Flintshire

Parishes

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Whitford / Chwitffordd

"This parish rises for the most part gradually from the shore of the wide æstuary of the Dee, by which it is bounded on the east and north-east, into hills of considerable elevation. ..... The village, which is of small size, but contains several neat houses, is pleasantly situated at no great distance from the Chester and Holyhead road, and near the head of a small valley, which, deepening in its course, stretches towards the sea, having its sides beautifully fringed with woods."
[ A Topographical Dictionary of Wales, S. Lewis, 1834]

Whitford is one of the "ancient parishes" of Flintshire. It originally comprised the nine townships of Bychton, Ednywain (or Trefednywain), Maesbledrys, Mertyn Isglan, Mertyn Uwch Glan, Tre'rabad, Tre'r Llan (or Whitford Lan), Tre Mostyn and Whitford Garn.
On 23 May 1844, it lost the townships of Bychton and Mertyn Isglan, and part of the township of Tre Mostyn, to the newly created parish of Mostyn.
On 19 August 1853, part of the township of Mertyn Uwch Glan was lost to the new parish of Gorsedd.

Bibliography

• Beer, Adolf W          View taken from Pennant's historyof the parishes of Whitford and Holywell       Flintshire Historical Society journal, Vol.6  1917   Welsh Journals Online
• Davies, Ellis Canon       Whitford Church ( St Bueno and St Mary)        Flintshire Historical Society journal, Vol.13  1952/3   Welsh Journals Online
• Metcalfe,  Peter Redfern.    The Whitford poor book       Hel achau, No. 62 (Nov. 1999), p. 24-29.
• Mostyn, E.M. Lloyd.         Hanes gosodiad carreg-sylfaen eglwys Gorsedd, ym mhlwyf Whitford, Swydd Fflint, yr hyn a wnaethpwyd ar ddydd Llun Pasg, MDCCCLII     W. Morris : Swyddfa'r Cymro, 1852.
• Roberts, Dewi.    Wonderful Whitford       Country Quest. (February 2005), p. 29
• Tennant, Rowland.      A history of six villages          Holywell : Rowland Tennant, 2003.
• Tennant, Rowland.             Mynydd y Garreg Tower, Whitford        Clwyd Historian = Hanes Bro Clwyd. No. 58 (Spring 2008), p. 21-22.

Church History

Church of St Mary and St Beuno, Whitford - on CPAT

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 Civilparish of Whitford :

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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.

• 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 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.

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.

Nonconformist Records

• The following nonconformist registers for the Whitford / Mostyn 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.
  All, except Cysegr, have also been incorporated into the I.G.I., as part of an "official extraction" programme :

• The following nonconformist registers for the Whitford / Mostyn area are held either at the Flintshire Record Office, Hawarden (FRO) or at the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth (NLW).
  They have not been filmed; and they have not been incorporated into the I.G.I. :

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Civil Registration

In the GRO indexes to civil registration, entries for Whitford 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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Description and Travel

Whitford - on Vision of Britain

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

Population

• In 1831- the population was 3333.
• In 1901- the population was 908.
  [ Royal Commission on the Welsh Church - October 1907]

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Statistics

Archdeacon Thomas (1911) gives the area of the parish as 3500 acres.

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Last Updated   8 Jan 2013 - Gareth Hicks