Tent’ under the control of the adult ‘Tent’. The secretary was instructed to write to the surgeon to see how much it would cost to have juveniles included under his care. However, in spite of a promising start, the local Rechabites failed to win sufficient support to be able to continue to run the Workmen’s Hall and the building was sold to become a private house in 1905. The Workmen’s Hall was remembered by William Roberts, who wrote that it ‘was used as a cafe, assembly rooms upstairs and a reading room. Owing to lack of support, it failed and the premises were sold.’
The contest between ‘wets’ and ‘drys’ was a national and international phenomenon. It impacted upon the lives of millions of people. There are a significant number of local people who have a family connection with someone in the past who had signed the pledge not to allow alcohol to pass between their lips. Every effort should be made to preserve the buildings which represent an important episode in the story of our heritage.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the policy of Flintshire County Council. Readers are welcome to contact the author with any news or views on the local heritage at DHealey204@aol.com or by telephoning 01978 761 523. I must express a debt to Terry Eccleston for information which throws light on the history of Caergwrle’s Derby Cinema. The Eccleston family built and owned the cinema and Terry has a wealth of information about its history.One of his proud possessions is a poster, in pristine condition, which advertises films that were showing at the cinema in the week beginning Monday 18th July, 1931. The black and white building, in Castle Street, which is now used for commercial purposes, used to be the cinema. It was built in 1921 by W. E. Eccleston & Son, Building Contractors. Initially the cinema was owned by May Rollason (nee Eccleston) and run by Newlove and Milner of Chester to show silent, black and white movies. The cinema attracted significant numbers of customers in its early years as there was nothing much else for young people to do. People travelled from the villages of Llay, Kinnerton, Leeswood, Coed Talon, Cymau, Ffrith and Llanfynydd to see the films. A newspaper cutting dated 1975 remarked: “Older residents can recall the days when the antics of Charlie Chaplin and his contemporaries were seen on the screens of the Castle Street Cinema and have a nostalgic affection for the old building.” Elderly residents have remembered Mrs Pearl Roberts playing the piano during the silent films.Maureen Harson remembered that the cinema showed one film on Monday and Tuesday, another film on Wednesday and Thursday and yet another one on Friday and Saturday. Young people scrounged a sixpence from wherever they could to go there. Some local shops found that their close proximity to the cinema brought them extra business and they made a point of staying open in the evenings. Some of the earliest recollections of the Derby Cinema have been passed down the family of Val Wilkinson, the wife of Stuart who writes the Nature Notes for Hope Parish Magazine. Val’s mother went to the cinema with her Nain on Saturday evenings in the 1920s. Afterwards they would call at the Castle Street hardware store for ‘half a pound of beautiful tripe’ that was displayed in an enamel bowl in the window, along with cans of paraffin, tools and other items which the shop sold. This shop was run by the mother of Kitty Williams who later ran the shop herself and is affectionately remembered as one of Caergwrle’s characters by local residents. Alec Wynne remembered that local shops, like the butchers and the grocers, had free tickets for the Derby Cinema, which they gave to youngsters who did jobs for them. The cinema supplied tickets to the shops because the shops helped to advertise what was showing at the time. In addition, Alec remembered there being a special threat for cinema-goers at Christmas time. There were two large barrels; one had apples in and the other had oranges in. Children could pick from either as they left the cinema.During the Second World War it was necessary to either book a seat or stand in a very long queue with people travelling from. The Derby Cinema was taken over by Mr Jervis of Buckley in 1946. Whilst the cinema remained popular in the early 1950s a large number of people bought television sets in order to watch the Queen’s Coronation in 1953 and this was the beginning of the end for several small cinemas. Whilst it took a while for the impact of television and changes of fashion to have an effect, the Derby Cinema was starting to struggle for customers. 1965, under the ownership of F. R. Crowley of Brecon, it finally closed. By then it was reported to be only making £7 a week with an average weekly attendance of 48. Gill Roberts has remembered that the last projectionist was her grandfather, Alf Roberts who was known as ‘Little Alf.’ The building remained empty for some years and was the subject of rumour and speculation. Planning permission for the site to accommodate a supermarket was refused in 1967 on the grounds that the car park was not big enough and would cause vehicles to park in Castle Street thereby interfering with the flow of traffic. On 30th July 1971 The Chronicle reported that Mr Barry Jones, now Lord Jones and then MP for East Flintshire, had informed Hawarden Rural District Council that residents of Castle Street had complained about the unsightly and alleged dangerous condition of the old Derby Cinema, which had been closed for some years. The local members agreed that the area was unsightly and needed tidying up and it was decided to serve a notice upon the owner under the Public Health Act 1961. By 1974 the Chronicle was reporting that Evans Brothers, the local firm of plumbers and heating engineers, having purchased the site a year earlier, had removed overgrown hedges, erected a tidy fence and were giving the building a facelift with a view to using the frontage for office space and the rear for storage. The building reopened with a new use in 1975. The Derby Cinema played a significant role in the local community and is part of the bigger history of entertainment it the first half of the twentieth century. It had its heyday when there were small cinemas pecked across Britain, stimulating the imagination of young people and enabling them, in old age, to have shared experiences and fond memories the good old days of their childhood. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the policy of Flintshire County Council. Readers are welcome to contact the author with any news or views on the local heritage at DHealey204@aol.com or by telephoning 01978 761 523. Organisers have hailed a memories session, held at Caergwrle’s Presbyterian Church Hall as a success. Caergwrle Sense of Place Project Coordinator Dave Healey said: “There was a steady stream of people coming to the event throughout the day, with over 50 people passing through. Caergwrle residents have a very strong attachment to their heritage and were very keen to share photographs and memories.” The event included a mock-up of a 1950s shop which was staffed by ten-year old Sarah Massey, with assistance from her mother Karen. The first customer of the day was Mark Tami, MP for Alyn and Deeside, who purchased goods using pre-decimal currency and traditional scales for weighing. Several residents shared their memories about some of the shops that were run by members of their families in bygone times. Mark Tami MP said:“Events like this one are very important in giving people a sense of belonging in a community. Caergwrle has a fine heritage and one that the people rightly take a pride in.” Heritage Consultant Lorna Jenner commented:“It was good to see so many local people calling in to look at the exhibitions and share their memories. We gathered a wealth of new material, including receipts for beer purchased from the Birkenhead Brewery Company that were found under old skirting boards during the renovation of the former Derby Arms, an invoice and receipt book from the 1940s for Jack Hurst, Grocer, baker and confectioner, adverts for Gwalia Forge and Rhyddin Hall Park Spa plus numerous photos. 94 year old Doris Clark recalled how pleased she had been to move from a cottage on the mountain into one of the new council houses in 1950 as they had running water and electricity! All these memories, photos and memorabilia will help us to build up a bigger picture of life in Caergwrle through the ages.” Photo above: Bill Smuts and Lorna Jenner record memories of Margaret Jones. The event was part of the HLF-funded Caergwrle Sense of Place Project which aims to collect memories and publish A Ramble Around the Historic Village of Caergwrle. Photo below: Doris Clark and Margaret Marsh discuss old newspaper cuttings from the Leader. Those who attended were captivated by many old photographs that were on display and became actively engaged in discussing these, old newspaper cuttings and artefacts about the village. Videos of the famous Historical Festivals, which were held at Caergwrle in the late 1980s and 1990s, were shown throughout the day and several visitors commented that they had seen themselves on film.Special thanks should go to Hope Parish Church members Blodwyn and David Ellis who provided refreshments and were of great help with the event. Members of the Caergwrle Community Action Group also played an active part in organising a comments and suggestions box. This proved to be a valuable exercise in community engagement with many comments in support of the trip down memory lane and pertinent suggestions for village improvement. As part of the Project tours of Caergwrle Village will alternate with tours of the Castle each Wednesday until September. Tours start from High Street Car Park at 6pm, and last approximately one and a half hours. Donations will be invited in support of Hope Community Library which will provide host to a local history archive. Arrangements for the tours are as follows: Tours of Caergwrle Castle on 3rd, 17th & 31st August Tours of Caergwrle Village on 10th & 24th August Stout footwear is recommended for the tours. The tours will be family friendly with certificates for each type of tour being issued to children who take part. It is hoped that volunteers will agree to become ‘Caergwrle Ambassadors’ and arrange tours themselves in support of worthy causes. Materials can be provided to assist those who are willing to play a part in a Project which aims to raise the profile of the local heritage. