Landscape History Today: the Bulletin of CSLH September 2014 Number 55 First World War Themed Bedding Display, Erddig Contents Chair’s Message 3 Lead ... a backdrop to Mold 4 Landscape History Beyond Our Shores 23 Nantwich Then and Now 26 Member’s Research Day 28 Field Visit Reports 29 New Publication 45 Erddig Gardens and Summer Buffet 46 Date for the diary Members may be interested in the following event ... Saturday 25th October - CLHA History Day ‘Legacies of Conflict in Cheshire’ Editor: Sharon Varey, Meadow Brook, 49 Peel Crescent, Ashton Hayes, Cheshire, CH3 8DA Email: [email protected] Web: www.chesterlandscapehistory.org.uk Page 2 Chair’s Message As I type this message, with the sun streaming through the window, it is hard to believe that the autumn season will soon be upon us. This year a number of our field visits were bathed in glorious sunshine. Tea, coffee and cakes ‘topped off’ a very enjoyable day exploring the Weaver Valley; ice creams were enjoyed by many members following our visit to Parkgate in May and cool drinks were certainly the order of the day at the Carden Arms in Tilston during the President’s visit in June. In July, the sun blessed our evening visit to Erddig where a wholesome buffet followed an extremely enjoyable stroll around the gardens. Monday 29 September sees the start of our autumn lecture season with Della Hooke speaking about the Staffordshire Hoard. This will undoubtedly prove a popular lecture and it will be followed by the launch of our latest publication Field-names in Cheshire, Shropshire and North-East Wales. Wine, soft drinks and nibbles will be available along with a chance to chat informally to the contributors of this volume. With no residential visit this year we have designed an extended Discovery Day offering something for everyone. This event takes place on Saturday 4 October. Come along and discover something you never knew about Nantwich. With an early evening meal to round off the day, this promises to be a day of discovery with a difference (more details p.26). 2015 sees something new for CSLH – our very own Member’s Research Day. You can read more about this exciting new venture on p.28 So put the date – Saturday 10 October 2015– in your diary/mobile/calendar today! Finally, I would like to extend a big ‘thank you’ to everyone who has contributed towards this newsletter. I hope you enjoy reading it. Sharon Varey Page 3 Lead: a backdrop to Mold Mold is situated close to the belt of lead bearing carboniferous limestone which runs from Prestatyn, in the north-west through Halkyn Mountain and Maeshafn to Minera in the south-east. As a result of this proximity, Mold has long been associated with the mining and smelting of lead, especially in the nineteenth century. Figure 2 shows Mold in the centre of the main distribution of mines, from Halkyn Mountain, through the Alyn Valley to Llanferres and Maeshafn. Figure 1 Lead pig with Deceangli inscription. There is evidence of the Romans exploiting this resource when lead was required at their fort at Deva (Chester). The discovery of a Roman smelting works at Pentre, near Flint and of pigs of lead stamped with the inscription ‘Deceangli’, the name of the local British tribe, support this assumption. There is no direct evidence of the Roman mining effort as subsequent mining activities have destroyed them. After the departure of the Romans the industry went into decline and it was not until a resurgence of building works under the Normans (a time of castles, abbeys and churches) and during the Middle Ages that there was an increase in demand, but this was on a relatively small scale. There is a record that, in 1280, 24 wagons loads of lead were bought at Mold for Edward I’s castle at Builth. It is not until the beginning of the seventeenth century that increased interest in the industry is evidenced. In 1589 the Crown granted the mineral rights in the lordships of Coleshill and Rhuddlan, of which Halkyn Mountain forms a part, to a William Ratcliffe of London. In 1597, the same William Ratcliffe was granted the lease of a lead smelting mill and a small plot of land called ‘Y Thole’ by Edward Lloyd of Page 4 Figure 2 Map of lead mines in the Mold area. Page 5 Pentrehobin. This suggests that the industry was already established. These two rights were then sold to Richard Grosvenor in 1601 and thus began the family’s connection with lead mining. Around this time they also accumulated the mineral rights in the lordships of Bromfield and Yale in Denbighshire. These acquisitions enabled the family to control a huge swathe of the industry in the Mold area. At