'The Sportsman' inn at Afon Wen

Editor's note: Built in 1701, an extention was added in 1760. The first pub to have an all day licence, as the workers from the Afon-Wen Cement Works had a daily "ration" of beer to cool down after their shift. It was converted in the early 1990s into three properties.

Chapter 4: The early Joneses of the Vale of Nannerch

My father's mother was Mary Eleanor Jones and she was descended from the Jones and Hughes families of the Vale of Nannerch. The Joneses on this side of the family, who were not related to the Joneses of Hollywell (see Chapter 2), lived at and around Ddol ("the meadow"), a scattered hamlet of farmhouses near the A541 road where it cuts through the hills in the Vale of Nannerch, in a roughly east-west direction, between Mold and Bodfari. There are several farms bearing the name Odol. Odol Ucha ("upper Ddol") lies to the north of the main road immediately behind the Wesleyan chapel; while Odol Ganol ("middle Ddol"), Ddol Isa ("lower Ddol") and Odol Trefechan ("the little settlement at Ddol") are situated to the south of the road. The first two are in the parish of Ysceifiog, the other two in that of Nannerch. The boundary between the two parishes is the small stream running immediately behind Odol Ganol farmhouse.

The earliest identifiable member of the Jones family of the Vale of Nannerch was Thomas Jones, who was living there during the second half of the eighteenth century. His date of baptism cannot be established because there were others of the same name living in the same area at that time, but it was probably about 1740. The parish registers of Ysceifiog show that he was married to Sarah Pierce, also of Ysceifiog, on 8 November 1767. They had four children, John, Margaret, Rebecca and Joseph, born between 1769 and 1777. Sarah died in January 1781 (her age on death is not recorded) and Thomas married again in the following December, this time to Sarah Davies, a widow. There was at least one son, Thomas, of the second marriage. The Vestry minutes of Ysceifiog refer to a Thomas Jones "of Odol", who was a member of the Vestry towards the close of the century, but apart from that nothing is known of him. His date of death cannot be identified from the records and there was no gravestone for him in Ysceifiog churchyard before it was cleared in about 1975.

Editor's note: Ysceifiog church. By 1835, the old church was in such a state of dilapidation that services had to be discontinued. The building was demolished, and a new church was erected on the same site during 1836/1837.

Joseph Jones, the youngest child of Thomas by his first marriage, was my great-great-grandfather; what happened to the other children I cannot say. Joseph's wife's name was Mary. She was born at Hope in the far south of Flintshire, but I have been unable to trace any record of their marriage either at Hope or in the parishes in the neighbourhood of Ysceifiog. In February 1809 Joseph and Mary's eldest child Matthew was baptised at Ysceifiog. Their abode at that date was shown as Afon Wen ("white river"), a small hamlet on the A541 road about one mile to the west of Odol, near the junction with the road up the hill to Caerwys. Further children - Joseph, Margaret and John - were born between 1812 and 1820, the baptism entry for John showing that in February 1820 his father was an innkeeper. There are two inns at Afon Wen - the Sportsman and the Pwll Gwyn. But as the latter is just over the present boundary of Ysceifiog parish and is known to have been occupied by another family during the early years of the nineteenth century, it is reasonable to conclude that the Joneses must have lived at the Sportsman. This is situated by the roadside at the foot of the road to Caerwys. Joseph Jones, like his father Thomas, was a member of the Ysceifiog Vestry, and minutes for 1838 bear his signature as "Joseph Jones of Odol". He must therefore have moved to Odol at some date between 1820 and 1838, perhaps on the death of his father or elder brother because at that time it was the common practice for the tenancy of a farm to pass within the family. The census return for 1841 does not indicate which particular farm he had occupied, but the Tithe Map and Apportionment prepared five years later clearly shows that it must have been Odol Ganol, one of the two farms in Ysceifiog parish.