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the policy of Flintshire County Council. Readers are welcome to contact the author with any news or views on the local heritage at DHealey204@aol.com or by telephoning 01978 761 523. I have just had the pleasure of printing out a hard copy of 131 pages of the family history of the Eccleston family, sent to me, as an e-mail attachment, by Mr Terry Eccleston. The history was compiled, initially, by his father, Harold Eccleston, between 1973 and 1974 and was rewritten by Terry in 2001. It is a very important historical memoir which is of interest for reasons beyond the scope of the current article. From the local point of view it has arrived in time to shape the outcome of the Heritage Lottery Funded Caergwrle Sense of Place Project which is seeking to record local memories in order to raise the profile of the local heritage. This month’s article draws on a mere fraction of this invaluable source and makes use of the existing archive of photographs to illustrate Harold’s Eccleston’s early years at Hope National School. Harold was born on 30th September 1893, which almost certainly meant that he was attending Hope National School when it was what we would now call a ‘Victorian School.’ The school had been built in 1838 and was one of the Welsh schools reported on by school inspectors in 1847. Records of the school inspections were printed in books with blue covers and, because they were notoriously bigoted against the Welsh, the episode is referred to by Welsh historians as the ‘Treachery of the Blue Books.’ Needless to say the report is far from flattering about the Hope school but it does provide a context for understanding the experience of local youngsters. Hope School was described as a school for boys and girls, taught respectively by a master and mistress, in separate rooms built for the purpose. There were 70 pupils on the roll although only 40 seem to have been present on the day of the inspection. The inspector’s negative comments included one on the building itself and the level of provision:“There are no means of ventilating the school-rooms, except the windows; and the back windows, having been broken by the boys, were closed with shutters…The apparatus are insufficient, and funds are very inadequate. The master complained very much of the insufficiency of his salary, alleging that he could not live, but for a small pension he receives as a retired soldier.” (1) Although the inspection reports were biased there seems to be no reason to doubt that, within a decade of having been built, the school had become unsuitable for teaching purposes. Harry Eccleston’s account of his own early childhood experiences now provides corroborative evidence to suggest that the accommodation left much to be desired by the end of the nineteenth century: “My Aunt Florrie was by this time a pupil teacher at the Old National School [now the Church Institute in Caergwrle] and used to walk there every day from Estyn Villa and have her lunch with us at Castle View, so, of course, when the time came for me to start going to school, I went with her and sat with the infants in the gallery. The room was divided into two classes and half of it had a wide series of steps from floor level to a height of five feet at the back. It was badly lit, the walls were damp and the steps upon which we sat and the floor were terribly dirty and dusty. We used slates to write and do our sums on and I can still smell them now.” The archives of the Hope & Caergwrle Heritage & Conservation Society contain a photograph of the Hope school children, dated 1902. Harold Eccleston would have been aged 9 at the time and may be one of the pupils shown.It will come as no surprise to several readers that there was no concept of Health and Safety at that particular time and pupils were expected to do things that are unimaginable by today’s standards. Harold explained what happened at school: “If you wanted a drink one of the older boys had to go, in all weathers, down to a well, which was on an island between the river and the mill race, to fetch some water. The old mill was working then and during our playtime it was quite usual for us school children to go there and stand and watch the corn being ground.” Harold made no comment about lessons although one incident did stick in his mind. It seems that he and the other children witnessed an early collision on Rhyddyn Hill. A road accident may well stick in the mind of youngsters, but these children witnessed a particularly yesteryear version of a crash:“On one occasion a wagon was backed up to the mill doorway for loading which placed the horse right across the road leading down from Rhyddyn Hill, when suddenly, another horse and cart, coming down the hill, took fright and ran away only being stopped when the shaft of the cart penetrated the side of the stationary horse. This was a source of conversation and excitement for many days at school.” Hope National School was condemned by school inspectors in 1905 and, in 1906, a new school, now Ysgol Estyn, was opened on Hawarden Road as the first school to be built by Flintshire County Council. The old school building became the Church Institute and was subsequently modernised to become Bridge End Mews. In 1985 the stone cross from the roof of the old Church Institute was erected as a feature to front the new Church Hall and so retain a link with the old Church School of bygone years.I would like to reiterate my thanks to Mr Terry Eccleston for sharing the history of his family which will undoubtedly serve to supply material for future articles. