Flintshire
- Eleanor Conlon
- Feb 23
- 8 min read
Updated: Mar 1
Where is Flintshire?
In our episode about Flintshire, we talked about lots of interesting places and things, so here are some pictures and links to find out more!
St Winefride's Chapel and Well
The holy well at St Winefride’s has been a place of pilgrimage since at least 1115. It is said to spring from the spot where 7th-century Welsh abbot St Beuno brought his niece Winefride back to life, though it’s likely that this story may actually have much older, pagan origins.
The chapel itself dates from the late 15th century. Set into the hillside, it’s a striking and unusual building, richly decorated and exceptionally well-built. On the bottom floor, the spring water bubbles up into a star-shaped basin beneath an elaborately vaulted ceiling before flowing out into a more recent outdoor pool, where pilgrims still visit to bathe in its waters with their claimed healing properties.
Reputedly the oldest continually visited pilgrim site in Britain, it’s on the route of the North Wales Pilgrim’s Way that travels along the Llŷn Peninsula to Bardsey Island, the legendary ‘Isle of 20,000 Saints’.
Rhuddlan Castle
King Edward I liked his castles to be on the coast. It was safer that way. If his ruthless campaign to subdue the Welsh ran into trouble, supplies could still get through by sea.
At Rhuddlan, several miles inland, the plan was to use a river instead. Just one problem – the meandering Clwyd wasn’t quite in the right place. So Edward conscripted hundreds of ditch-diggers to deepen and divert its course.
More than seven centuries later Rhuddlan still looks like a castle that was worth moving a river for. Begun in 1277 it was the first of the revolutionary concentric, or ‘walls within walls’, castles designed by master architect James of St George.
Most impressive was the inner diamond-shaped stronghold with its twin-towered gatehouses. This sat inside a ring of lower turreted walls. Further beyond was a deep dry moat linked to the River Clwyd.
This bristling statement of Edwardian intent guarded a new town surrounded by ditched defences. You can still clearly make out the medieval grid layout of the streets in modern-day Rhuddlan.
Castell Caergwrle
Built between 1278–82 by Dafydd ap Gruffudd (d. 1283), brother of Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, on lands given to him by Edward I and taken from Powys, it was the last castle to be built by a native Welsh prince.
The castle provided the base for Dafydd’s attack on the English garrison at Hawarden in 1282, which sparked Edward’s second Welsh campaign.
Work on the castle continued under the Crown, but it was probably incomplete when it was abandoned after a fire and was ruinous by 1335. There is a waymarked path from the junction of Wrexham Road and Castle Street in the centre of the village.
Caergwrle Bowl
The Caergwrle Bowl is a unique object dating to the Middle Bronze Age, c. 1300 BC, originally manufactured from shale, tin and gold, and found in Caergwrle, Flintshire, north east Wales. It is thought to represent a boat, with its applied gold decoration signifying oars and waves, and either sun discs or circular shields.At both ends of the boat is a pair of oculi or 'eyes'.
The incomplete bowl was found in 1823 by a workman digging a drain in a field below Caergwrle Castle. It was donated to the National Museum Wales in 1912, and sent to the British Museum for restoration where it was originally reconstructed from wax with the decoration attached by an adhesive. Since then the bowl has been rebuilt again as the first conservation failed to be stable.
Gop Cairn
The enormous neolithic cairn of Y Gop is impossible to miss - which is quite possibly the point. Rising some 12m atop Gop Hill, itself over 840ft in height, and some 75-80m in diameter, it dominates the landscape. From its height, the mountains of Snowdonia are visible, the Clwydians marching away to the south, the Great Orme at Llandudno and the Bay to the west - and in its prime, some 4000 years ago, without the obscuring woodland to the north, the estuaries of the rivers Mersey and Dee and Irish Sea to its offing would have been quite there to behold.
Y Gop is in fact the largest prehistoric monument in Wales, and the second largest neolithic mound in Britain. Only Silbury Hill in Wiltshire is larger, part of the Avebury UNESCO World Heritage Site, which includes the Avebury Henge, the West Kennet Avenue and Long Barrow and Windmill Hill - all rightly venerated as evidence of our shared prehistoric past.
Y Gop, a contemporary to these southern monuments, has been all but ignored - at least in comparison to the amount of study and investigation that has been conducted on the Wiltshire monuments. Perhaps this is due to the reluctance of the landscape about Y Gop to give up the earth held secrets of its ancient past.
But, what is really beginning to emerge from the soil and sources are the shadows in the fields, of henge, cursus and causeway. Along with the awe inspiring Mold Gold Cape and Caergwrle Bowl, they are beginning to illuminate a landscape of intense ceremony and ritual in north Wales.
Flint Castle
Fans of military architecture make a bee-line for Flint. The first castle to be founded as part Edward I’s campaign against Llywelyn ap Gruffydd (Llywelyn the Last) in north Wales, it boasts a unique and unusually sophisticated design.
Started in 1277 and largely completed by 1284, the castle is dominated by the great tower (or donjon) at its south-east corner. Surrounded by its own moat and accessed via a drawbridge, it’s essentially a castle within a castle. Built with exceptionally thick walls and equipped with all the facilities required to withstand a siege, it was presumably intended to be a final refuge in the event of an attack.
Flint Castle is also famous as the location of a fateful meeting in 1399 between Richard II and his rival to the crown Henry Bolingbroke (later Henry IV), an event immortalised in Shakespeare’s Richard II.
