Bagillt (; ) is a market town and
community
A community is a social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place, norms, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, ...
in
Flintshire
, settlement_type = County
, image_skyline =
, image_alt =
, image_caption =
, image_flag =
, image_shield = Arms of Flint ...
,
Wales
Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the Bristol Channel to the south. It had a population in ...
. The town overlooks the
Dee Estuary
The Dee Estuary ( cy, Aber Dyfrdwy) is a large estuary by means of which the River Dee flows into Liverpool Bay. The estuary starts near Shotton after a five-mile (8 km) 'canalised' section and the river soon swells to be several miles ...
and is between the towns of
Holywell and
Flint
Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Flint was widely used historically to make stone tools and sta ...
. At the
2001 Census the population was recorded as 3,918,
increasing to 4,165 at the 2011 census. The community also includes the villages of Walwen and
Whelston. Landmark locations such as Gemma Rushes bath.
History
Bagillt was part of the
Kingdom of Gwynedd
The Kingdom of Gwynedd (Medieval Latin: ; Middle Welsh: ) was a Welsh kingdom and a Roman Empire successor state that emerged in sub-Roman Britain in the 5th century during the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain.
Based in northwest Wales, th ...
in the early medieval period. In the 12th century,
Owain Gwynedd
Owain ap Gruffudd ( 23 or 28 November 1170) was King of Gwynedd, North Wales, from 1137 until his death in 1170, succeeding his father Gruffudd ap Cynan. He was called Owain the Great ( cy, Owain Fawr) and the first to be ...
and his forces retreated to Bryn Dychwelwch, the "Hill of Retreat", above Bagillt while being pursued by superior numbers of
Henry II's forces.
Castell Hen Blas, a
motte-and-bailey castle
A motte-and-bailey castle is a European fortification with a wooden or stone keep situated on a raised area of ground called a motte, accompanied by a walled courtyard, or bailey, surrounded by a protective ditch and palisade. Relatively easy t ...
, lies within the boundaries of Bagillt. It was the birthplace of
Dafydd ap Llywelyn
Dafydd ap Llywelyn (''c.'' March 1212 – 25 February 1246) was Prince of Gwynedd from 1240 to 1246. He was the first ruler in Wales to claim the title Prince of Wales.
Birth and descent
Though birth years of 1208, 1206, and 1215 have ...
,
Prince of Wales
Prince of Wales ( cy, Tywysog Cymru, ; la, Princeps Cambriae/Walliae) is a title traditionally given to the heir apparent to the English and later British throne. Prior to the conquest by Edward I in the 13th century, it was used by the rulers ...
, probably around Easter 1212. The castle ruins were partially excavated in the mid-1950s. Dafydd's birth was commemorated by the unveiling of a plaque on the wall of the Upper Shippe Inn in the centre of the village on 25 July 2010; this was 770 years since the issue of his earliest surviving charter as prince.
Mostyn Hall
Mostyn Hall is a large house standing in 25 acres (10 hectares) of garden near the village of Mostyn, Flintshire, Wales. It is designated by Cadw as a Grade I listed building.
History
It is not known for how long a building has been presen ...
, the seat of one of the oldest
Welsh families
Welsh may refer to:
Related to Wales
* Welsh, referring or related to Wales
* Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales
* Welsh people
People
* Welsh (surname)
* Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peop ...
, lies close to Bagillt. Parts of the building date from the time of
Henry VI in the 15th century. The future
Henry VII is said to have been concealed in the Hall by the lord of
Mostyn
Mostyn is a village and community in Flintshire, Wales, and electoral ward lying on the estuary of the River Dee, located near the town of Holywell. It has a privately owned port that has in the past had a colliery and ironworks and was invo ...
, Richard ap Howel, during the reign of
Richard III. The Hall now houses antiquities and manuscripts pertaining to
British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
and Welsh history that were brought from
Gloddaeth Hall,
Llanrhos
Llanrhos (English: 'Church on the moor') is a village in the community of Conwy, in Conwy County Borough, Wales. The village lies between the towns of Conwy and Llandudno. Llanrhos was a civil parish from 1894 until 1974. The area was formerly pa ...
.
Industrial Revolution
The Gadlys Lead Smelting Works was established by Edward Wright and his associates, who were generally Quakers, in 1704. Organised as the
London Lead Company, they kept the workshop open until 1799.
John Freame, one of the founders of
Barclays Bank
Barclays () is a British multinational universal bank, headquartered in London, England. Barclays operates as two divisions, Barclays UK and Barclays International, supported by a service company, Barclays Execution Services.
Barclays traces ...
, was involved in this initiative.
