OTHER WORLDS

A surprisingly large amount of info and pix received here at Jones Towers is not about Rhyl but about towns and villages nearby.

Above: Bodfari railway station (opened in 1869). This shot dates from 1961, a year before the station closed down and is taken looking westwards towards Denbigh. Station buildings on your right were on the Chester bound platform. Last I heard the station was a private residence.

Below: An old image of  the present Tafarn Yr Heliwr/Sportsman's Arms on Denbigh Moors. The pub is in Bylchau near Denbigh or Llansannan according to whose directions you take. "You can't miss it," I suppose.

--

Above: A lofty view of part of Dyserth village on a card postmarked 1937.

Below: In Dyserth Parish Church aka St. Bridget's Church – the 15th century Jesse Window photographed circa 1930.

--

Above: Found in a batch of Prestatyn pictures, an image captioned Old Pigeon House, Talacre. I'm glad about the caption, otherwise I wouldn't have known what the hell it was.

Below: Fforddlas in Prestatyn. What shall we say – 1950s?  Fforddlas in Prestatyn is one word whereas Ffordd Las in Rhyl is two words often written mistakenly as one.

--

Above: Multiview card of Towyn near Abergele, postmarked 1955. The church bottom right is (Grade II listed) St. Mary's consecrated in 1873.

Below: This is a memorial at St. Michael's Church, 1 Peel Street, Abergele. The inscription reads: "Sacred to the memory of 33 persons who names are inscribed on this monument. They perished in the railway accident near Abergele on the 20th of August 1868 and their remains are deposited within this enclosure."
Click on the image to see bigger version.

The family names are (top to bottom left):- Farnham, Chinnery, Berwick, Aylmer, Franks, Askin, Cripps, Edwards, Farrell, Holmes;
(top to bottom right):- Ingram, Kellett, Lea, Lund, Owen, Outen, Parkinson, Roe, Scovell, Smith, Stearn, Strafford, Symes.

For details of the accident see Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abergele_rail_disaster

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Recently I've had meetings with film maker Mike Theaker who is planning a new Rhyl project. Mike co-produced the most popular video on my YouTube channel where it is titled Rhyl 1960s: A Tale Of Two Seasons
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7l8SIqHvsw

Only the videos marked RhylTime are mine!

Colin Jones / email: rhyl.colin.jones@live.co.uk

--

QUIZ ANSWER # 186

On Friday 5th May 2017, I posted a slightly doctored version of this old photo of a Rhyl hotel.

The question: What stands in that location now?

The answer: Front Room & Late Lounge, 91 High Street –

On that corner of High St and Kinmel St the chronology appears to be Dinorben Arms Hotel, followed by Alexandra Hotel (shown in old photo) which may have been the same building.

Then there was a rebuild in the form of Alexandra pub known confusingly to hospital staff as "The Alex". You can fill in the remainder.

[Off The Rails and Bar Blu were two names in use before Front Room.]

--

Also posted was an edited version of this 1960s-80s postcard of North Wales pubs, only ONE of which is in Rhyl.
The question: Is it top left, top right, bottom left, bottom right, or centre?
The answer: top left - The Schooner aka Schooner Inn, West Parade.

For indexing purposes the others are listed here:
The Yacht, 1 Marine Road, Pensarn near Abergele /
The Railway (formerly Offa's Tavern), High Street, Prestatyn /
Jolly Sailor, Ffordd Penrhwylfa, Prestatyn /
Steam Packet, 70 Mostyn Street, Llandudno.

Let me repeat last year's message from the UK's chief medical officers. Research shows any amount of alcohol can increase the risk of cancer. There is no such thing as a safe level of drinking the stuff.

--

THE TEMPERANCE

This is a drawing of Rhyl Lifeboat saving the four-man crew of ‘The Temperance’ which was a Belfast ship caught in a gale and stranded off Pensarn, Abergele, early in January 1857. This, and an account of the incident were published that same year in The Illustrated London News weekly magazine.

The drawing is a good example of a newspaper illustration before photography, i.e. a work of the artist's imagination. Rhyl Lifeboat had no name in those very early days. Point of Ayr Lifeboat was also sent to aid 'The Temperance' but capsized near Rhyl and all 13 members of the crew were lost.

As for ‘The Temperance’, the vessel is described in the magazine as a brigantine and elsewhere as a schooner. Thanks to Paul Frost MBE of Rhyl RNLI Lifeboat station for supplying the following links via which the difference can be fathomed:

Brigantine - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brigantine

Schooner - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schooner

--
Armchair sailors please note that the label MARITIME which used to appear in the list - on your left at the top of the page - has been done away with and the posts therein dispersed under the labels FORYD HARBOUR, HMS RHYL, HOVERCRAFT and LIFEBOAT.
The few oddments that wouldn't fit into those categories are now labelled RHYL HISTORY.