Mold Castle
Mold Castle (Welsh: Castell yr Wyddgrug), also known as Bailey Hill in the town of Mold, Flintshire, north-east Wales, is a motte-and-bailey castle erected around 1072, probably by the Norman Robert de Montalt under instructions from Hugh d'Avranches, Earl of Chester. Little remains except the mound on which the motte was built. It stands close to the 15th-century parish church, St Mary's Church near the centre of the town.
Mold Castle was built upon an existing earthwork. A motte and bailey fortress was erected c. 1072 - possibly by Robert de Montalt, a descendant of Eustace De Monte Alto, a Norman warrior in the service of Hugh Lupus, Earl of Chester. This family originated in Monthault, Ille-et-Vilaine, in the Duchy of Brittany, not then part of France, but it has been proposed that they took their name from 'mont haut', meaning 'high hill', and associated it with this earthwork.
This name may have become corrupted, down the years, until it became 'Mold'. So Bailey Hill may have given the town its name.
In 1146 it was captured by Owain Gwynedd. It switched hands on several occasions before a long period under Welsh control during the reign of Llywelyn ab Iorwerth. It remained a defensive structure up until the 13th century. During the English Civil War, Mold was captured by the Parliamentarians, recovered by the Royalists and fell again to Cromwell's forces.
The Gold Cape of Mold
The Mold gold cape (Welsh: Clogyn Aur yr Wyddgrug) is a ceremonial "cape" of solid sheet-gold from Wales dating from about 1900–1600 BC in the British Bronze Age.It was found at Bryn yr Ellyllon burial mound near Mold, Flintshire in 1833.
The cape is thought to have formed part of a ceremonial dress, perhaps with religious connections. It is now in the British Museum in London, where it is usually on display but it is on display at Museum of Liverpool until 29 March 2026 as part of the "Treasure: History Unearthed" exhibition.
The gold cape was found in 1833 by workmen. Accounts of the exact circumstances vary: either during the filling of a gravel pit or while they were quarrying for stone.
The cape was within a Bronze Age burial mound known as Bryn yr Ellyllon, which translates to "Goblins' Hill". The gold cape had been placed on the body of a person who was interred in a rough cist (stone-lined grave) within the mound. The preserved remains of the skeleton were fragmentary, and the cape was badly crushed. An estimated 200–300 amber beads, in rows, had originally been on the cape, but only a single bead survives today.
Also associated with the cape were remains of coarse cloth and 16 fragments of sheet bronze which are likely to have been the backing for the gold: in places the gold was attached to the bronze sheeting with bronze rivets. Among the artefacts found there also were two gold 'straps'. An urn, with large quantities of burnt bone and ash, was found 60–90 cm (24–35 in) from the grave.
Maen Achwyfan
Maen Achwyfan is a particularly fine early Christian cross standing 11ft/3.4m high, probably dating from the late 10th century in commemoration of a person or event. Fashioned from one single stone, it features a circular head resembling the shape of a wheel and is covered by intricate carvings with and well-preserved interlacing designs, together with stylised human and animal figures.
For a Christian monument it has interesting Viking roots. Its design is heavily influenced by the presence of Viking sea raiders in this part of Wales.
Hawarden Castle
Hawarden Castle (Welsh: Castell Penarlâg (Newydd)) is a house in Hawarden, Flintshire, Wales. It was the estate of the former British prime minister William Ewart Gladstone, having previously belonged to the family of his wife, Catherine Glynne.
Built in the mid-18th century, it was later enlarged and externally remodelled in the Gothic taste.
Plas Teg
Plas Teg is a Grade I listed Jacobean house in Wales.It is near the village of Pontblyddyn in Flintshire, between Wrexham and Mold. It is considered to be one of the finest examples of Jacobean architecture in Wales, and the finest in North Wales.
The house was built by Sir John Trevor I, a prominent courtier of King James I, in about 1610. Sir John died in 1630 and his wife in 1643, leaving the house unoccupied as the English Civil War broke out. It was twice raided by the Roundheads, but continued to be passed down to Trevor descendants until the early 20th century. During the Second World War the house was requisitioned by the War Office to billet soldiers. In 1945, it was sold to an auctioneers company, which used it for storage.
By the early 1950s, Plas Teg was in a state of advanced decay and under threat of demolition. Following a public outcry, the derelict house received a Grade I listing from Cadw, protecting it from demolition. A Trevor descendant, Patrick Trevor-Roper, purchased the house and partially restored it with funds from the Historic Buildings Council.He then leased out the house until 1977, when Mr and Mrs William Llewelyn bought the house. The couple only used parts of the ground floor but the rest of the house became little more than a ruin.
In 1986 Cornelia Bayley acquired Plas Teg for £75,000. She carried out a series of works at a cost of £400,000, £199,000 of which was funded by Cadw. Ten months after purchase the house was opened to the public. It remains Bayley's private residence. Plas Teg in 2022 closed to the public pending repairs.
The county of Flintshire is said to be a land of spirits and hauntings. One notable case is that of the grey lady, described as the most popular of such entities in North East Wales. The old woman is reported to have been seen moving across the A541 adjacent to Plas Teg into the path of traffic.
The courtyard entrance, walled garden, shrubberies and avenue are listed as Grade II in the Cadw/ICOMOS Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales.
Comments