Llysfaen
Encyclopedia
Llysfaen is a village
in Conwy County Borough near the coast of north
Wales
and is located high above the coast. For local government purposes, it is also a community
and Conwy County Borough Council
ward.
and Colwyn Bay
. Neighbouring villages include Old Colwyn
, Llanddulas
, Dolwyn and Betws-yn-Rhos. To its immediate west is Mynydd Marian
, a mountain
known for its limestone
grassland
and the rare dwarf sub-species of the Silver-studded Blue
butterfly.
The council ward, including the village centre and surrounding precincts, occupies 5.11 square kilometres (1,260 acres, 511 hectares). The community's population
has remained relatively static in recent times and was 2652 at the Census held in 2001.
The community is currently part of Conwy County Borough. However, it historically formed an exclave of Caernarfonshire
assumed by the surrounding Denbighshire
in 1923; subsequent local government reorganisation saw it administered as part of Clwyd
(1974–1996).
The name, Llysfaen is Welsh for stone court (i.e. a court built of stone).
Throughout much of Llysfaen's recent history, many of its villagers worked at the nearby Llysfaen and Llanddulas Limestone
Quarry
from where lime
was shipped to Liverpool
or Fleetwood
using Rayne's Jetty in Llanddulas Bay.
, Ysgol Cynfran, accepting pupils from nursery age to 11; a convenience store
; the mediæval St. Cynfran's parish church
(see below); the village hall
; a playgroup; three park
s, two telephone boxes, and two post boxes.
A Mobile Library run by Conwy Library Service also calls at the village every three weeks http://www.conwy.gov.uk/doc.asp?cat=6580&doc=24477
Llysfaen currently has a number of youth football
teams catering for ages from 7 to 18. A majority of the teams' games are played on the village's Banana Pitch, so called because it dips heavily in the middle. The names of the teams are themed on big cats (e.g. the Snow Leopards, the Bobcats).
Llysfaen has a bowling green
which is home to a locally well-known lawn bowls team.
of Llysfaen is Saint Cynfran, who is traditionally believed to have, in 777, founded the eponymous church in the village, above whose entrance is a carving in rock of the saint. The primary school is also named after Cynfran.
In the 1254 Norwich Taxation, Llysfaen was recorded as Ecc'a de Llesvaen, and in the 1291 taxation as Rectoria di Lisnaen and taxed at £4.
St. Cynfran's church has been rebuilt a number of times; the current twin-nave
d building is said to date from 1377 but is believed to incorporate stones from the original church. In 1870, the building was the subject of an extensive £1,950 internal restoration with only a few panels remaining from the Middle Ages
, although the mediæval stone walls remain. The rectilinear churchyard
contains memorials going back as far as the 17th century. The churchyard is surrounded by a stone wall with yew tree
s both in and outside the walls, and there is a holy well
, the Ffynnon Gynfran, about 100 metres to the north.
The ancient parish
of Llysfaen was an exclave of the cwmwd (equivalent to a hundred) of Creuddyn
within the county of Caernarvonshire, and comprised the townships of Isallt, Isyffordd, Pant (or Tre'r Pant), Penmaen
and Rhwngyddwyffordd. According to the Royal Commission of the Welsh Church, the then parish had a population of 585 in 1831 rising to 1,489 in 1901.
The parish was originally slightly larger than today with an area of 1,772 acres (7.17 square kilometres) in the 1840s. In 1872, part of the parish was lost to Colwyn
but the township of Twynnan was gained from Llanelian-yn-Rhos. Around 1910 the parish had increased to 1,879 acres (7.6 square kilometres).
In 1873, the local lime quarrying firm, Raynes & Co. Ltd, was established by James Trevelyan Raynes II to make sodium carbonate
and limestone dust for use in glass
manufacture. http://www.raynesandco.com/about/ahistory.htm
Village
A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet with the population ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand , Though often located in rural areas, the term urban village is also applied to certain urban neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New...
in Conwy County Borough near the coast of north
North Wales
North Wales is the northernmost unofficial region of Wales. It is bordered to the south by the counties of Ceredigion and Powys in Mid Wales and to the east by the counties of Shropshire in the West Midlands and Cheshire in North West England...
Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
and is located high above the coast. For local government purposes, it is also a community
Community (Wales)
A community is a division of land in Wales that forms the lowest-tier of local government in Wales. Welsh communities are analogous to civil parishes in England....
and Conwy County Borough Council
Conwy County Borough Council
Conwy County Borough Council is the governing body for Conwy County Borough, one of the unitary authority areas of Wales.-Political makeup:Elections take place every four years...
ward.
