Chapter 3

The patronage of the living is vested in the Lord of the Manor. {36} The Rev. S. E. Gladstone, the present Rector, was appointed by the late Sir Stephen Glynne in 1872.

The Grammar School is finely situated, near the Church, and has accommodation for 50 scholars, inclusive of 20 boarders. The income from endowment is 24 pounds.

The temporary building adjoining contains a portion of the Library of the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone.

The land about Hawarden varies much in quality. The best lies towards the river and on Saltney, where are large and well cultivated farms. On the higher ground in Pentrobin the soil is poorer; here however are found holdings that have remained in the same family for generations. The land is mainly arable; but little cheese being now made.

About one mile and a half from Hawarden on the road to Northop, lie ensconced in a wood the scant remains of the old Castle of Ewloe--the scene of a battle between the English and Welsh in 1157, in which the former were defeated by David and Conan, sons of Owen Gwynedd.

The district is rich in beds of coal and clay. The former have been worked from an early period when the coal was mostly sent to Chester; but the difficulties of carriage before the turnpike road was made, and especially of draining the mines, which before steam-engines came into use was attempted to be done by means of levels, {37} were a serious impediment to that development which under more favourable conditions has since taken place.

Formerly the only means of getting the minerals of the district away, was a horse tramway from Buckley to Queensferry. In 1862 however was opened the Wrexham and Connah's Quay Railway,--Mrs. Gladstone cutting the first sod, and an address from the Corporation of Wrexham being at the same time presented to Mr. Gladstone, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. This line is now carried through Hawarden, and, when connected with Birkenhead and Liverpool by the Mersey Tunnel, now happily completed, is destined in all probability to become one of importance beyond the limits of the immediate district.

Clay has been extensively worked in Buckley, where the Messrs. Hancock's famous fire-brick is made. Mention may also be made of the white bricks made by the Aston Hall Coal and Brick Company, which are in great favour with builders on account of their powers of resisting the weather and of retaining their colour. A clay, resembling _terra cotta_ when burnt, has also been found on Saltney.

At Sandycroft, on the river bank, are the Ironworks belonging to Messrs. Taylor, where mining and other machinery is made.

The present course of the River below Chester, is called the New Cut, and was completed under Act of Parliament, in 1737, by the River Dee Company, who have lately handed over their interest in the River to a newly formed Conservancy Board. The River, which before wandered over a large tract, was thus confined to the present channel, and a large reclamation of land effected. In compensation for the loss of rights of pasturage, 200 pounds is paid yearly by the Company to Trustees for the benefit of the Freeholders of the Manor of Hawarden; 50 pounds is also paid yearly for the repair of the south bank. This was followed by the inclosure of Saltney Marsh, in 1778.

Possessing as it does a greater depth of water over the bar than the Mersey, and provided with ample railway communication with the great industrial centres, it is probable that the Dee may ere long become a far more important river as a vehicle of commerce than heretofore. Of still more importance to Hawarden is the establishment of direct communication with Liverpool already referred to, in place of the present circuitous route by Chester and Runcorn. By the new Swing Railway Bridge across the Dee, direct access will be given to Birkenhead and Liverpool by the Mersey Tunnel across the Wirral; such communication will not only stimulate and develop to the utmost the natural resources of the district, but will offer residential facilities, beneficial, as it may be hoped, alike to town and country.

{Map of Hawarden: p38.jpg}

PHILLIPSON AND GOLDER, PRINTERS, CHESTER.

Footnotes:

{8} He was buried at Shuldham, in Norfolk.

{9a} Pennant. Sir W. Stanley had rendered the most valuable service to the King at the battle of Bosworth; yet, upon suspicion of his favouring the cause of Perkin Warbeck, the King had him seized at his castle at Holt and beheaded.

{9b} This may have been the house known as "The Manor," now occupied by Mr. Bakewell Bower of the Manor Farm.

{10} See Campbell's Lives of the Chief Justices.

{11a} The Letters Patent recite also the service rendered to the King by the furnishing a sum of money sufficient for the maintenance of thirty soldiers for three years in the Plantation of Ulster.

{11b} Henley Park was left to John Glynne, (son of the Chief Justice by his second wife,) through whom it passed by marriage to Francis Tilney, Esq.

{11c} We find Hugh Ravenscroft mentioned as Steward of the Lordships of Hawarden and Mold, about the year 1440. Thomas Ravenscroft, father of Honora, afterwards Lady Glynne, by his wife Honora Sneyd of Keel Hall, Staffordshire, was a Member of Parliament, and died in 1698, aged 28. There is a monument to him in Hawarden Church.

{12} Pennant learnt that the timber had been valued in 1665 at 5000 pounds and subsequently sold.

{13} Between 1830 and 1840 the Norman Archaeological Society visited the sites of all the Castles of the Barons who had gone over to England with William the Conqueror, and in none of them found any masonry older than the second half of the eleventh century.