Joseph Jones snr died at Odol on 16 December 1840, his death certificate recording rather quaintly that the Coroner at Mold had found by inquest that he had "died suddenly by the visitation of God in a natural way" (presumably as the result of a heart attack or a stroke.) The census return in the following April shows that Mary his widow was still living at Odol with her son John, four servants, and a child named Richard Jones, aged five, whose origin I have been unable to determine. Ten years later, at the time of the 1851 census, Mary was living on her own as an annuitant, aged 68, at Bryn Sion*. The fact that there were other people shown as living in separate habitations at Bryn Sion, either singly or with very small families, suggests that this was the group of three or four cottages still in existence on the road up the hill from Afon Wen in the direction of Bryn Sion farm and Babell. By 1861, however, Mary Jones had come to live with her son John and his family at Odol Trefechan, and she eventually died there in February 1870, aged 90*. For some reason which I have been unable to establish Joseph and Mary were buried at Caerwys, although they died in Ysceifiog and Nannerch parishes respectively. Caenvys churchyard remains substantially as it was, but there is no trace of a gravestone.

*Editor's note: these figures do not quite agree.

I know nothing of Mary Jones or her family. As for Joseph, he was a man of many parts, like most country dwellers of his time, and I have in my possession from Edward Jones of Dyserth (also one of his descendants) an excellent folding boxwood ruler which Joseph made himself and inscribed with his name and address on the central metal hinge.

Matthew, the eldest son of Joseph and Mary Jones, was in occupation of Ddol Trefecham at the time of the 1841 census. But nothing else is known of him or the other children apart from John, the youngest child, who was my great-grandfather. In April 1841, John was still living with his widowed mother at Ddol Ganol, but on 27 October of that year he married Ann, the daughter of Josiah and Elizabeth Hughes of Plas Nannerch, at Nannerch church.

Plas Nannerch (Nannerch Hall)

The Hughes family had lived in the Vale of Nannerch for very many years, Their line of descent can be traced back with certainty to Thomas Hughes, who was born in Ysceifiog in about 1703. In October 1738 he and his wife Mary had a son Benjamin (there were others as well), who married Elizabeth Lloyd of Nannerch in 1757. Thomas and Mary Hughes died in 1777 and 1793 respectively, aged 73 and 88, and were buried at Ysceifiog, Their gravestone, which I saw before the churchyard had been cleared but no longer exists, showed that Thomas Hughes was a "clerk", in those days usually meaning a clergyman.

Benjamin and Elizabeth Hughes had two children: Edward, baptised in 1771, and Josiah, baptised on 18 April 1774. Josiah, who was my other great-great-grandfather on thls side of the family, married Elizabeth Jones of the neighbouring village of Cilcain on 17 July 1803 and they had a large family (see Appendix D). At least five sons and five daughters were born between 1805 and 1821, but one son and one daughter died while still living at home with their parents. The home of the Hughes family at this time was Plas Nannerch (Nannerch Hall). I had some difficulty in tracing it but from enquiries around the farms I was at length able to establish that it was what is now known as Wal Goch ("Red Wall"). This is a fine stone farmhouse rather similar to Ty Isa at Gwaenysgor. It is situated a short distance along the mountain road from the bottom of Nannerch village across the Clwydian Hills to Llangwyfan and has the Bishop of Chester's arms over the front porch. I was told by the father of the present owner that its name had been changed in about 1880, when a successor of the Hughes family had built the high red brick wall which still runs alongside the road. The present name may be appropriate in this respect, but I regret that the traditional name of the farm was thus lost. Plas Nannerch was, in fact, part of the Penbedw estate dating back to Stuart times and for long remained officially part of the County of Denbigh.

Josiah Hughes died at Plas Nannerch on 15 October 1860, aged 86, and his wife Elizabeth also died there on 7 December 1863, aged 79. By that time only one son and one daughter remained, unmarried, with her at the family house, which had also seen the death of her mother-in-law Elizabeth (Lloyd) in 1823, aged 88. There is no trace of their graves at either Nannerch or Ysceifiog.

The eighth child, and third daughter, of Josiah and Elizabeth Hughes was Ann, my great-grandmother, who was baptised on 22 June 1818. At the date of the 1841 census two of Ann's brothers and sisters had already died and only three were still living with their parents at Plas Nannerch. Ann herself was living out as a female servant at Bryn Nannerch, the home of Thomas James, farmer. This farm still stands at the southern extremity of Nannerch village, facing up the mountain road towards Plas Nannerch. The road has changed very little since Ann's day, when she must often have walked along it for the half mile or so between Bryn Nannerch and her parents' home.

Next: John Jones & his family