Flintshire - Gemstone of Wales

I try my best to incorporate into any of my writing projects information about my home area 'Flintshire' (and sometimes slightly beyond), which I glean on the way.

The county of Flintshire is where I was born and where I have lived for the most part of my life, despite heading off to France pretty often to visit family... and of course Greece, where I have the best friends you might ever want to meet, as written in previous blogs.

I had grown up with history being talked about in the house, although more often than not, conversations surrounded social history as my dad was big in the Steel Union at the local steelworks in the 60s and 70s. My interest lay in a different kind of history though. Growing up in Oakenholt, the next village along from Flint, as you head to Chester along the A548, I found many an artefact  just lying on the ground, especially on dog walks in ploughed fields.  (Yes, I've always had dogs!)  As a child I'd found many such things.... a George III coin, an old ceramic inkwell, some lead scoriae, pieces of broken Roman earthenware, etc, and it occurred to me quite early on that I was surrounded by history.  It was in the architecture, in the faces of the people, in the old tales they told and on or under the ground I stood on.

Higher education beckoned and I did A-level history with a view to becoming an archaeologist, even once working on a dig at the oldest Grammar School in Wales, ironically situated almost opposite where I live in Northop nowadays.  But it wasn't to be, as my poor old late dad had a bad accident and lost his ability to work, so I had no option but to work instead of study as there was barely enough money coming into the house to pay the bills and feed everyone.  These were the days pre any meaningful benefits and assistance I am led to believe makes life easier nowadays.

Oakenholt has a rich Roman history which many who now live there on the big sprawling estates created in recent times, have no idea about. Lead from the mountains at Halkyn was brought to be smelted before heading off to distant lands of the Roman Empire to make pipes and even children's toys.  Hence the reason the area is also known in Welsh as Pentre Ffwrndan - place of the furnace.

By the way... Oakenholt comes from Saxon Middle English and means  'wood of oak trees.' This wood still exists and is the valley which starts at the coast where the North Wales Papermill still exists (right on the A548 and goes back towards Northop along which the Leadbrook flows. Another reference to lead  mining by the Romans in the area.

Many old byways in the area were created by the Romans and people now walking their dogs tread directly in the footsteps of the Romans who created them.

The long and short of it is that I had to content myself with reading about history.  initially I visited the local archives office in Hawarden but with the advent of the internet the ball game changed as I could research all sorts of local history from the comfort of my own home... and of course this led me to writing fiction books into which I could incorporate my historical research.

Whilst researching  Excalibur Reborn,  I discovered that the area of North East Wales in which Flintshire neatly nestles, represents a forgotten piece of Britain.  A piece of Britain steeped in both modern and very ancient history. 

Many visit places like the Lake District, Yorkshire, the Cotswolds, Snowdonia, etc., because they are the places 'talked about' as the places we should visit but there are other treasures to be found across our green and pleasant land which no one talks about and no one suggests anyone should visit. Flintshire is one such place for sure,  a secret of these isles waiting to be discovered.  As people come into Wales in their swarms along the main arterial A55 trunk road, they mainly head right on through the county without paying any attention to what is here at all.  Indeed, the last 150 years of industrialisation of the area has meant  people see Flintshire as a county where there is nothing but dirty industry and they fail to see the Gemstone of Wales which is Flintshire.

There is so much history on display in this county that I would have to blog for many a year to get it all down on paper, but I'll do my best in-between writing about other subjects close to my heart. 

In the coming days, I'll start by looking at my home village of Northop and slowly move out from there as and where my car, motorbike, pedal bike or walking my Bernese Mountain dogs takes me. 

Prior to taking up writing as a full time career, I have had a number of other careers...  I've been a police officer, a maths teacher, an NHS manager and a professional photographer, so on  journeys around the county and beyond, I do my best to use my photography training to capture some great pics of the area. Some of these images are on my phone too, so please excuse the odd pic of lesser quality! Anyhow, hopefully you will see the beauty of Flintshire and North East Wales through my artistic eyes and next time you are on the A55 you will stop and take a look at this beautiful gemstone shining bright in Chester’s shadow.

Incidentally, the image with this blog is of the River Dee with Flintshire Bridge centre image... taken on my phone from Ryanair, on a journey to France.

#Flintshire #Northop #amwriting #writerscommunity #Romans #flintbridge