Ffynnongroyw

A Memory of Ffynnongroyw.

I read with interest the account of Ken Davies and his childhood memories of the Garth Mill in Ffynnongroyw. We moved to Llinegr Farm on October 2nd 1961 (I was 7) and moved on November 6th 1988 after my father's death. I remember the Garth mill very well but at that time it had become a tyre retreading works and after several years as an empty building is now a pub. We too played cricket in that self same 'Lordys Field' but the danger was not quite so fraught as my father rented it off the Mostyn estate. Every year, all the kids in the village came together to erect a huge bonfire (we used to start making it in September!) and the whole village used to come. One of my most vivid childhood memories comes from our second year at Llinegr. On Boxing Day 1962, it started to snow and was followed by the harshest winter of the 20th century. The stream to which Ken refered froze solid and we walked on the ice all the way up to the dam in Garth woods where the Garth stream met Nant y felin blwm which provided water for the mill and for Mostyn iron works (closed 1964). We sledged for months on the field on the right of Llinegr Hill, which was rather unimaginatively called 'the sledging field'. My father delivered milk in the village and many days he pinched our sledge to deliver it because that was the only way over the frozen ground. I farmed with my father at Llinegr from 1977 and when he died in 1987, we pleaded with the council to keep it as a farm as it was part of the village. The plea fell on deaf years and it was split up and sold which seemed to sign the death warrant for that part of the village. The farmhouse and buildings were sold and became a restaurant and motel, and not very tastefully done either. The fields were split and sold and, as I write, quite frankly look awful. The dam wall is still there but the pond has now silted right up - no chance of fishing there now. Many of the paths where we could wander freely are now shut off by selfish new residents. In many ways, it also sounded the death knell for the village as around the same time the colliery closed, upon which the village was built. But nothing will dim the memory of a childhood when I was never ever bored - despite only 2 TV channels and no computer games.
Eryl Jones