Introduction
Llysfaen is located one kilometre (0.6 miles) inland, halfway between the coastal towns of AbergeleAbergele
Abergele is a community and old Roman trading town, situated on the north coast of Wales between the holiday resorts of Colwyn Bay and Rhyl, in Conwy County Borough. Its northern suburb of Pensarn lies on the Irish Sea coast and is known for its beach, where it is claimed by some that a ghost ship...
and Colwyn Bay
Colwyn Bay
- Demography :Prior to local government reorganisation on 1 April 1974 Colwyn Bay was a municipal borough with a population of c.25,000, but in 1974 this designation disappeared leaving five separate parishes, known as communities in Wales, of which the one bearing the name Colwyn Bay encompassed...
. Neighbouring villages include Old Colwyn
Old Colwyn
Old Colwyn , is a small town just to the east of Colwyn Bay, in Conwy County Borough, Wales.Prior to local government reorganisation in April 1974 it was part of the Municipal Borough of Colwyn Bay, but the reorganisation established it as a separate parish , whose population at the 2001 census was...
, Llanddulas
Llanddulas
Llanddulas is a village in Conwy county borough, North Wales midway between Old Colwyn and Abergele and next to the North Wales Expressway.The village lies beneath the limestone hill of Cefn-yr-Ogof...
, Dolwyn and Betws-yn-Rhos. To its immediate west is Mynydd Marian
Mynydd Marian
Mynydd Marian is a Site of Special Scientific Interest in the preserved county of Clwyd, north Wales....
, a mountain
Mountain
Image:Himalaya_annotated.jpg|thumb|right|The Himalayan mountain range with Mount Everestrect 58 14 160 49 Chomo Lonzorect 200 28 335 52 Makalurect 378 24 566 45 Mount Everestrect 188 581 920 656 Tibetan Plateaurect 250 406 340 427 Rong River...
known for its limestone
Limestone
Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate . Many limestones are composed from skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral or foraminifera....
grassland
Grassland
Grasslands are areas where the vegetation is dominated by grasses and other herbaceous plants . However, sedge and rush families can also be found. Grasslands occur naturally on all continents except Antarctica...
and the rare dwarf sub-species of the Silver-studded Blue
Silver-studded Blue
The Silver-studded Blue is a butterfly in the family Lycaenidae.-Appearance, behavior and distribution:So named due to the silvery blue metallic spots on the underside hind wings. The upperside are a rich, deep iridescent blue in the males with a black border and the characteristic Lycid white...
butterfly.
The council ward, including the village centre and surrounding precincts, occupies 5.11 square kilometres (1,260 acres, 511 hectares). The community's population
Population
A population is all the organisms that both belong to the same group or species and live in the same geographical area. The area that is used to define a sexual population is such that inter-breeding is possible between any pair within the area and more probable than cross-breeding with individuals...
has remained relatively static in recent times and was 2652 at the Census held in 2001.
The community is currently part of Conwy County Borough. However, it historically formed an exclave of Caernarfonshire
Caernarfonshire
Caernarfonshire , historically spelled as Caernarvonshire or Carnarvonshire in English during its existence, was one of the thirteen historic counties, a vice-county and a former administrative county of Wales....
assumed by the surrounding Denbighshire
Denbighshire (historic)
Historic Denbighshire is one of thirteen traditional counties in Wales, a vice-county and a former administrative county, which covers an area in north east Wales...
in 1923; subsequent local government reorganisation saw it administered as part of Clwyd
Clwyd
Clwyd is a preserved county of Wales, situated in the north-east, bordering England with Cheshire to its east, Shropshire to the south-east, and the Welsh counties of Gwynedd to its immediate west and Powys to the south. It additionally shares a maritime border with the metropolitan county of...
(1974–1996).
The name, Llysfaen is Welsh for stone court (i.e. a court built of stone).
Throughout much of Llysfaen's recent history, many of its villagers worked at the nearby Llysfaen and Llanddulas Limestone
Limestone
Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate . Many limestones are composed from skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral or foraminifera....
Quarry
Quarry
A quarry is a type of open-pit mine from which rock or minerals are extracted. Quarries are generally used for extracting building materials, such as dimension stone, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, and gravel. They are often collocated with concrete and asphalt plants due to the requirement...
from where lime
Lime (mineral)
Lime is a general term for calcium-containing inorganic materials, in which carbonates, oxides and hydroxides predominate. Strictly speaking, lime is calcium oxide or calcium hydroxide. It is also the name for a single mineral of the CaO composition, occurring very rarely...
was shipped to Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
or Fleetwood
Fleetwood
Fleetwood is a town within the Wyre district of Lancashire, England, lying at the northwest corner of the Fylde. It had a population of 26,840 people at the 2001 Census. It forms part of the Greater Blackpool conurbation. The town was the first planned community of the Victorian era...
using Rayne's Jetty in Llanddulas Bay.