--

WORLD TOUR OF ABERGELE # 2

Abergele & Pensarn share the railway station shown above. The train is travelling from Llandudno to Chester. [The station opened 1848 the same year as Rhyl and on the same Chester-Holyhead line.]

Pensarn is a coastal suburb of Abergele. Pensarn beach is sometimes referred to as Abergele beach. Below: an early shot of the main road (looking westwards) followed by a seaside card postmarked 1920.

Click on any image to see a bigger version.

--

The charm of the place was that it was a less busy than either Rhyl or Colwyn Bay; the downside was that it failed to develop much.

By the 1960s when the following cards were produced Pensarn was not much to write home about:

The North Wales Holiday Camp in Pensarn, is well remembered by locals. Here is a snap of the camp shop:

--

Nestling on a hillside the far side of Abergele is Gwrych Castle, a Grade 1 Listed country house built in the 1800s. 

Pictured below are Gwrych Castle's Italian marble stairs, followed by a popular feature decades ago: the miniature railway aka model railway.

The above card of the train ‘Belle of New York’ at Gwrych Castle Station came up for sale recently on Internet, hence the seller’s logo in the middle of the picture.

Gwrych Castle on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwrych_Castle

Gwrych Castle Preservation Trust: http://gwrychtrust.co.uk/

--
The building is featured on the first of these two multiview cards of Sunray or Sun Ray Guest House, Abergele -

--

WORLD TOUR OF ABERGELE # 1

The little town of Abergele is more or less half way between Rhyl and Colwyn Bay. It is many centuries older than Rhyl, and seems to have a slightly more Welsh flavour. The picture above of Market Street, Abergele, is a card postmarked 1915.

The following card of County School is postmarked 1911. The school opened in 1899, became Abergele Grammar in 1945 [and was absorbed the present comprehensive Ysgol Emrys ap Iwan in 1967]:

Below is a 1930s picture of the Roman Catholic Church, Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, still a cornerstone of Abergele:

This church also takes care of Christ The King, Gors Road, Towyn.

--

I visited the Luxor Cinema, Abergele, in early 1960s with school pal Peter Hollis. We went to see an Army comedy 'On The Fiddle' aka 'Operation Snafu' starring Alfred Lynch and Sean Connery, and were underwhelmed.

The Luxor changed name to the Glynn Cinema before closing down. Comparatively recently Pete became a resident of Llanfair Talhaiarn (Llanfair T.H.) high up to the south of Abergele. Part of it looked like this circa 1907 and probably still does:

This Llanfair T.H. postcard of Williams "The At Home" Tea Rooms is undated:

Click on any image to see a bigger version.

Here are a couple of other Abergele villages: Dolwen undated at the top, and then St. George circa World War 1:

The St. George picture is detailed and impressive enough to be the work of Rhyl photographer Rae Pickard (unsigned).

By way of contrast here is a 1950s/'60s shot of council houses and a butcher's shop at Llanddulas:

--

MON 20th MAR 2017 UPDATE: Below are more old/vintage images of various Abergele villages.

Click on any image to see a bigger version.

Belgrano - The Bell Stores (undated)

Betws yn Rhos - card postmarked 1969

Llanddulas - card posted 1904

Rhyd-y-Foel as seen from Llanddulas

Rhyd-y-Foel card postmarked 1913

Rhyd-y-Foel (undated)

St. George - Kinmel Arms card posted 1907

--

MR. PICKARD IS OUT

From his base in Rhyl, photographer Rae Pickard visited frequently nearby towns and villages in search of good marketable shots; he understood that a lot of Rhyl's appeal lay in its surrounding countryside.

The following pictures of Denbigh Castle and Penrhyn near Llandudno are random examples. The latter is thought to be circa 1920:

Click on any picture to see a bigger version.

This is a photo of High Street, Newmarket (Trelawnyd near Dyserth) on a card posted in 1927.

Of the two below taken in Dyserth, the one of the waterfall is circa 1915; the interior shot of the New Inn Dyserth is remarkable for detail:

The following is thought to be a Rae Pickard even though not signed. It is circa 1912 at what looks like a ploughing contest. All the usual Pickardian hallmarks of quality are evident in this:

--
MON 5th DEC 2016 UPDATE: A faded Pickard card postmarked 1912.

--
FRI 3rd FEB 2017 UPDATE: Here is another Pickard of Newmarket (Trelawnyd) followed by his take on Highbury Avenue, Prestatyn.
The third pic is Maesydon in Llanddulas near Abergele, on a card postmarked 1918.

--
6720. Additional image added in July 2020:

Rae Pickard's take on Llanrhaeadr Hall (he didn't quite get the spelling right). The hall still exists. It is near Denbigh, a care home now.

--