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the policy of Flintshire County Council. Readers are welcome to contact the author with any news or views on the local heritage at DHealey204@aol.com or by telephoning 01978 761 523 The HLF-funded Caergwrle Sense of Place Project was successfully launched at an event at the Presbyterian Church Hall on Saturday 30th April. Speakers included David Rowe on the Pubs and Brewery of Caergwrle, Margaret Dunn on Discovering Old Welsh Houses and myself on A Ramble Round the Historic Village of Caergwrle. A special word of thanks should go to Hope Church members Blodwyn and David Ellis and Pat Grimshaw-Smith for considerable assistance on the day, especially with the provision of refreshments. Thanks are also due to members of the Samhain Welsh Medieval Society and Age of the Princes who were able to remind us of Caergwrle’s medieval past. The project team includes Lorna Jenner and Bill Smuts, who did such valiant work during our memories session for the commemoration of the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War. They are now asking for your memories and photographs about the village of Caergwrle. This session will be held on Saturday 25th June at the Presbyterian Hall between 11am and 3pm. For those who have memories or photographs to share this provides a unique one-off opportunity. In due course it will be possible for copies of documents, which are currently in the community, to be made more readily available to the public in the local heritage archive, which will be developed in Hope Community Library as the library becomes a community asset transfer. Important originals will be deposited in Flintshire Record Office. One of the intentions of the project is to produce a booklet which uses features and buildings of the village as ‘pegs’ to hang memories on. It may be that local residents have distinctive memories about, for example, the time when people got their water from the Pistyll in Hope Street, or about the role played by the village’s pubs or chapels at critical times in our history. Was the former Drill Hall of Caergwrle, now the Social Club, used for storage of tanks and jeeps by the US Army during World War II? Does anyone remember their parents or grandparents telling them stories about some of the buildings of the village? Does anyone have any other stories that are in danger of being lost? We need to document these memories and build them into the story of our community. The booklet will be used to assist with guided tours of Caergwrle and it is hoped that volunteers will come forward to help to raise the profile of the village as ‘Caergwrle Ambassadors’. Please contact me if you feel able to assist in this way. The local area is poised to see a heritage renaissance and it is hoped that the Caergwrle Sense of Place Project will compliment initiatives being taken elsewhere. We expect to see progress with the Park in the Past Project at the former Fagl Lane Quarry site. Friends of Hope Church are doing sterling work in moving towards a Heritage Trail which will share the little known secrets of the Church and its environs with a wider community. The commencement of work to restore the old coach house at Plas Teg highlights the potential of another local attraction. The Wales Link Path, which will link the Coastal Path to the Offa’s Dyke Trail via Caergwrle’s Packhorse Bridge, is also expected to bring significant numbers of walkers into the area.It is vital that rural village communities retain their vibrancy and promote themselves, especially if they wish to see shops and services remain. They also need to retain their rural character if they are to avoid becoming part of an ever-increasing urban sprawl. Celebrating the distinctive heritage of a locality helps us to preserve the identity and character of a community. Thanks must go to Charles Evans-Gunther for assisting me in promoting the village of Caergwrle at a recent event run by North East Wales Heritage Forum at Connah’s Quay and also to Michael Roberts and Dewyn Ellis for permission to use their photographs in the pop-up which depicts key aspects of the local heritage and drew a considerable amount of attention. