Denbighshire

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Holt

"A parish in the Union of Wrexham, hundred of Bromfield, county of Denbigh, comprising the borough of Holt, and the parochial chapelry of Isycoed, in which latter are the townships of Cacca Dutton, Dutton y Brân, Dutton Difieth, Ridley, and Sutton. ..... The borough of Holt is 29 miles (ESE) from Denbigh, 21 miles (E by S) from Ruthin, and 191 miles (NW) from London. This parish ..... is supposed to have contained, under the Roman dominion in Britain, an outpost to the station Deva (Chester); and the fortress erected here, according to some antiquaries, was called from that circumstance, Castra Legionis, or "the castle of the legion", preserved in its synonymous Welsh name of Castell Lleon, which was probably, by mistaking Lleon for the plural of Llew, changed into "the castle of Lions", or "Lyons", which it continued to bear for ages. ..... Though anciently a place of some note, the borough at present constitutes only an inconsiderable village, situated on the road from Wrexham to Nantwich, on an eminence rising gently from a spacious vale, and on the western bank of the Dee, in the navigable part of its course, and immediately above the point where this river is joined from the west by the powerful stream of the Alyn"
[ A Topographical Dictionary of Wales, 1833 & 1849, Samuel Lewis]

Although it was a technically a chapelry of the parish of Gresford, which was (and still is) in the diocese of St. Asaph, Holt was in the diocese of Chester until 1849, when it was transferred to St. Asaph.
It formerly contained the townships of Caca Dutton, Dutton Diffaeth, Dutton y Brain, Hewlington, Holt, Ridley and Sutton; but in 1829, Caca Dutton, Dutton Diffaeth, Dutton y Brain, Ridley and Sutton went to the new parish of Isycoed.

Bibliography

• Bellis, Edwin.  How a Holt business grew  [these notes have been dictated by Edwin Bellis].       Holt : [Edwin Bellis], 1929.
• Booth,  P.H.W.  The corporation of Holt, the Manor of Farndon, and the bridge over the Dee, Denbighshire        Archaeologia Cambrensis, Vol. 146 (1997), p. 109-116
• Holt     Wrexham : Holt Local History Society, 1999.
• Holt then and now     Holt : Holt Women's Institute, 1988.
• Jones,  Michael K.     Sir William Stanley of Holt          Welsh history review, Vol. 14, no. 1 (June 1988), p. 1-22
• Palmer, Alfred Neobard.  The Town of Holt, in County Denbigh            London : Printed at the Bedford Press, 1910.
• Powell, John.    Holt and its records through the centuries        Holt : [J. Powell], c1982.
• Powell, John.     A short history of Holt           [Wrexham : The author], between 1976 and 1978?]
• Roberts, Raymond.   The Holt and Farndon six      Connah's Quay : Clwydian Walks, 1996.
• Shelbourne, Eirwen.  A fine historic place to Holt a while       Country Quest, July 2007, p. 16-17
• Stephens, C R.    The tile graffito from Holt       Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies, Vol. 36 (1989), p. 224-226
• Ward, Margaret.    Some finds from the Roman works-depot at Holt      Studia Celtica, Vol. 32, (1998), p. 43-84

Church History

"The restoration of the church (1871 - 1873) involved a great deal of change, and cost about £4000. As in most cases of this kind, it is difficult, after so long an interval, to learn the details of what was then done. But cart-loads of dead bodies were taken out of the church, and re-interred, the floor levelled, and the chancel re-arranged. Many of the memorial slabs also disappeared."
[ The Town of Holt in County Denbigh, 1910, Alfred Neobard Palmer]

The Clwyd FHS website has a photograph of the church.

Nonconformist Churches "Welsh Church Commission - County of Denbigh - The Statistics of the Nonconformist Churches for 1905"lists the following nonconformist places of worship in the Civilparish of Holt :

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Church Records

Parish Registers

• The following Parish Registers have been deposited at the Denbighshire Record Office, Ruthin.
  They may be viewed on microfilm at the Denbighshire and Flintshire Record Offices, at the A.N. Palmer Library, Wrexham, and at the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth.
  These microfilms are not available elsewhere.

• Clwyd FHS has published full transcriptions of the registers (complete with indexes) for the following years :

Bishop's Transcripts

• Bishop's Transcripts for the years shown below have been deposited in the Cheshire Record Office, Chester.
  On 21 February 1990, these Bishop's Transcripts were microfilmed by the LDS; and the films are available on request at Family History Centres of the LDS.
  The films may also be viewed at the Flintshire and Cheshire Record Offices.
  

• Bishop's Transcripts for the years shown below have been deposited in the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth.
  Around the year 1951, most of the Bishop's Transcripts which had been deposited at that time were microfilmed by the LDS; and the films are available on request at Family History Centres of the LDS.
  The films may also be viewed at the Denbighshire and Flintshire Record Offices, and at the National Library of Wales.
  In general, the Bishop's Transcripts are less complete than the parish registers.

I.G.I.

• The following have been incorporated into the I.G.I., as part of an "official extraction" programme.
  They were extracted from the Bishop's Transcripts, not from the Parish Registers.

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Civil Registration

In the GRO indexes to civil registration, entries for Holt are in the format :

• Years 1837 - 1851: Wrexham XXVII. nnn
• Years 1851 - 1930: Wrexham 11b. nnn

(GRO index references have no relevance at the local Superintendent Registrar's Office)

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Description and Travel

Holt - on wikipedia

Holt Castle - on Castle Wales

Holt Bridge - on Wrexham.gov.uk

Holt photographs - on geograph.org.uk

Maps

On Clwyd FHS's site there is a diagram showing parish names/positions with links to pages for the parish church

Kain, R.J.P., Oliver, R.R., Historic Parishes of England and Wales: an Electronic Map of Boundaries before 1850 with a Gazetteer and Metadata [computer file]. Colchester, Essex: History Data Service, UK Data Archive [distributor], 17 May 2001. SN: 4348.   Here is a gazetteer/finding aid plus a set of overview maps to accurately identify the position of parishes within the county

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Population

• In 1831- the population was 1609.
• In 1901- the population was 1059.
  [ Royal Commission on the Welsh Church - October 1907]

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Last Updated  9 Jan 2013 - Gareth Hicks