{14} _e.g._ Mr. G. T. Clark and Mr. J. H. Parker, from whom this account is chiefly derived.

{16} The uncommon strength and tenacity of the ancient mortar used in the Castle was especially conspicuous in the Keep prior to the recent restorations. In one place an enormous mass of masonry remained suspended without other support than its own coherence and adhesion. For security this has now been underpinned.

{23a} In 1563 there were five bells. In 1740 they were sold and six new ones purchased from Abel Rudhall of Gloucester, at a cost of 628 pounds. They bear the following inscriptions, with the initials of the maker and the date 1745 in each case:

No. 1. Peace and good neighbourhood.

,, 2. Prosperity to all our benefactors.

,, 3. Prosperity to this Parish.

,, 4. I to the Church the living call, And to the grave do summon all.

,, 5. Geo Hope, Churchwarden. Thos Fox, Sidesman.

,, 6. Abel Rudhall of Gloucester cast us all.

{23b} There is a curious carved oaken slab, 4ft high, surmounted by a cross, which forms part of the present Reading Desk. On the cross is an eagle, with a vine branch and grapes above, and with a scroll in his beak inscribed, In Domino confido. The pillar was probably in commemoration of a maiden daughter of Randolph Pool, Rector in 1537.

{24a} Its peculiarity consisted in its accommodating two officiating clergymen simultaneously. The Clerk's Desk was, as usual, below.

{24b} This Chancel, called the Whitley Chancel, was restored and decorated in 1885, by the munificence of H. Hurlbutt, Esq., of Dee Cottage, from the designs of Mr. Frampton, and under the superintendence of Mr. Douglas, Architect, Chester. The same gentleman erected the Lych Gate at the North entrance to the Churchyard.

{27} From Tinkersdale Quarry.

{28a} Dante is one of the four authors to whom Mr. Gladstone attributes the greatest _formative_ influence on his own mind; the other three being Aristotle, Bishop Butler, and S. Augustine.

{28b} Sir S. Glynne was one of the highest authorities on English Ecclesiology. He visited and described in a series of Note Books, which are carefully preserved, nearly the whole of the old parish churches in the country. His Notes of the Churches of Kent are published by Murray. He died in 1874, at the age of 66. There is a good portrait of him by Roden.

{29a} Eldest son of Mr. and Mrs. W. H. Gladstone.

{29b} Sir John Glynne has recorded that only one tree was standing about the place in 1730. This is supposed to be the large spreading oak adjoining the Flower Garden.

{32a} This Church contains some noteworthy frescoes and other mural decorations, the work of the Rev. John Troughton, sometime curate in charge.

{32b} A wag is said to have scratched on the stump of a tree at Hawarden the following couplet:

"No matter whether oak or birch-- They all go like the Irish Church."

{33a} _Homer_. _Iliad_ xxili. 315

"By skill far more than strength the woodman fells The sturdy oak." _Ld. Derby's Translation_

{34} 1889-1890.

{35a} Buckley Church, towards which a grant of 4000 pounds was made by the Commissioners for Church building, was designed by Mr. John Gates of Halifax, and holds 740 persons. The first stone was laid by the youthful hands of Sir S. R. Glynne and his Brother Henry, afterwards Rector, and the Consecration was performed nine months afterwards, by the Bishop of Chester, Dr. Gardiner, Prebendary of Lichfield, preaching the Sermon. The Schools and Parsonage had been previously erected by the exertions of the Hon. and Rev. George Neville Grenville (afterwards Dean of Windsor), at a cost of about 2000 pounds.

{35b} Much improved by the recent addition of a Chancel, the gift of W. Johnson, Esq., of Broughton Hall.

{35c} Built by Sir S. R. Glynne: Vicarage and Schools by Lady Glynne.

{36} In the Journals of the House of Commons occurs the following entry, dated 23rd February, 1646:--"An Ordinance from the Lords for Mr. Bold, a Minister, to be instituted into the Church of Hawarden, in Flintshire."

{37} On the 1st October, 1770, assembled a grand Procession, with coloured cockades, to start the opening of a Level, designed to be driven one mile and three quarters in length and eighty yards deep "in order" (so the notice ran) "to lay dry a body of coal for future ages." The wages were to be, for boys and lads employed about the horses, and windlasses--26 in number, 6d. a day, smiths, carpenters and labourers, above ground generally--42 in number, 1/4 a day, underground laboures 42, Cutters 68 in number, 1/6 a day, underground stewards 10 in number, 1/6 a day.

At this date the price of coal at the pit's mouth was not less than 16/- a ton, or fully double what it is at present. The course of this notable work which effectually drained the Hollin seam of coal may still be traced for a long distance by its succession of ventilating shafts, finally issuing in the ravine called Kearsley, and discharging its waters into the brook.