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the policy of Flintshire County Council. Readers are welcome to contact the author with any news or views on the local heritage at DHealey204@aol.com or by telephoning 01978 761 523. The Hope and Caergwrle Heritage and Conservation Society have received £9,000 from the Heritage Lottery Fund for an exciting project to raise the profile of the heritage of the Flintshire village of Caergwrle. Caergwrle, or more appropriately, Abermorddu, was the site of the discovery of the Bronze Age ‘bowl’ which takes pride of place as an iconic exhibit in the ‘Origins of Wales’ gallery of National Museum, Cardiff. A replica of the Bowl, carved by the late Charles Harston, can be seen in Abermorddu County Primary School. Although the exact location of the find is subject to discussion the Abermorddu housing estate of Maes Cibyn (‘Field of the Cup’) was named after the discovery. The village possesses a medieval castle, which played a generally unacknowledged but critical role in Anglo-Welsh relations in the thirteenth century. It was initially built by the Welsh Prince, Dafydd ap Gruffudd, who became the first person in British history to be hung, drawn and quartered for the crime of High Treason. Dafydd knocked down his own Castle to slow down the armies of Edward I. It is documented that during the period of the Edwardian rebuild one shilling was paid for each of 27 Welshmen’s heads that were brought to the Castle. The village also has one of the finest examples of a packhorse bridge in Wales and several distinctive buildings which are significant in the history of the local community. The Packhorse Bridge was recently used to launch the ducks for the Carnival Duck Race.The funding will support several facets of a ‘Caergwrle Sense of Place Project’. Volunteers will work with Flintshire Record Office and the newly-established Friends of Hope Community Library to establish a heritage archive of materials, including those relating to the history of Caergwrle, in Hope Community Library when it is transferred as a community asset, from Flintshire County Council, to Castell Alun High School and the group of Friends. The project will be officially launched at an event in Caergwrle Presbyterian Church Hall, High Street on Saturday 30th April. The event will include an exhibition of the heritage of the village and a number of speakers. Future planned events include a ‘Memories Session’ at the Presbyterian Church Hall on Saturday 25th June. Local residents will be invited to bring old photographs with their memories to a planned session which will help to produce a published ‘Ramble Round the Historic Village of Caergwrle’, linking memories to existing features and buildings. It is hoped that the profile of Caergwrle’s medieval castle will be raised by events which will include an element of re-enactment and also that volunteers will be encouraged to give guided tours of the village and castle. Commenting on the award Dave Healey, chair of Hope and Caergwrle Heritage and Conservation Society, said: “It is great news that HLF have agreed to support this ambitious project. We aim to make the most of the opportunity to celebrate the heritage of the village and encourage aspects of its heritage to be managed with greater care. The Project is part of a vision to support Caergwrle as a vibrant, inclusive, attractive and sustainable community where residents can live healthy and enriched lives and also as a desirable place for others to visit.” Richard Bellamy, Head of the Heritage Lottery Fund Wales, said: “Sharing Heritage is a wonderful opportunity for communities to delve into their local heritage and we are delighted to be able to offer this grant so that the Hope and Caergwrle Heritage and Conservation Society can embark on a real journey of discovery. Heritage means such different things to different people, and HLF’s funding offers a wealth of opportunities for groups to explore and celebrate what’s important to them in their area.” The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the policy of Flintshire County Council. Readers are welcome to contact the author with any news or views on the local heritage at DHealey204@aol.com or by telephoning 01978 761 523. Mrs Elizabeth Edwards, nee Lees, is looking forward to receiving her congratulatory message from the Queen, for reaching her 100th birthday, on 30th October 2016.Elizabeth currently lives in Dartmouth but she has an association with our area and fond memories of the time when she lived here. The story of how contact came to be made with her is itself something of interest. Because these articles go on-line they are read across the world and the author receives feedback from different part of the globe. In this case the contact was made by Mrs Lucy Bell, Elizabeth’s granddaughter-in-law, who lives in South Africa. Lucy passed on the contact details of Brian Lees, Elizabeth’s nephew and an e-mail correspondence developed with Brian whilst he was on holiday in Teneriffe. Brian undertook to visit Elizabeth, upon his return to England and ask her what she remembered of her childhood spent in our area. This article is based on the details provided by Lucy in South Africa and Brian’s conversations with Elizabeth. After consulting Brian, Lucy explained the local link: Elisabeth’s father, Frank Lees, was manager of the