which has now become the thriving seat of a large population engaged in the collieries; and in the manufacture of earthenware, draining tiles, and fire-bricks; all of which are held in high repute, and consequently command an extensive trade.
Ewloe Castle
is distant from Hawarden about two miles, and stands a quarter of a mile to the right from the turnpike-road leading thence to Northop. This interesting and lonely ruin does not discover itself by lofty towers, but will require some trouble to find it, as it is concealed on the east, west, and south, by the adjoining grounds, and embosomed in trees to the north, without any visible way of approach, save up the streamlet, which passes at its foot, and discharges itself into the estuary of the Dee, about two miles and a half below. Pennant designates this structure a small fortress, but from its present appearance it seems better calculated for the retirement or resort of a gang of desperate marauders, than for any military purpose. The towers are now finely overgrown with ivy, and command the view of three wooded glens, forming a gloomy solitude. The time of its erection is involved in some obscurity.—In the woods, near this place, called to this day,
Coed Ewloe,
part of the flower of the army detached by Henry the Second, in 1157, from his camp on Saltney, was surprised and defeated by David and Conan, the sons of Owen Gwynedd, sent by their father with a strong party from his camp near Basingwerk. They suffered the enemy to march along the straits of the country, till their forces were entangled in the depth of the woods and the steeps of the narrow valleys. The attack was fierce, sudden, and unexpected: the slaughter dreadful; and the pursuit carried even to Henry’s encampment. This proved to the English but a prelude to a second defeat. The king, with intent to repair the disgrace, marched forward with his whole army; and at Coleshill, near Flint, suffered himself to be entrapped into the same dilemma which his detachment had before experienced. His forces were again defeated, and several of his chiefs, with numbers of his men, slain. Henry de Essex, hereditary standard-bearer, and a man of approved valour, was seized with a panic, and throwing down the standard, cried out the king was killed. The route would have been general, if the king had not valiantly rallied his forces, and repulsed the Welsh; but in the end he thought it prudent to withdraw his army, and encamp in a more secure situation. He afterwards attempted to cut off the retreat of Owen Gwynedd by marching along the shore, and placing himself between him and the mountains; but the sagacious prince, penetrating his views, retired to a plain near St. Asaph, still called Cil Owen (or Owen’s Retreat), and thence to a strong post, called Brin-y-Pin, defended by great ramparts and ditches.
HOLT,
(Denbighshire.)
| Chester | 8 |
| Wrexham | 6 |
A small village, on the west bank of the Dee, was once a market town, and a place of some consequence; yet, even in its decayed and delapidated state, it has for its governor a mayor and two bailiffs.—The two villages of Holt and Farndon are separated only by the river, and communicate by a bridge of ten arches, built in 1345. The Dee at this place divides England from Wales; Farndon being in Cheshire, and Holt in Denbighshire.
HOLYHEAD,
(Anglesea.)
| Amlwch | 20 |
| Bangor | 24 |
| Beaumaris | 27 |
| Chester | 86 |
| Dublin | 60 |
| London, by Chester | 266 |