the time of the sale of the Mold lead mill in 1601, an inventory was produced which gives an idea of how a smeltery functioned. The site’s proximity to the River Alyn allowed the water to power two great pairs of bellows and these were valued at £6 13s 4d. Ladles for transferring the smelted lead from the fore-hearth into one ‘greate iron moulde’ and the twelve ‘small mouldes’ were also mentioned. Shovels and iron bars, for charging the furnace; 10 stampers for crushing the ore before ‘budding’ it; tools, a grind stone and a pair of bellows in the smithy were also recorded. Other items mentioned included three pairs of panniers for the carrying of the smelted lead to the warehouse in Chester; 414 sacks of ‘white coal’ (dried chopped wood), some black coal (charcoal) as fuel for the furnace; a new fire-bottom and a beam and scales for weighing the lead. The presence of some pig lead at the smeltery along with 2000 dishes of ore (each one weighing 66 pounds) at Halkyn and 189 more dishes at the mill show that this was a ‘going’ concern. A rather poignant note is struck by the inclusion of a bedstead and personal effects, probably from the agent’s house which was situated beside the mill. Other information we have about the mill is that it was worked by Charles and Nigel Coar of Mold with three assistants and a Hugh Thomas of Nerquis with one assistant. They were to smelt lead weekly at two streams, one to be ‘wrought in the day and the other in the night’. In 1640 the head smelter, Richard Gerard, was paid 5s per week plus ‘house and meat’. The site is still recalled in the name, Leadmills, an area of Mold, adjacent to the Bridge Inn public house. Once the lead had been smelted, it was transported from Mold, firstly to Chester and then on to London. Overland transportation by packhorse cost 8s 4d per ton whereas the costs by sea were 15s per ton. This was on a purchase price of £7 10s per ton. During the seventeenth century, as the industry gained in importance, a new mill was built (1661) and output doubled. From the 1670s smelting operations Page 6 became more concentrated on Deeside, probably due to better transport links by using the River Dee. One of the best examples of this is from the early eighteenth century when the Quaker London Lead Company built a large smelting house at Gadlys at Bagillt. The Grosvenor’s main interests initially lay in exploiting the reserves on Halkyn Mountain. In 1614 they entered into a partnership with Thomas Jones, a local landowner whose estate was based on Halkyn Old Hall, to exploit the lead reserves. This relationship did not last long and it ceased in 1619 but the Grosvenors, over the following centuries, accumulated more and more land and estates on the Mountain. From the end of the eighteenth century the Halkyn estate and mineral properties were administered by an agent at Halkyn while their Denbighshire mines were managed from Eaton. In 1825-26, the Grosvenors built Halkyn Castle along with a new church designed by John Douglas of Chester. They retained these lands until 1913. From the early days of this industry, the mine owners found it necessary to ‘import’ labour and expertise from more well-established lead-mining areas as there was insufficient local knowledge. These workers came mainly from Cornwall and Derbyshire and their legacy lives on in many of the local surnames in this part of north-east Wales: Hartley, Ingleby, Stubbing and Hooson. Not only did these men bring their talents but they also operated under the laws pertaining to these other districts whereby the miners kept 9/10ths of the ore and giving the owner or lessees the remainder. This was a situation that Sir Richard did not find to his liking and c.1619 he embarked on a course of litigation against the miners who had petitioned that they had been forbidden to work the mines and been forced to sell to the Grosvenors at his price. The case resulted in victory for Sir Richard in the Court of Star Chamber in 1623. The family consolidated their position in 1634 and thereafter they controlled the mining of lead on Halkyn Mountain either by direct working or by the granting of leases. This was not the only time that the Grosvenors resorted to the law or were in dispute with the mining fraternity. There was, for example, in 1698 an instance when Sir Thomas Grosvenor was fighting the Quaker London Lead Company, their lessee. By this time outside investment in the area was becoming a necessity. Miners had been removed from the disputed holdings on Halkyn and Page 7 in the Grosvenor papers there are accounts of legal actions being undertaken.