MAPPING THE PAST
A16TH century Flintshire mansion with a colourful past is part of a £250,000 project to trace over 400 years of the history of North East Wales.
Pentrehobyn Hall, on the outskirts of Mold, is owned by a descendant of Welsh royalty and was once a budget hotel for medieval pilgrims.
Built in 1550 by the Lloyd family, it is one of several of the area’s country houses that were built from the proceeds of coal and lead mining, slavery, farming and the cloth and leather trades.
Their histories are now being reconstructed by a Bangor University team that aims to chart the development of four parishes through their country homes and estates.
It will be the first time any area of the UK has been examined in such detail.
The goal is to produce an online map with layers of historic information that shows not just the stories of people but also that of the changing landscape from 1500 to 1930.
It will depict the homes they lived in and the way they farmed and worked the land.
The two-year project will focus on four ancient parishes where the counties of Flintshire, Wrexham and Denbighshire meet.
Mold, Llanferres, Llandegla and Llanarmon yn Ial are each said to contain a unique concentration of fine country homes.
Project leader is Dr Shaun Evans, of the Institute for the Study of Welsh Estates (ISWE), which is based at Bangor University.
He said: “This area has an amazing number of these rather fine, relatively small yet longstanding landed estates – the likes of Bodidris, Colomendy, Gelligynan, Gwysaney, Hartsheath, Leeswood, Nercwys, Rhual, Pentrehobyn, Plas Onn, Plas Teg and Tower.
“There is an assumption these small estates were limited in their importance but they had huge influence on the wider world where ordinary people lived and worked.”
This influence will be pieced together from documents at the North East Wales Archives in Hawarden and Ruthin, and in the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth.
MANSION THAT WAS ONCE ‘BUDGET HOTEL’ FOR PILGRIMS NOW PART OF HISTORY PROJECT
The team will assess how these places influenced local buildings and landscapes over 430 years from the late medieval period to the start of the 20th century.
“The Grosvenors, who became the Dukes of Westminster, made much of their early wealth through lead mining in Flintshire,” said Dr Evans.
“Others earned their fortunes elsewhere and brought back influences.”
Current Pentrehobyn Hall owner Teddy Clarke can trace his ancestry back to the Lloyd family, which built the fine sandstone house in 1550.
They claimed descent from the legendary Edwin ap Gronwy, Lord (or King) of Tegeingl, in the 11th century. This area includes much of modernday Flintshire.
The house, now a wedding venue, still has its original great hall and oak screen partition with marks still visible from the carpenters’ tools.
Mr Clarke said the family probably made its money through lead mining – with a sideline in budget accommodation.
“An early owner of the house built a long range of llettau, little rooms where pilgrims on the way to St Winefride’s Well in Holywell could stay the night,” he said.
“The main road from Wrexham to Mold was a pilgrim route and ran right past the front door.
“There is a legend that a monk fell asleep here beside the driveway and woke up 100 years later, a sort of Welsh Rip Van Winkle.”
Family portraits line the walls, among them one of Trevor Lloyd, famous for re-erecting the Pillar of Eliseg near Llangollen.
A later owner, Pennant Lloyd, was agent for the giant Penrhyn estate at Bangor and Bethesda, built from fortunes amassed on Jamaica’s slave-run sugar estates.
The project aims to create an online Geographical Information System (GIS) on which digitised records can be mapped directly onto relevant locations.
References will include Tithe maps and Enclosure Maps dating back to 1800, and individual estate maps going back to around 1600.
Partners include Aberystwyth University and the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales.
Dr Evans said the project will provide a template for similar exercises in Wales and beyond.
He added: “At the click of the button it will be possible to view and move through a full recorded history of the landscape and its individual features, as built up through a layering of records from across the post-medieval period.”