England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Gwaenysgor St Mary

The Parish

The parish of Gwaenysgor lies in the extreme north of Flintshire roughly 4 miles east of the coastal town of Rhyl. Gwaenysgor is a small and compact village which sits a mile east of the A547 road which connects Prestatyn with Rhuddlan. Gwaenysgor has an interestingly commanding position sitting high upon hills above the coastal lane on which Prestatyn sits with spectacular views along said coastline for many miles. It was the abundance of lead in those hills which saw the beginnings of the village, mines ran for many years before exhaustion and abandonment, the farming which has largely replaced those mines is almost totally pastoral on the often thin soils, replete with trace metals. Today Gwaenysgor may receive a few visitors from the nearby Offa's Dyke National Trail as the Eagle & Child Inn offers refreshment before the final descent to Prestatyn and the sea. There is little surface drainage on the hills with water making its way subsurface to the coastal plain where numerous small streams run into the Irish Sea. Gwaenysgor is sited at around 180 metres above the sea whilst nearby hills rise to 239 metres in the "last hurrah" of the Clwydian Hills before dropping steeply to the north. Gwaenysgor parish was small for a Welsh parish, covering barely 800 acres it would have supported a population of around 350 parishioners. Unlike most of Wales Flintshire is within the range of Domesday Book and Gwaenysgor is recorded, a holding of Robert of Rhuddlan it offered just a single plough and 2 households.

The Church

St Mary's church lies at the heart of the village, south of the Eagle & Child with its main entrance from Ffordd Llyn Goch. The church sits within the characteristic early Christian "llan" and the site is certainly pre-Conquest in origin but nothing of that early church remains. Today's building was so modified in the 15th & later centuries that it is difficult to place its origins, the font is one of the 13th century so this may be the date of today's origin too. The church is small and single chambered, with nave & chancel combined, all topped with a bellcote and fronted by a lengthy porch. Perpendicular style windows of the 15th century mark the re-modelling and extending of the church during that century whilst Pevsner assigns 16th or early 17th century to the porch and internal timber-work. Restoration was in the 1930s rather than the usual Victorian period and little affected other than to renew. Ffordd Llyn Goch is narrow so parking is best sought on the main lane through the village and the church best approached on foot. An arched metal gateway at the western end of the site forms the main entryway into a churchyard with no obstructions for the photographer.