The Lost World

The old Meliden place-names tell a story. Penrhwylfa can be translated as Top Lookout. I wonder what they were watching out for—Romans, Vikings, Normans—the English? They all came! Venturing beyond Penrhwylfa Crossroads to what was once known as Meliden Shore Road used to be like visiting another world. Back in the 50s my family had bicycles and it was downhill all the way—we never seemed to think about the push back after a day on the sands. We rode between open fields and marshland—without a single bungalow in sight until reaching Morfa (Marsh), which was an isolated farmstead built next to a well, close to where the new school is now. It was surrounded by pasture-land and the old names around it suggest idyllic hay-making and contented cattle grazing on rich marshland in centuries gone by. Names such as Gadlas y Morfa – the marsh rickyard, Gors Bach – little marsh, Coitia Ysgubor – coitia barn and Coitia Helig – willow coitia give us clues about how the land was used before the builders arrived.

Twyn or Towyn is a common name in Wales and identifies sand dunes. Our Towyn was split by the railway in 1848, with Towyn this side and then on the other side, a sandy road down to Towyn Isaf or Lower Towyn. Before 1900, a few scattered cottages led to Sandy Lane—some are still there! In the other direction, there was no road to Rhyl until the Gronant to Rhyl road scheme of 1924 and anybody travelling to Rhyl had the choice of either taking the old Rhyl road from Four Crosses at the bottom of Allt y Graig, Dyserth, or a more devious route from Penrhwylfa past Rhyd Farm to join the old Dyserth Road nearer Rhyl. People mostly took the long route through Meliden because the land between Ffrith and Rhyl was a private track through sandhills and patrolled by keepers.

Ffrith is not Welsh, it comes from the Middle English word for a forest or game preserve and the 1839 tithe map spells it Freeth. Another land name found in Meliden is Coitia which also appears in many other parts of Flintshire. Sometimes written as kwitie or coetia, it is a name used where the land was once wooded and indicates a medieval cottage with trees which were carefully coppiced and allowed to regrow—a non-destructive, environmentally friendly procedure which could be repeated. The name Coitia Helig (Willow Coitia) seems out of place down by the treeless Ffrith—but thing have changed.

Myths of lost cities and villages around our coast are common and were once ascribed to the effects of the the Great Biblical Flood. Tree stumps, such as can be seen on the beach in Rhyl near Splash Point were sometimes known as Noah’s Trees.

North Wales Chronicle, February 11, 1893:

A SUBMERGED FOREST: A CURIOUS DISCOVERY.—

The action of the tide at Rhyl within the past few days has disclosed the singular sight of an ancient forest, which, for the period of eighty years, has been completely covered by the sea. The scoured portion of the the beach where this remarkable sight is presented is situate opposite the Marine Drive, about a mile east of the pier.

Before the 1900s, the shore from Rhyl to Prestatyn was a storm beach with rocks and pebbles like we see at Rhos on Sea. The Mersey Docks and Harbour Board needed rocks and pebbles to provide the ballast to make concrete for building its new docks in 1897 and was given permission to take away 2 million tons of material—creating the sandy beaches that became its employees’ descendants’ holiday destination!

The first holiday influx was to a camp where the North Wales Bowling Centre stands. The Warrington Lad’s Summer Camp had wooden huts to accommodate 200 poor children and must have been a magical experience for them. The site of what was to become the Ffrith was allotments before the Prestatyn Urban District Council bought it and turned it into a much loved Art Deco style beach in 1935. In the late 30s, the land next to the Warrington Lad’s Camp was bought by Thomas Cook in partnership with the LMS Railway to build Prestatyn Holiday Camp which opened in 1939—the same year as Towyn became part of Prestatyn. If Prestatyn Urban District Council had not absorbed Towyn, then Prestatyn Holiday camp would have been Meliden Holiday Camp!