Westminster Colliery near Wrexham, the family having moved from Yorkshire when she was a toddler. When the colliery closed they moved into the pub business. The family moved to the Bridge Inn at Caergwrle in about 1933. When GM’s father was colliery manager they lived at Summerhill near Wrexham and she and her brother (2 years older) attended the local primary school. He used to give her a lift to/from school on his bike. She went to Grove Park Grammar school in Wrexham and was later the Almoner at Wrexham Maelor Hospital. After she married Nick Edwards they lived at Alltami near Mold where they ran a horticultural nursery…I know she mainly ran the business during the war when – I believe – their quarry sand was used for making bricks. Following conversations with Elizabeth, Brian Lees reported that: GM’S family were licensees of the Bridge Inn from 1933 to 1955. Firstly GM’s parents in turn and then her brother, Donald, (my father) were licensees. Caergwrle brewery used to supply bitter to the Bridge and customers used to order a pint of “local”. There used to be a bowling green at the rear but it was dug up during WW2 to grow vegetables. During the war it was frequented by US soldiers based at Llay and by Royal Engineers based at Plas Teg near Pontblyddyn. The archives of the Hope and Caergwrle Heritage and Conservation Society contain a photograph of the bowling green that existed behind the Bridge Inn. There has been some discussion about the bowling green as local people recall there still being some evidence of it remaining at late as 1986 when it was finally removed for the creation of a car park and restaurant premises Brian himself supplied a photograph of the Bridge Inn, taken in 1953, at the time of the Queen’s Coronation. The bunting and flags can be clearly seen. The Lasell and Sharman Brewery of Caergwrle had been closed down in 1945 after being taken over by Burtonwood Breweries. Burtonwood itself is seen to be supplying the Bridge Inn at the time of this photograph. Brian lived at the Bridge Inn from 1945 to 1955 and attended Hope Primary School. He recalls dances being held at the Village Institute (formerly the old building for Hope Primary School and on the site of the Bridge End building which currently includes a dental practice.) It is doubtful that either Elizabeth or Brian would recognise the Bridge Inn today as a popular Oriental Restaurant or the new bakery of ‘Honey’s’ to the rear However, they may well remember another part of our heritage: the ornamental portcullis gateway of the former Spa site which is clearly viewable on the other side of the River Alyn. That is, our course, another story in our impressive heritage. In the mean time it seems appropriate to wish Elizabeth very best wishes and congratulations as she reaches her 100th birthday.The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the policy of Flintshire County Council. Readers are welcome to contact the author with any news or views on the local heritage at DHealey204@aol.com or by telephoning 01978 761 523. Governments across Europe are grappling with problems of austerity and this is having a particularly severe impact on local government across Britain. One of the key casualties is rural transport. Increasingly cash-strapped local authorities are finding that they can no longer subsidise bus routes that are not commercially viable. As with a number of other services and amenities, it is rural communities which have the lowest number of service users and therefore it is services in these areas which are at greatest risk. This situation has the potential to change significantly something that we have taken for granted as part of our heritage. This month’s article looks at what is being done to develop community resilience to lessen the impact of the withdrawal of bus subsidies in Flintshire. The financial outlook to 2018 shows uncertainty with regard to the future of the Welsh Government Bus Service Support Grant after 2016. All subsidies are expected to end by 2018 with serious implications for current provision. Flintshire County Council has been flagging up the issue for some time and invited elected representatives from Town and Community Councils to attend two workshops which were held in June 2015. The intention is that only a core network of bus routes will be maintained in Flintshire, largely made up of commercial bus services, with minimal support provided to ensure that essential regular connections are retained at key hubs along the routes. Other commercially operated routes could also operate within the County but these would be independent of control of the Council and would not receive any subsidy. The workshops invited those present to assist with identifying the proposed core network and help determine the minimum standard required in terms of days/hours and the frequency of services along each route. The workshops also sought to identify the potential locations of transport hubs and the standard facilities required at each hub. The locally popular DB1 service is one of the commercial services which is independent of the proposed core network and is used by residents