Facilities
The village has a small number of facilities including a primary schoolPrimary Education in Wales
Primary Education in Wales has a similar structure to Primary Education in England, but teaching of the Welsh language is compulsory and it is used as the medium of instruction in many schools...
, Ysgol Cynfran, accepting pupils from nursery age to 11; a convenience store
Convenience store
A convenience store, corner store, corner shop, commonly called a bodega in Spanish-speaking areas of the United States, is a small store or shop in a built up area that stocks a range of everyday items such as groceries, toiletries, alcoholic and soft drinks, and may also offer money order and...
; the mediæval St. Cynfran's parish church
Parish church
A parish church , in Christianity, is the church which acts as the religious centre of a parish, the basic administrative unit of episcopal churches....
(see below); the village hall
Village hall
In the United States, a village hall is the seat of government for villages. It functions much as a city hall does within cities.In the United Kingdom, a village hall is usually a building within a village which contains at least one large room, usually owned by and run for the benefit of the local...
; a playgroup; three park
Park
A park is a protected area, in its natural or semi-natural state, or planted, and set aside for human recreation and enjoyment, or for the protection of wildlife or natural habitats. It may consist of rocks, soil, water, flora and fauna and grass areas. Many parks are legally protected by...
s, two telephone boxes, and two post boxes.
A Mobile Library run by Conwy Library Service also calls at the village every three weeks http://www.conwy.gov.uk/doc.asp?cat=6580&doc=24477
Llysfaen currently has a number of youth football
Football (soccer)
Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a sport played between two teams of eleven players with a spherical ball...
teams catering for ages from 7 to 18. A majority of the teams' games are played on the village's Banana Pitch, so called because it dips heavily in the middle. The names of the teams are themed on big cats (e.g. the Snow Leopards, the Bobcats).
Llysfaen has a bowling green
Bowling green
A bowling green is a finely-laid, close-mown and rolled stretch of lawn for playing the game of lawn bowls.Before 1830, when Edwin Beard Budding invented the lawnmower, lawns were often kept cropped by grazing sheep on them...
which is home to a locally well-known lawn bowls team.
History
The patron saintPatron saint
A patron saint is a saint who is regarded as the intercessor and advocate in heaven of a nation, place, craft, activity, class, clan, family, or person...
of Llysfaen is Saint Cynfran, who is traditionally believed to have, in 777, founded the eponymous church in the village, above whose entrance is a carving in rock of the saint. The primary school is also named after Cynfran.
In the 1254 Norwich Taxation, Llysfaen was recorded as Ecc'a de Llesvaen, and in the 1291 taxation as Rectoria di Lisnaen and taxed at £4.
St. Cynfran's church has been rebuilt a number of times; the current twin-nave
Nave
In Romanesque and Gothic Christian abbey, cathedral basilica and church architecture, the nave is the central approach to the high altar, the main body of the church. "Nave" was probably suggested by the keel shape of its vaulting...
d building is said to date from 1377 but is believed to incorporate stones from the original church. In 1870, the building was the subject of an extensive £1,950 internal restoration with only a few panels remaining from the Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
, although the mediæval stone walls remain. The rectilinear churchyard
Churchyard
A churchyard is a patch of land adjoining or surrounding a church which is usually owned by the relevant church or local parish itself. In the Scots language or Northern English language this can also be known as a kirkyard or kirkyaird....
contains memorials going back as far as the 17th century. The churchyard is surrounded by a stone wall with yew tree
Taxus
Taxus is a genus of yews, small coniferous trees or shrubs in the yew family Taxaceae. They are relatively slow-growing and can be very long-lived, and reach heights of 1-40 m, with trunk diameters of up to 4 m...
s both in and outside the walls, and there is a holy well
Water well
A water well is an excavation or structure created in the ground by digging, driving, boring or drilling to access groundwater in underground aquifers. The well water is drawn by an electric submersible pump, a trash pump, a vertical turbine pump, a handpump or a mechanical pump...
, the Ffynnon Gynfran, about 100 metres to the north.
