Early Cilcain.
Early Village Photographs.
Oldest Houses.
Penbedw Standing Stones.
Hill Forts.
Moel Famau - Jubilee Tower.

Early Cilcain.

It is said that Cilcain was once one of the basest centres in the district, particularly notable for its annual fair where very large quantities of liquor were consumed! Cilcain Wakes Week achieved notoriety for its drunkenness and brawling. After Sunday morning church services, many of the congregation apparently made their way up to a quarry at Pedair-groesffordd to watch cock-fighting. After this 'entertainment', they returned to the village taverns to drink strong ale and fight amongst themselves. Cilcain sits on a bedrock of carboniferous limestone. The fields were stony, and years ago apparently farmers filled their carts with stones after the harvest and paved their part of the roads to pay their rates. Numerous lead veins were worked around the village, and gold mines at Pen Machno, Moel Dwyll and into Moel Fammau were said to produce the purest gold in the Principality. For a few brief years from the late 1880's, the hills above Cilcain were the scene of a short-lived 'gold-rush'. The goldfield hit the headlines in the Mining Journal in 1888. In the early 1890's, the landlord of the White Horse Inn was a part-owner of one of the tiny mines. He had a pony and trap waiting outside the White Horse Inn at Cilcain, every morning, to take a small party of workmen up to the workings. He also ensured miners' picks and drills were kept sharpened at the local smithy, and gave his men rooms at the Inn. The gold mines were worked until about 1895, but proved uneconomic. Were the deposits small, scattered and quickly exhausted, or do you think the miners missed great riches by bad luck or bad judgment?

At the bottom of the hill down from the church, past the historic buildings 'Long Barn' and the 'Old Vicarage' (1807), will be found the Nant Gain stream and an old mill pond. This once served a now derelict flour mill further down the Pentre valley

The earliest dwellings in Cilcain date from about 1642. See 'Oldest Houses'. The Smithy in the heart of the village is dated in 1572. In the countryside around the village are many old farmhouses and other dwellings dating from as long ago as the 16th century.

I acknowledge with thanks the loan of this postcard from Sarah & Peter Booth. It was originally posted in 1948. Note the telephone box in the row of gardens, which is enlarged below.

I thank Mr Peter Jeory, Landlord of the White Horse, for the loan of the photo below showing in the foreground the old Red Lion public house - c1890. I also thank Gillian Standing for her note saying that her great, great grandfather Peter Evans was the Publican of the Red Lion in Cilcen.

The Village and the Leete from the Church Tower, Cilcen.

Oldest Houses.

The oldest remaining houses in the village include:

Ty Isaf (1.5 miles north of village centre.)

Cefn Isa (0.7 miles north-east of the centre.)

Brithdir Mawr - a rare hall house - 1.5 miles south of the centre. I am informed by Patrick Topley that it is a Grade 1 listed building built in 1589. Patrick says it was a wonderful place in which to grow up. He remembers the postman delivering their mail on a Shire horse in the early 1960’s. I acknowledge with thanks this photo which he took with a box camera when he was only 11 years old.

Penbedw Standing Stones.

This prehistoric stone circle is located close to the boundary between Cilcain and Nannerch, and is described on the Nannerch page (which can be accessed via the link below).

Hill Forts.

Many of the subsidiary peaks in the Clwydian Range hold ruins of massive hill forts - Foel Fenlli (near Llanferres), Moel-y-Gaer (near Llanbedr); Moel Arthur (near Cilcain) and Pen-y-Cloddiau (near Nannerch). The forts had multiple protective ramparts, and were all constructed over 2,000 years ago by Celtic tribesmen during the early Iron Age or Bronze Age (900 BC to the Roman conquest in 55 BC). A hill fort is an area of land enclosed by a bank and ditch. They may have been used for defence, or as urban centres or as stock enclosures to keep cattle safe from marauding animals and rustlers. Individual round or rectangular houses could exist within the forts. Only one fort in he Clwyd Region has been fully excavated, and that also has the name Moel-y-Gaer at Rhosesmor. The Moel Arthur fort was the smallest of the four in the Country Park, but has impressive ramparts on its north side which are quite high and elaborately constructed. Pen-y-Cloddiau was one of the largest hill forts in Wales covering about 50 acres and having a circumference of 1.5 miles.

Moel Famau - Jubilee Tower.

My thanks to Annette Edwards of Summerhill, Wrexham, for sending the three images below. She believes they were taken using glass slides, and then the photos were transferred to paper prints.