to visit Chester. It is to be hoped that this service will continue to have a viable future. It is possible that work, which is currently being undertaken by Flintshire Countryside Services, to establish a Wales Link Path, for walkers, between the Coast Path at Saltney and the Offa’s Dyke Path at Llandegla would give a boost to this service as walkers may wish to use the service in order to return to the their starting point after walking part of the new path. Various local initiatives including Park in the Past, the development of a heritage trail at Hope Parish Church and a possible Sense of Place Project at Caergwrle, could attract many visitors to the area and make it viable for the service to continue. It is in our interest to strive to build a robust community which sends out the right signals to inform market intelligence. Unfortunately some Community Councils sent no representatives to the Flintshire workshops and they played no role in the shaping of the proposals which feature in the proposed core network. As their communities are ‘in the dark’ they are in a weak position to play a role in building community resilience to address community needs. Town and Community Councils need to be informed and in a position to work together to ensure that the needs of their various communities are being met.The workshops did bring about revisions to the original map showing the core network. A link between Buckley and Deeside was established in order to ensure that more residents could get to and from work from Buckley to the Deeside Enterprise Zone. In addition, and of particular relevance to the Parish of Hope, a link was established from Dobshill, via Penyffordd, to Wrexham. This effectively means that there should be a core bus network which enables local people to get to and from Wrexham Maelor Hospital.
Some leadership will be provided by the Deeside Business Forum, which considered a report from Flintshire County Council at its meeting in January 2016. Members of the business community are concerned that employees are able to get to and from work. Askar Sheibani, Chair of Deeside Business Forum, is confident that members of the business community will subsidise transport costs to enable employees to travel. It looks like various forms of community transport will have to be developed to take residents to hubs where they can connect with the core network. There will have to be an audit of existing forms of community transport and an identification of community needs. Because austerity has hit harder and sooner in some parts of England and Wales there are several models of community transport available and the workshops did give examples from Cumbria, Monmouthshire, Ceredigion and Carmarthenshire and explained how they work. A recent BBC Countryfile programme also featured an example of community transport that has developed in the Dales. Within Flintshire there are some forms of community transport already established, one of which is Welsh Border Community Transport. With financial support from several Town and Community Councils, WBCT uses twenty volunteers to make 30,000 journeys a year in parts of the county. Organisations and individuals pay a small membership fee which allows them to book a bus when they require it, societies, clubs, care homes and churches. Shopping trips to local supermarkets are arranged for elderly people. A Community Car Scheme takes elderly and disabled people for medical appointments. WBCT is a registered charity, which is interested in recruiting more volunteers, and may be contacted on 01244544474. In addition, some local people use NHS-provided transport for hospital appointments which can be obtained by telephoning 03001232317. The reduction in services subsidised by Flintshire will be staggered over two financial years. At the moment consideration is being given to reducing those services which are considered to be unsustainable in the current financial climate. Further work will be done to reduce services in 2017-18. Transportation officers are now in process of visiting Town and Community Councils to try explore possibilities of them assisting in the development of community based transport systems. Flintshire has made a commitment to hold further workshops in order to share good practice regarding the forms of community transport which are developing across the County. By working together it is hoped that Flintshire can avoid several of the problems which have occurred elsewhere. A list of bus services which are currently being considered for a reduction of service can be viewed at: http://cyfarfodyddpwyllgor.siryfflint.gov.uk/documents/s35059/Appendix%203%20-%20List%20of%20Routes%20to%20be%20Reviewed%202016-2017.pdf?LLL=undefined The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the policy of Flintshire County Council. Readers are welcome to contact the author with any news or views on the local heritage at DHealey204@aol.com or by telephoning 01978 761 523. The twenty-one year lease, whereby Flintshire Countryside Service managed Caergwrle Castle on behalf of the landowners, Hope Community Council, has now come to an end raising