The Hawarden Visitors Hand-Book

The Hawarden Visitors'
Hand-Book, by William

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William Henry Gladstone
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Title: The Hawarden Visitors' Hand-Book Revised Edition, 1890
Author: William Henry Gladstone

Release Date: December 3, 2006 [eBook #20012]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE
HAWARDEN VISITORS' HAND-BOOK***

Transcribed from the 1890 Phillipson & Golder edition by David Price,
[email protected]

The Hawarden Visitors' Hand-Book.
REVISED EDITION. 1890.
Chester: PRINTED FOR THE COMPILER BY PHILLIPSON &
GOLDER, EASTGATE ROW.
{W. Gladstone. Photographed by John Moffat, Edinburgh. 1884:
p0.jpg}
ENTERED AT STATIONERS' HALL. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Note as to the Illustrations.
The Views of the Castle Gate and of Broughton Lodge are taken from
Blocks kindly lent for the purpose of this publication by the Proprietor
of the Leisure Hour. And for the View of the House and Flower-garden
I am indebted to the courtesy of the Proprietors of Harpers Magazine.
W. H. G.

Regulations as to Hawarden Park and Old Castle.
Visitors are allowed to use the Gravel Drives through the Park and
Wood between Noon and Sunset.
Persons exceeding this permission and not keeping to the Carriage
Road will be deemed Trespassers.
The Park is closed on Good Friday and Whit-Monday.
Dogs not admitted.
Excursion parties can only be received by special permission, and not
later in the year than the first Monday in August.

The House is in no case shown.

Hawarden Village and Manor.
Hawarden, in Flintshire, lies 6 miles West of Chester, at a height of 250
feet, overlooking a large tract of Cheshire and the Estuary of the Dee. It
is now in direct communication with the Railway world by the opening
of the Hawarden and Wirral lines. It is also easily reached from
Sandycroft Station, or from Queen's Ferry, (1.5 m.)--whence the
Church is plainly seen--or again from Broughton Hall Station (2.25m.).
The Glynne Arms offers plain but comfortable accommodation. There
are also some smaller hostelries, and a Coffee House called "The
Welcome."
The Village consists of a single street, about half a mile in length. Two
Crosses formerly stood in it; the Upper and the Lower, destroyed in
1641. The site of the Lower Cross, at the eastern end, is marked by a
Lime tree planted in 1742. Here stood the Parish Stocks, long since
perished. More durable, but grotesque in its affectation of Grecian
architecture, may be seen close by, the old House of Correction. This
spot is still called the Cross Tree.
The Fountain opposite the Glynne Arms is designed as a Memorial of
the Golden Wedding of the Right Hon. W. E. and Mrs. Gladstone. A
little lower down is the new Police Office; and further on is the
Institute, containing mineralogical and other specimens, together with a
good popular library.
In Doomsday Book, Hawarden appears as a Lordship, with a church,
two ploughlands--half of one belonging to the church--half an acre of
meadow, a wood two leagues long and half a league broad. The whole
was valued at 40 shillings; yet on all this were but four villeyns, six
boors, and four slaves: so low was the state of population. It was a chief
manor, and the capital one of the Hundred of Atiscross, extending from
the Dee to the Vale of Clwyd, and forming part of Cheshire.

The name is variously spelt in the old records. In Doomsday Book it is
Haordine; elsewhere it is Weorden or Haweorden, Harden, HaWordin,
Hauwerthyn, Hawardin and Hawardine. It is pretty clearly derived from
the Welsh Din or Dinas, castle on a hill (although some attribute to it a
Saxon derivation), and was no doubt, like the mound called Truman's
Hill, west of the church, in the earliest times a British fortification.
No Welsh is spoken in Hawarden. By the construction of Offa's Dyke
about A.D. 790, stretching from the Dee to the Wye and passing
westwards of Hawarden, the place came into the Kingdom of Mercia,
and at the time of the Invasion from Normandy is found in the
possession of the gallant Edwin. It would appear, however, from the
following story, derived, according to Willett's History of Hawarden,
from a Saxon MS., that in the tenth century the Welsh were in
possession.
"In the sixth year of the reign of Conan, King of North Wales, there
was in the Christian Temple at a place called Harden, in the Kingdom
of North Wales, a Roodloft, in which was placed an image of the
Virgin Mary, with a very