Hawarden

Hawarden (pronounced Harden, Welsh Penarlâg), a market-town of Flintshire, North Wales, 6 m. W. of Chester, on a height commanding an extensive prospect, connected by a branch with the London & North-Western railway. Pop. (1901), 5372. It lies in a coal district, with clay beds near. Coarse earthenware, draining tiles and fire-clay bricks are the chief manufactures. The Maudes take the title of viscount from the town. Hawarden castle—built in 1752, added to and altered in the Gothic style in 1814—stands in a fine wooded park near the old castle of the same name, which William the Conqueror gave to his nephew, Hugh Lupus. It was taken in 1282 by Dafydd, brother of Llewelyn, prince of Wales, destroyed by the Parliamentarians in the Civil War, and came into the possession of Sergeant Glynne, lord chief justice of England under Cromwell. The last baronet, Sir Stephen R. Glynne, dying in 1874, Castell Penarlâg passed to his brother-in-law, William Ewart Gladstone. St Deiniol church, early English, was restored in 1857 and 1878. There are also a grammar school (1606), a Gladstone golden-wedding fountain (1889), and St Deiniol’s Hostel (with accommodation for students and an Anglican clerical warden); west of the church, on Truman’s hill, is an old British camp.

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