[John Freame (1665-1745)]
accessed 18 February 2013
By the late 18th century, Bagillt had become a
centre of mineral extraction and manufacturing. Hundreds of men laboured in eleven
collieries
Coal mining is the process of resource extraction, extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its Energy value of coal, energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use c ...
that surrounded the village. There was also a factory and works that produced and refined
zinc
Zinc is a chemical element with the symbol Zn and atomic number 30. Zinc is a slightly brittle metal at room temperature and has a shiny-greyish appearance when oxidation is removed. It is the first element in group 12 (IIB) of the periodi ...
,
lead
Lead is a chemical element with the symbol Pb (from the Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metal that is denser than most common materials. Lead is soft and malleable, and also has a relatively low melting point. When freshly cu ...
and
iron
Iron () is a chemical element with Symbol (chemistry), symbol Fe (from la, Wikt:ferrum, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 element, group 8 of the periodic table. It is, Abundanc ...
.
Bagillt already had several quays on the banks of the
River Dee, where fishing boats had moored for centuries. But by the early 19th century, these had grown into docks where cargo destined for the factories and foundries of England were loaded.
In 1846,
navvies
Navvy, a clipping of navigator ( UK) or navigational engineer ( US), is particularly applied to describe the manual labourers working on major civil engineering projects and occasionally (in North America) to refer to mechanical shovels and ea ...
laying track for the
North Wales Coast Line reached Bagillt. The
Chester and Holyhead Railway
The Chester and Holyhead Railway was an early railway company conceived to improve transmission of Government dispatches between London and Ireland, as well as ordinary railway objectives. Its construction was hugely expensive, chiefly due to ...
(now part of the
North Wales Coast Line) officially opened on 1 May 1848. The local mines and works that had used these wharves now switched to haulage by steam train.
Bagillt railway station had extensive sidings and goods yard. It was closed in 1966 as part of the
Beeching cuts
The Beeching cuts (also Beeching Axe) was a plan to increase the efficiency of the nationalised railway system in Great Britain. The plan was outlined in two reports: ''The Reshaping of British Railways'' (1963) and ''The Development of the M ...
, although the station's footbridge still remains.
In 1879 a
working men's club
Working men's clubs are British private social clubs first created in the 19th century in industrial areas, particularly the North of England, Midlands, Scotland and South Wales Valleys, to provide recreation and education for working class ...
and
cocoa house was built on the High Street in the Pentre area by public subscription. The building was named the Foresters Hall; it is an impressive three-storey red brick building which is supported by th
Bagillt Heritage Society It was built to promote
temperance
Temperance may refer to:
Moderation
*Temperance movement, movement to reduce the amount of alcohol consumed
*Temperance (virtue), habitual moderation in the indulgence of a natural appetite or passion
Culture
*Temperance (group), Canadian danc ...
and was originally associated with the
Foresters Friendly Society
The Foresters Friendly Society is a British friendly society which was formed in 1834 as the Ancient Order of Foresters. As of 31 December 2016, the society had approximately 75,000 members.
Its head office is located in Southampton, England.
...
. It was the first cocoa house built in Wales.
But the industrial age created problems: in 1848, the same year the railway opened, a book was published in London entitled ''
''. It detailed the poverty and hard living of many people in Bagillt and the Flintshire coalfields in the 19th century:
Bagillt remained a hard-working boom town for more than a century. For instance on 31 May 1873, a local newspaper, the ''Wrexham Advertiser'', reported that so many new coal workings had opened near Bagillt that it was becoming difficult to find enough miners to work in them:
In July 1897 work commenced at Boot End, Bagillt, on the huge
Milwr Tunnel which would drain water from the mines working the lead lodes under
Pentre Halkyn
Pentre Halkyn ( cy, Pentre Helygain) is a small village in Flintshire, Wales. It is situated approximately two miles from Holywell, Flintshire, Holywell, and is off Junction 32 of the A55 road, A55 North Wales Expressway. It has a quarry, a smal ...
. Digging started at a point below high-water mark on the Dee foreshore.
The tunnel was driven southwest at a gradient of 1:1000. It was brick-lined where it passed through
coal measures and
shale but unlined after the first 1.5 miles where it passed through
chert
Chert () is a hard, fine-grained sedimentary rock composed of microcrystalline or cryptocrystalline quartz, the mineral form of silicon dioxide (SiO2). Chert is characteristically of biological origin, but may also occur inorganically as a ...
and
limestone
Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...
. In 1908 the tunnel was draining more than 1.7 million gallons of water per day through the drainage channel and into the river at Bagillt.
[
Bagillt was also the site of the Hawarden Iron Works, situated near the Dee Bank Quay. It was famous for production of a number of waterwheels, including the Snaefell Wheel at ]Laxey
Laxey ( gv, Laksaa) is a village on the east coast of the Isle of Man. Its name derives from the Old Norse ''Laxa'' meaning 'Salmon River'. Its key distinguishing features are its three working vintage railways and the largest working waterwhe ...
