Newsletter - November 2025

HOLYWELL HISTORICAL SOCIETY NEWS

We are now getting into the busy season and putting the finishing touches to our stall in readiness for the local Christmas Fairs. We will be at Stamford Gate Hotel on 23^rd November, in Holywell for the Christmas Lights event on 28th November and at St Peter's Christmas Fair on 29th November.

This year we have an addition to our events stall – a 1.7m roller banner promoting the Holywell Historical Society. Creating the collage of Holywell photographs for the background was a painstaking task, but well worth the effort. We were thrilled with the superb print quality and the sturdy finish of the banner. A photograph wouldn’t do it justice, so we hope you’ll come along to one of our events and see it for yourself – we’ll be hard to miss!

Our 2026 calendar is just hot off the press and we are very pleased with the end result. This year we decided on a larger A4 spiralbound wall calendar with the theme Holywell Then and Now. We also have A4 all-year calendars in two designs, Transport in Holywell and Holywell’s Public Houses. Our unique Holywell themed Christmas cards are back by popular demand, and both the calendars and cards will be for sale at all the events this month. We continue to trade from our stall in Nexus Creative Spaces, the pop up shop in Holywell town centre (at the rear of the Post Office), where you’ll find our calendars and greetings cards, together with books on local history written by our members. In the New Year we hope to extend our merchandise to include coasters, tote bags, fridge magnets and key-rings, all of which will depict scenes of Holywell in years gone by. All of our merchandise, and details of where to purchase, can be found here.

The Holywell Reminiscing Group continues to meet every Tuesday morning at Holywell Leisure Centre (10:00-12:00). We’re always happy to welcome new members, if you’d like to come along and share your memories of Holywell with us. We also have a general knowledge quiz on a Thursday afternoon (1pm-3pm) - £2 per session which includes refreshments. For those who are not available to come to the meetings, we have our Facebook Group, now with over 1600 members. The page is regularly updated with members’ stories and photographs, and our resident experts are always available to answer questions relating to the history of Holywell.

We were delighted to be invited back to Llys Gwenffrwyd residential home in Holywell at the end of September to take part in their MacMillan coffee morning. A lively event that included musical entertainment from Holywell’s Morris Dancers, and of course plenty of cake! Earlier that month we visited Rhiwlas, a care home in Flint, and spent an enjoyable afternoon chatting with the residents about their memories of Flintshire. One lady had some interesting stories to tell of the evacuees who came to stay in Holywell during the war. We know that over 100 children came to live in Flintshire at that time from cities all over the country – quite a few of those families settled in the area after the war, preferring the tranquillity of a Flintshire village over returning to a war-torn city. We continue to recognise how powerful reminiscence can be, particularly for those living with dementia or Alzheimer’s. Familiar scenes and photographs often spark memories, conversation, and moments of connection - we're always honoured to play a small part in that experience.

One of our members sadly lost his sister recently. He very kindly donated some Holywell themed memorabilia that she’d collected over the years. These included framed postcards, a pin dish and a China teapot with a picture of St Winefride’s Well on it. Another member, Kate Clifford, donated two framed photos of Station Road in Greenfield. We’re always grateful for any donations of memorabilia in connection with Holywell and the surrounding areas. You can find more information on our archives here. Our archives are available to view on appointment. Please contact us for more information.

We’re excited to announce plans for a new website dedicated to our Family History Hub. While details of the proposed Family History Group are still being finalised, we’d love to hear your ideas on how it could develop — and what you’d like to see from such a group. Our resident genealogist, Donna Coulson, has over 30 years’ experience in family history research and is always happy to help. You can also contact Donna to arrange a free one-hour, one-to-one consultation for guidance on your own family history journey dcfamilyhistoryhub@gmail.com.

We would like to take this opportunity to wish all our members a very Happy Christmas. We’d like to thank everyone who has either come along to one of our events this year or purchased our merchandise, for your continued support. It means so much to us to know that people appreciate what we’re doing to help preserve the history of Holywell and the surrounding villages. Here’s to a prosperous 2026!