The Hawarden Visitors' Hand-Book Revised Edition, 1890

Excerpt

Hawarden Village and Manor.

Hawarden, in Flintshire, lies 6 miles West of Chester, at a height of 250 feet, overlooking a large tract of Cheshire and the Estuary of the Dee.  It is now in direct communication with the Railway world by the opening of the Hawarden and Wirral lines.  It is also easily reached from Sandycroft Station, or from Queen’s Ferry, (1½ m.)—whence the Church is plainly seen—or again from Broughton Hall Station (2¼m.).  The Glynne Arms offers plain but comfortable accommodation.  There are also some smaller hostelries, and a Coffee House called “The Welcome.”

The Village consists of a single street, about half a mile in length.  Two Crosses formerly stood in it; the Upper and the Lower, destroyed in 1641.  The site of the Lower Cross, at the eastern end, is marked by a Lime tree planted in 1742.  Here stood the Parish Stocks, long since perished.  More durable, but grotesque in its affectation of Grecian architecture, may be seen close by, the old House of Correction.  This spot is still called the Cross Tree.

The Fountain opposite the Glynne Arms is designed as a Memorial of the Golden Wedding of the Right Hon. W. E. and Mrs. Gladstone.  A little lower down is the new Police Office; and further on is the Institute, containing mineralogical and other specimens, together with a good popular library.

In Doomsday Book, Hawarden appears as a Lordship, with a church, two ploughlands—half of one belonging to the church—half an acre of meadow, a wood two leagues long and half a league broad.  The whole was valued at 40 shillings; yet on all this were but four villeyns, six boors, and four slaves: so low was the state of population.  It was a chief manor, and the capital one of the Hundred of Atiscross, extending from the Dee to the Vale of Clwyd, and forming part of Cheshire.

The name is variously spelt in the old records.  In Doomsday Book it is Haordine; elsewhere it is Weorden or Haweorden, Harden, HaWordin, Hauwerthyn, Hawardin and Hawardine.  It is pretty clearly derived from the Welsh Din or Dinas, castle on a hill (although some attribute to it a Saxon derivation), and was no doubt, like the mound called Truman’s Hill, west of the church, in the earliest times a British fortification.

No Welsh is spoken in Hawarden.  By the construction of Offa’s Dyke about A.D. 790, stretching from the Dee to the Wye and passing westwards of Hawarden, the place came into the Kingdom of Mercia, and at the time of the Invasion from Normandy is found in the possession of the gallant Edwin.  It would appear, however, from the following story, derived, according to Willett’s History of Hawarden, from a Saxon MS., that in the tenth century the Welsh were in possession.

“In the sixth year of the reign of Conan, King of North Wales, there was in the Christian Temple at a place called Harden, in the Kingdom of North Wales, a Roodloft, in which was placed an image of the Virgin Mary, with a very large cross, which was in the hands of the image, called Holy Rood.  About this time there happened a very hot and dry summer; so dry that there was not grass for the cattle; upon which most of the inhabitants went and prayed to the image or Holy Rood, that it would cause it to rain, but to no purpose.  Among the rest, the Lady Trawst (whose husband’s name was Sytsylht, a nobleman and governor of Harden Castle) went to pray to the said Holy Rood, and she praying earnestly and long, the image or Holy Rood fell down upon her head and killed her; upon which a great uproar was raised, and it was concluded and resolved upon to try the said image for the murder of the said Lady Trawst, and a jury was summoned for this purpose, whose names were as follows:—

Hincot of Hancot, Span of Mancot,
Leech and Leach, and Cumberbeach.
Peet and Pate, with Corbin of the gate,
Milling and Hughet, with Gill and Pughet.”

The Jury—so continues the story—found the Holy Rood guilty of wilful murder, and the sentence was proposed that she should be hanged.  This was opposed by Span, who suggested that, as they wanted rain, it would be best to drown her.  This, again, was objected to by Corbin, who advised to lay her on the sands of the river and see what became of her.  This was done, with the result that the image was carried by the tide to some low land near the wall of Caerleon—(supposed to be Chester)—where it was found by the Cestrians drowned and dead, and by them buried at the gate where found, with this inscription:—

The Jews their God did crucify,
The Hardeners theirs did drown,
’Cos, with their wants she’d not comply,
And lies under this cold stone....