Cilcain
Encyclopedia
Cilcain is a small community
Community (Wales)
A community is a division of land in Wales that forms the lowest-tier of local government in Wales. Welsh communities are analogous to civil parishes in England....

, near Mold
Mold, Flintshire
Mold is a town in Flintshire, North Wales, on the River Alyn. It is the administrative seat of Flintshire County Council, and was also the county town of Clwyd from 1974 to 1996...

 in Flintshire
Flintshire
Flintshire is a county in north-east Wales. It borders Denbighshire, Wrexham and the English county of Cheshire. It is named after the historic county of Flintshire, which had notably different borders...

, north-east Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

. The village has an industrial history and includes the Millennium Woods, a post office
Post office
A post office is a facility forming part of a postal system for the posting, receipt, sorting, handling, transmission or delivery of mail.Post offices offer mail-related services such as post office boxes, postage and packaging supplies...

, a public house
Public house
A public house, informally known as a pub, is a drinking establishment fundamental to the culture of Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. There are approximately 53,500 public houses in the United Kingdom. This number has been declining every year, so that nearly half of the smaller...

, a parish church
Parish church
A parish church , in Christianity, is the church which acts as the religious centre of a parish, the basic administrative unit of episcopal churches....

 and a village hall
Village hall
In the United States, a village hall is the seat of government for villages. It functions much as a city hall does within cities.In the United Kingdom, a village hall is usually a building within a village which contains at least one large room, usually owned by and run for the benefit of the local...

.

Cilcain borders the parish
Parish
A parish is a territorial unit historically under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of one parish priest, who might be assisted in his pastoral duties by a curate or curates - also priests but not the parish priest - from a more or less central parish church with its associated organization...

es of Rhosesmor
Rhosesmor
Rhosesmor is a small village near Mold, Flintshire, in north-east Wales. The village lies near the parishes of Halkyn and Rhes-y-cae. The hamlet of Wern-y-Gaer is encompassed by the boundaries of the village.- History :...

, Rhes-y-Cae
Rhes-y-cae
Rhes-y-cae is a small parish and village located in Flintshire, North Wales. It is situated between Pentre Halkyn and Rhosesmor and is part of the local government community of Halkyn...

 and Rhydymwyn
Rhydymwyn
Rhydymwyn is a village in Flintshire, North Wales, located in the upper Alyn valley...

.

The name

The Welsh placename Cilcain, which has also in the past been spelled as Kilken and Cilcen, has been suggested to derive from cil meaning 'retreat' and cain meaning 'fair' or 'pleasant' in the Welsh language
Welsh language
Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...

.

Early Cilcain

In the early years of Cilcain's existence it was noted as a place of retreat and was also locally famous for its regular village fairs, where a notable amount of alcohol
Alcohol
In chemistry, an alcohol is an organic compound in which the hydroxy functional group is bound to a carbon atom. In particular, this carbon center should be saturated, having single bonds to three other atoms....

 was often consumed. Cilcain was also known for cockfighting, which took place on Sundays after the local church service
Church service
In Christianity, a church service is a term used to describe a formalized period of communal worship, often but not exclusively occurring on Sunday, or Saturday in the case of those churches practicing seventh-day Sabbatarianism. The church service is the gathering together of Christians to be...

.

The church

The first recorded mention of the church at Cilcain dates from 1291. Cilcain is one of the "ancient parishes" of Flintshire
Flintshire
Flintshire is a county in north-east Wales. It borders Denbighshire, Wrexham and the English county of Cheshire. It is named after the historic county of Flintshire, which had notably different borders...

. It originally comprised the seven townships of Cefn, Llan (or Tre'r Llan), Llystynhunydd (or Glust), Llys y Coed, Maes y Groes, Mechlas (or Dolfechlas), and Trellyniau.
On 27 June 1848, the township of Trellyniau and part of the township of Llystynhunydd went to the new parish of Rhes-y-Cae. On 31 March 1865, the remainder of Llystynhunydd, and parts of the townships of Cefn and Mechlas, went to the new parish of Rhydymwyn.

The Millennium Woods

The Millennium Woods were planted in 2000 through the 'Woods on your doorstep' scheme of the Woodland Trust
Woodland Trust
The Woodland Trust is a conservation charity in the United Kingdom concerned with the protection and sympathetic management of native woodland heritage.-History:...

. Many of the trees were planted by some of the students attending the local school, Ysgol y Foel, in that year. The official name is Coed y Felin ('Mill Woods'), named after the disused mill
Gristmill
The terms gristmill or grist mill can refer either to a building in which grain is ground into flour, or to the grinding mechanism itself.- Early history :...

 that now lies in ruins by the stream below.

See also

  • Cilcain Hall
    Cilcain Hall
    Cilcain Hall is a country house north-northeast of the village of Cilcain, Flintshire, Wales . It was built in 1875–77 for W. B. Buddicom and designed by the Chester architect John Douglas. The hall is built in stone and has a red tile roof. Its architecture includes Elizabethan elements...

  • Brynle Williams
    Brynle Williams
    Brynle Williams was a North Wales Assembly Member for the Welsh Conservative Party in the National Assembly for Wales. Elected from the North Wales Regional list, he was Shadow Minister for Rural Affairs from 2007-2011...

     (1949 – 2011), Cilcain farmer and Conservative member of the National Assembly for Wales.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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