The ancient parish
Parish
A parish is a territorial unit historically under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of one parish priest, who might be assisted in his pastoral duties by a curate or curates - also priests but not the parish priest - from a more or less central parish church with its associated organization...
of Llysfaen was an exclave of the cwmwd (equivalent to a hundred) of Creuddyn
Creuddyn
Creuddyn may refer to:* The Creuddyn Peninsula, in Conwy county borough* Creuddyn, Ceredigion, a historic commote of Ceredigion* Creuddyn, Rhos, a historic commote of Cantref Rhos in the kingdom of Gwynedd, and later of Caernarfonshire...
within the county of Caernarvonshire, and comprised the townships of Isallt, Isyffordd, Pant (or Tre'r Pant), Penmaen
Penmaen
Penmaen may refer to one of several places in Wales:*Penmaen, Caerphilly*Penmaen, SwanseaSee also:*Penmaenmawr, Conwy County Borough...
and Rhwngyddwyffordd. According to the Royal Commission of the Welsh Church, the then parish had a population of 585 in 1831 rising to 1,489 in 1901.
The parish was originally slightly larger than today with an area of 1,772 acres (7.17 square kilometres) in the 1840s. In 1872, part of the parish was lost to Colwyn
Colwyn
The Borough of Colwyn was one of six districts of the county of Clwyd, north-east Wales, from 1974 to 1996.It was formed under the Local Government Act 1972 from the following parts of the administrative county of Denbighshire:...
but the township of Twynnan was gained from Llanelian-yn-Rhos. Around 1910 the parish had increased to 1,879 acres (7.6 square kilometres).
In 1873, the local lime quarrying firm, Raynes & Co. Ltd, was established by James Trevelyan Raynes II to make sodium carbonate
Sodium carbonate
Sodium carbonate , Na2CO3 is a sodium salt of carbonic acid. It most commonly occurs as a crystalline heptahydrate, which readily effloresces to form a white powder, the monohydrate. Sodium carbonate is domestically well-known for its everyday use as a water softener. It can be extracted from the...
and limestone dust for use in glass
Glass
Glass is an amorphous solid material. Glasses are typically brittle and optically transparent.The most familiar type of glass, used for centuries in windows and drinking vessels, is soda-lime glass, composed of about 75% silica plus Na2O, CaO, and several minor additives...
manufacture. http://www.raynesandco.com/about/ahistory.htm
20th Century
- 1923, the parish of Llysfaen was moved from Caernarvonshire (of which it had been an exclave) to the surrounding DenbighshireDenbighshire (historic)Historic Denbighshire is one of thirteen traditional counties in Wales, a vice-county and a former administrative county, which covers an area in north east Wales...
. - 1927, United Alkali CompanyUnited Alkali CompanyUnited Alkali Company Limited was a British chemical company formed in 1890. Producer of soda ash by the Leblanc process and used in the glass, textile, soap, and paper industries. It became one of the top four British chemical companies merged in 1926 with Brunner Mond, Nobel Explosives and...
Ltd took over Raynes & Co. and were then purchased themselves in the same year by Imperial Chemical IndustriesImperial Chemical IndustriesImperial Chemical Industries was a British chemical company, taken over by AkzoNobel, a Dutch conglomerate, one of the largest chemical producers in the world. In its heyday, ICI was the largest manufacturing company in the British Empire, and commonly regarded as a "bellwether of the British...
(ICI). - 1931, Llysfaen railway station closed, but the signal box was not removed until 1983 as it served sidings used by the ICI lime works. http://www.signalbox.org/gallery/lm/llysfaen.htm
- 1972, the church was subject to another restoration.
- 1974, the vast majority of the county of DenbighshireDenbighshire (historic)Historic Denbighshire is one of thirteen traditional counties in Wales, a vice-county and a former administrative county, which covers an area in north east Wales...
including Llysfaen was assumed by the larger ClwydClwydClwyd is a preserved county of Wales, situated in the north-east, bordering England with Cheshire to its east, Shropshire to the south-east, and the Welsh counties of Gwynedd to its immediate west and Powys to the south. It additionally shares a maritime border with the metropolitan county of...
with Llysfaen also becoming part of the borough of ColwynColwynThe Borough of Colwyn was one of six districts of the county of Clwyd, north-east Wales, from 1974 to 1996.It was formed under the Local Government Act 1972 from the following parts of the administrative county of Denbighshire:...
. - 1996, as part of the reorganisation of Wales into unitary authorities, Llysfaen became part of the county boroughCounty boroughCounty borough is a term introduced in 1889 in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland , to refer to a borough or a city independent of county council control. They were abolished by the Local Government Act 1972 in England and Wales, but continue in use for lieutenancy and shrievalty in...
of ConwyConwy (county borough)Conwy County Borough is a unitary authority area in North Wales.-Geography:It contains the major settlements of Llandudno, Llandudno Junction, Llanrwst, Betws-y-Coed, Conwy, Colwyn Bay, Abergele, Penmaenmawr and Llanfairfechan, and has a total population of about 110,000.The River Conwy, after...
.