GENUKI : Flintshire, Caerwys, St. Michael

Caerwys

"Caerwys, a small market town containing, according to the returns made to Parliament, 162 houses, and 773 inhabitants. ... It having been a Roman station, and afterwards a seat of judicature: the assize, or great sessions for the county of Flint being held for several centuries at this place."
[From North Wales ; Rev. J. Evans, 1812]

Caerwys is one of the "ancient parishes" of Flintshire. It comprises the townships of Tref Edwyn, Tre-dre, Bryngwyn Ucha and Bryngwyn Isa. The town of Caerwys was at one time a place of considerable importance.

Church History
Church Records
Civil Registration

Population
Statistics

Church History

Ordnance Survey reference SJ 127728
The earliest recorded mention of the church dates from AD 1291.

"The church, dedicated to St. Michael, is a neat edifice, with a square embattled tower, consisting of a nave and north aisle, and appropriately accommodated to the use of the parishioners."
[From Handbook for the Vale of Clwyd , William Davis, 1856]

The Clwyd FHS website has a photograph of the church.

Nonconformist Churches

"Welsh Church Commission - County of Flint - The Statistics of the Nonconformist Churches for 1905" lists the following nonconformist places of worship in the Civil parish of Caerwys:

Name of Chapel	Denomination	Number of "adherents"
Sion - Welsh	Baptist	40
Bethel	Calvinistic Methodist	140
Penycefn	Calvinistic Methodist	105
Not named	English Presbyterian	90
Not named - Welsh	Wesleyan	112

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Church Records

Parish Registers

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

Baptisms	Marriages	Burials
1673 - 1957	1673 - 1983	1673 - 1936

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

Baptisms	Marriages	Burials
1673 - 1812	1673 - 1812	1673 - 1812

Bishop's Transcripts

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 Flintshire and Denbighshire Record Offices, and at the National Library of Wales.
In general, the Bishop's Transcripts are less complete than the parish registers.

Deposited at the National Library of Wales	Microfilmed copies
1666 - 1842	1666 - 1842

I.G.I.

There are no official I.G.I. entries for St. Michael's Church, Caerwys.

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Nonconformist Records

The following nonconformist registers for the Caerwys area are held at the Public Record Office, Kew.
They may be viewed on microfilm at LDS Family History Centres; and at the Flintshire Record Office, the Denbighshire Record Office and the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth.
They have also been incorporated into the I.G.I., as part of an "official extraction" programme :

Name of Chapel	Denomination	Type of Record	Years Covered	I.G.I. Batch Number
Pen-y-cefn	Calvinistic Methodist	Births and Baptisms	1827 - 1835	C098291
Bethel	Calvinistic Methodist	Births and Baptisms	1810 - 1836	C098281

The following nonconformist registers for the Caerwys area are held at the Denbighshire Record Office, Ruthin.
They have not been filmed; and they have not been incorporated into the I.G.I. :

Name of Chapel	Denomination	Type of Record	Years Covered
Penycefn	Calvinistic Methodist	Baptisms	1878 - 1983

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Civil Registration

When Civil Registration was introduced (on 1 July 1837), the parish of Caerwys was assigned to the No. 1 ("Whitford") sub-district of the Holywell Registration District, which was co-extensive with the Holywell poor law Union.

In the GRO indexes to civil registration, entries for Caerwys are found under:

Years 1837 - 1851: Holywell XXVII.nnn
Years 1852 - 1946: Holywell 11b.nnn

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

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Population

In 1831- the population was 985.
In 1901- the population was 739.
[Royal Commission on the Welsh Church - October 1907]

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Statistics

Archdeacon Thomas (1911) gives the area of the parish as 2603 acres.

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Last Updated 29 Nov 2009 - Gareth Hicks