questions about the future management of the site. Over the last two decades the Service is to be credited with a number of achievements which are not generally recognised or appreciated. Throughout that period Flintshire Countryside Service ensured that the site was always well kept, presentable and safe, by carrying out weekly patrols, safety checks and litter picks. The Service had an excellent working relationship with local schools. Caergwrle Castle played a central role in the History GCSE coursework of several cohorts of local secondary school children for a period of some twenty years, many of whom were deeply impressed by this feature of our heritage.In addition, several hundred primary school children also experienced a series of medieval activities at the site. Flintshire Countryside Service provided invaluable assistance in transporting large items of kit to the site so that these activities could take place. Indeed, the Service assisted with the transportation of disabled children so that the activities could be as inclusive as possible. At least two generations of local people have respect for this aspect of our heritage as a result of these enriching experiences. The Service also worked with education groups such as Forest Schools to give valuable outdoor experiences to children from deprived backgrounds. The Service involved the community in activities which included bashing the bracken in the moat so that the Castle was well presented and in an appropriate state for guided tours. Initially this involved volunteers centred around the Bridge Inn in Caergwrle and later, students from Castell Alun High School. More recently members of Caergwrle & District Community Action Group have taken on this role, with members of the Samhain Welsh Medieval Society re-creating scenes which resemble those depicted in the Luttrell Psalter. There was also a significant programme of woodland management on site which was agreed with the Forestry Commission, Flintshire’s Tree Officer and now, Natural Resources Wales. These schemes, which drew in extra income for the site, tried to achieve a balance between biodiversity, recreational access and landscape vistas. There have been times, within the period of the lease, when significant tree felling and woodland management has ensured that there were significant ‘windows’ so that the Castle could be seen. Unfortunately tree growth has become a problem in the last decade, with many local people feeling that there is a need to redress the balance between what is desirable from an ecological point of view with increased visibility of the site.John Purchase, Flintshire Woodland Officer, removing a Turkey Oak from the Castle Hill It was part of Flintshire Countryside Service’s vision to develop a publicised walk round the Castle Hill as one of the County’s attractions. The original leaflet has now been encompassed into the new ‘Discover Rural Flintshire’ leaflet out this year. Caergwrle Castle also features as one of the top nine ‘Handpicked Heritage’ sites in a new ‘Welcome to Flintshire’ leaflet. In terms of access to the site the Service also sought funding of £50,000 to upgrade and resurface the path leading to the Castle. This has done much to facilitate access for elderly members of the community. They also used volunteers, such as those from the British Trust for Conservation Volunteers (BTCV), to construct steps, handrails and repair other paths, walls and wall features on the site. One way or another, Flintshire Countryside Service accessed significant grant funding and voluntary labour for the Castle. The Service has had extensive experience of navigating what would otherwise have been a difficult path with regard to legal constraints imposed by the site as a scheduled monument, where operations close to the Castle require special Scheduled Monument Consent. The whole area is also within a Conservation Area, which requires particular procedures to be followed with regard to woodland management. http://www.flintshire.gov.uk/en/Resident/Planning/Tree-conservation-and-preservation.aspx Where extensive tree-felling is undertaken it is also necessary to secure a licence from the Natural Resources Wales: https://naturalresources.wales/forestry/tree-felling-and-other-regulations/tree-felling-licences/?lang=en The complexity of the process of navigating these legal constraints, especially for a woodland management plan, cannot be overestimated.Now that the lease has ended the responsibility for management of the site, and legal liability, has reverted to Hope Community Council. Hope Community Council has continued to employ Flintshire Countryside Service until the end of the financial year which has given some time to enable the Council to look forward to establish a new era of management. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the policy of Flintshire County Council. Readers are welcome to contact the author with any news or views on the local heritage at DHealey204@aol.com or by telephoning 01978 761 523. |
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December 2020
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