, Isle of Man
)
, anthem = "O Land of Our Birth"
, image = Isle of Man by Sentinel-2.jpg
, image_map = Europe-Isle_of_Man.svg
, mapsize =
, map_alt = Location of the Isle of Man in Europe
, map_caption = Location of the Isle of Man (green)
in Europe ...
.
But by the 1930s the Great Depression had brought hardship and misery to the area as many of the manufacturing works and collieries were closed. Large numbers of people were now out of work and in severe financial hardship. The days of industrial might have ended in Bagillt. The area was now falling into long-term decline. Before the Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...
many people left in search of work: some moved to cities like Cardiff
Cardiff (; cy, Caerdydd ) is the capital and largest city of Wales. It forms a principal area, officially known as the City and County of Cardiff ( cy, Dinas a Sir Caerdydd, links=no), and the city is the eleventh-largest in the United Kingd ...
, Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
and Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a populat ...
while others went overseas to Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
and America.[St Mary's Church in Bagillt](_blank)
Modern era
Bagillt and Greenfield remain areas where unemployment, social deprivation and child poverty are key issues. A report in 2004/05 called ''Flintshire Childcare Sufficiency Assessment'' concluded that child care was needed to help parents.
According to North Wales Police
North Wales Police ( cy, Heddlu Gogledd Cymru) is the territorial police force responsible for policing North Wales. Its headquarters are in Colwyn Bay. , the force has 1,510 police officers, 170 special constables, 182 police community suppor ...
, the overall crime rate in Bagillt East rose by 200% from 2007 to 2008; in Bagillt West this figure was only +3.7% in the same period.
In 2013, Bagillt was formally twinned with Laxey
Laxey ( gv, Laksaa) is a village on the east coast of the Isle of Man. Its name derives from the Old Norse ''Laxa'' meaning 'Salmon River'. Its key distinguishing features are its three working vintage railways and the largest working waterwhe ...
, Isle of Man, after a visit to Laxey by members of Bagillt Heritage Society to see the Snaefell Wheel (now renamed the Lady Evelyn) recently restored by the Laxey and Lonan Heritage Trust. The wheel was built in Bagillt (see above).
For elections to Flintshire County Council
Flintshire County Council is the unitary local authority for the county of Flintshire, one of the principal areas of Wales. It is based at County Hall in Mold.
Elections take place every five years. The last election was on 5 May 2022.
Histor ...
Bagillt is divided into the wards of Bagillt East and Bagillt West, which each elect one county councillor.
Bagillt lies on a former section of the A548 road. A by-pass
Bypass may refer to:
* Bypass (road), a road that avoids a built-up area (not to be confused with passing lane)
* Flood bypass of a river
Science and technology Medicine
* Bypass surgery, a class of surgeries including for example:
** Heart byp ...
was built in the late 1960s for the A road. The town's facilities include a community-run library, reopened in 2014 following closure by Flintshire County Council in 2011, a few local shops, pubs and parkland. The Wales Coast Path
The Wales Coast Path ( cy, Llwybr Arfordir Cymru) is a designated long-distance trail which follows, or runs close to, the coastline of Wales.
Launched in 2012, the footpath is long and was heralded as the first dedicated coast path in the wor ...
passes through Bagillt by the side of the River Dee, and the Bagillt Heritage Society have signposted a Heritage and Industrial Trail from the Wales Coast Path
The Wales Coast Path ( cy, Llwybr Arfordir Cymru) is a designated long-distance trail which follows, or runs close to, the coastline of Wales.
Launched in 2012, the footpath is long and was heralded as the first dedicated coast path in the wor ...
to various sites around the village. The Bagillt Heritage Society also acquired the old sewage works near the site of the former Bagillt Railway Station for a future Community Gardens Project.
Bagillt is home to two county primary schools, Ysgol Merllyn, located in the main village area, and Ysgol Glan Aber, in Bagillt Boot End.
Argentina
In the late 19th century, many Welsh families from NE Wales emigrated to the Chubut Valley in Patagonia
Patagonia () refers to a geographical region that encompasses the southern end of South America, governed by Argentina and Chile. The region comprises the southern section of the Andes Mountains with lakes, fjords, temperate rainforests, and g ...
, Argentina
Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...
. In honour of their heritage, the Y Wladfa
Y Wladfa (, "The Colony"), also occasionally Y Wladychfa Gymreig (, "The Welsh Settlement"), refers to the establishment of settlements by Welsh immigrants in Patagonia, beginning in 1865, mainly along the coast of the lower Chubut Valley. I ...
named the ''Lago Bagillt'' (Bagillt Lake) after the town ().
References
External links
Bagillt History Club
Photos of Bagillt and surrounding area on geograph.org.uk
St Mary's & St Peter's Church Bagillt
*
Bagillt Community Council
{{authority control
Towns in Flintshire
Communities in Flintshire