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Bangor-is-y-coed

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"The village is pleasantly situated on the eastern bank of the Dee, which is navigable to this place, and is here crossed by a handsome bridge of five arches, connecting the counties of Denbigh and Flint. .... The adjacent scenery in many places is beautiful and richly picturesque, the noble sweeps of the Dee being frequently overshadowed by thick hanging woods, which fringe its elevated banks." [A Topographical Dictionary of Wales, S. Lewis, 1834]

Bangor lies in Maelor Saesneg, which is the detached part of Flintshire. The parish comprises the townships of Bangor (which is in Flintshire), and Eyton, Royton, Seswick and Pickhill (all four of which are in Denbighshire).
The parish of Bangor should not be confused with the Denbighshire parish of Isycoed, which lies a few miles to the north, nor with the Flintshire (Maelor Saesneg) parish of Iscoyd (also known as Whitewell).
They are three quite distinct and separate parishes.

In the fifth and sixth centuries, the area was dominated ecclesiastically by the monastery of Bangor, which was established in about A.D. 560 by St. Dunawd, the first Abbott. The monastery was destroyed in about A.D. 616 by Aethelfrith of Northumberland; when, according to Bede, (writing his "History" in the following century), twelve hundred monks were slaughtered and only fifty escaped with their lives. No trace of the monastery remains - some authorities believe that it lies under the present course of the River Dee.
In A.D. 669, Bangor became part of the diocese of Lichfield, and remained so until the diocese of Chester was created in 1541, when it became part of that diocese.
On 30 July 1849, the parish of Bangor was transferred to the diocese of St. Asaph, where it remains.
The name 'Bangor Monachorum' ('Bangor of the monks'), which seems to have been the preferred form in legal documents, is first recorded in 1677. The earliest recorded use of the name 'Bangor Isycoed' or 'Bangor Is-coed', the more common usage, dates from 1699.

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Bibliography

  • Daniel, Anne.    Memories of Bangor on Dee     Country Quest (April 1995), p. 6-9
  • Jones, Kath.    Focusing in on Bangor-on-Dee     Country Quest, July 2008, p. 20-21
  • Magazine of the Bangor-on-Dee Local History Society.          Bangor-on-Dee : Bangor-on-Dee Local History Society, 1992.
  • Race day at Bangor-on-Dee :       Welsh railways archive. Vol. 1, no. 7 (May 1993), p. 208-09.
  • Shelbourne, Eirwen.         Bangor-on-Dee - a village apart         Country Quest, December 2007, p. 32-33
  • Williams, Christopher J.           How Bangor on Dee went to war, 1914-18        Clwyd Historian = Hanes Bro Clwyd. No. 58 (Spring 2008), p. 27-30
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Church History

Ordnance Survey reference SJ 388454.
The list of known rectors of Bangor begins in 1300, and it is believed that the church dates from about the same time. It was extensive restored and rebuilt between 1723 and 1727. It was again restored in 1832, and further modified in 1877. It is presently dedicated to St. Dunawd, who was the first Abbott of the monastery at Bangor; but there is some evidence that an earlier dedication was to St. Deiniol.

The Clwyd FHS website has a photograph of the church

Bangor Church, & bridge on the People's Collection Wales site

Nonconformist Churches

"Welsh Church Commission - County of Flint - The Statistics of the Nonconformist Churches for 1905" lists the following nonconformist place of worship in the Civil parish of "Bangor":

Name of ChapelDenominationNumber of "adherents"
Not namedEnglish Presbyterian50
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Church Records

No nonconformist records for the Bangor area have been deposited at the Flintshire Record Office, Hawarden; nor, so far as is known, elsewhere.

I.G.I. (Nonconformist records)

  • The I.G.I has no officially extracted nonconformist entries for Bangor.
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Civil Registration

When Civil Registration was introduced (on 1 July 1837), the parish of Bangor was assigned to the No. 2 ("Malpas") sub-district of the Wrexham Registration District, which was co-extensive with the Wrexham poor law Union.

On 30 September 1896, the parish of Bangor was transferred to the No. 1 ("Overton") Overton sub-district of Ellesmere Registration District.

In the GRO indexes to civil registration, entries for Bangor are in the format :

  • Years 1837 - 1851: Wrexham XXVII. nnn
  • Years 1851 - 1896: Wrexham 11b. nnn
  • Years 1896 - 1930: Ellesmere 6a. nnn

(GRO index references have no relevance at the local Superintendent Registrar's Office)

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Description & Travel

Bangor-on-Dee - on wikipedia

Bangor-on-Dee Racecourse

Bangor Is-y-Coed on the River Dee; On the Eastern Bank of the River Dee - (Smith, John, Warwick)  on the People's Collection Wales site

You can see pictures of Bangor-is-y-coed which are provided by:

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Gazetteers

The transcription of the section for this place from the National Gazetteer (1868), provided by Colin Hinson.

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History

Floods in the High Street, Bangor-on-Dee, c. 1903 on the People's Collection Wales site

Steam navvy cutting the Ellesmere-Wrexham Railway at Bangor-on-Dee, c. 1890 on the People's Collection Wales site

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Maps

"North-East Wales Churches and Ancient Parish Boundaries" produced by Clwyd Record Office in 1994, published by Genuki with the permission of Flintshire Record Office and Denbighshire Archives

Kain, R.J.P., Oliver, R.R., Historic Parishes of England and Wales: an Electronic Map of Boundaries before 1850 with a Gazetteer and Metadata [computer file]. Colchester, Essex: History Data Service, UK Data Archive [distributor], 17 May 2001. SN: 4348.   Here is a gazetteer/finding aid plus a set of overview maps to accurately identify the position of parishes within the county 

Plan of the parish of Bangor in the Counties of Flint and Denbigh on the People's Collection Wales site

You can see maps centred on OS grid reference SJ370459 (Lat/Lon: 53.006253, -2.939787), Bangor-is-y-coed which are provided by:

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Population

  • In 1831- the population was 1389.
  • In 1901- the population was 1121.
    [ Royal Commission on the Welsh Church - October 1907]
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Statistics

Archdeacon Thomas (1911) gives the area of the parish of Bangor as 5592 acres.