Clocaenog’s Missing Township

The Parish of Clocaenog is first mentioned in 1254 in the records of Llanynys Church in the Vale of Clwyd when, according to Welsh law, David and Gronw, his brother, inherited equal shares of land from their father, the abbot, when he died. At that time Llanynys was the mother church of North Wales with a community of monks and was richly endowed. The 2 brothers were left parcels of good fertile land at Llanynys as well as ‘messuages’ with hill land for grazing. David was given the chaplaincy of the Church of Saint Fcddhyd in Clocaenog and sent '”to cure the souls of the parishioners” [messuage = a house, out-buildings and land]. His brother, Gronw, was given the parish of Cyffylliog. The parish of Clocaenog was much more extensive than now and reached from the Afon Alwen at Llanfyhangel, along the border with Betws G G parish to the Afon Clwyd at Llanerchgron below the present village of Pwllglas (the barn at Llanerchgron was used for the meetings of the Court Manorial in Norman times); the boundary then adjoined leapfrog parish and that of Cy|ffylliog. This ancient parish of Clocaenog comprised six townships; these merely consisted of a group of dwellings. There was Clocaenog Uchaf, Clocaenog Isaf, Maestyddyn, Bryngwrgi (near Llanfyhangel) and Maen-ar-ei-gilded. AlI except the last one are recognisable on modern maps, even if only one house is still inhabited. Nobody could tell me where Maen-ar-ei-gilydd was sited. Even the National Library in Aberystwyth was unable to help.

The here in Ruthin Archives, I came across the name in a marriage settlement of 1718, between Thomas Puleston of Flint, Sir Roger Mostyn and Mary Thelwell of Nantclwyd, spinster, including “the messuages called Maen- ar-ei-gilydd, Ty’n y Kelvyn, Llanerchgron in Clocaenog”. Maen-ar-ei-gilydd must have had some value. In a Topographical Dictionary of ablates 1833 and 1849 by Samuel Lewis, it states that the parish of Clocaenog “'situated in a mountainous district, and the village is almost surrounded by unproductive and widely extended heaths. In the vicinity are some excellent quarries of stone, among which is that peculiar kind used for hones”. These ‘whetstones’ were essential for sharpening the ubiquitous scythes and sickles used in agriculture and could be traded. On the OS maps of Clocaenog Forest just below the highest point of Craig Bron Bannog, to the south-east is written pile of stones. Maen-ar-ei- gilydd can be translated as ‘stones on each other’. At this moment in time it is still possible to find several old quarries which have been worked along a seam of hard black grit—unusual in this area. Below them are marked homesteads and still inhabited are Cefn Bannog, Lodj Uchaf and Lodj Isaf and finally Brynhyfryd. Could this have been the miners' village known as Maen-ar-ei-gilydd?

In June 2013, Eddie & Audrey Naisby feared that the proposed windfarms may damage the fragile landscape