M & A Rainmaker

The Boot Inn at Northop is one of the pubs in one of the post towns on the Chester to Holyhead stage coach route. See  this excerpt here:

” The North Wales post roads were established as a permanent feature in 1599 with a road from Chester to Holyhead passing through Rhuddlan. Northop was made a post town in 1602. After the restoration of Charles II Denbigh was made the post town instead of Rhuddlan and the route after Northop was changed. This was changed again in 1772 when a Post Office was set up in St. Asaph. John Ogilby in 1675 showed 4 roads in Flintshire, 3 of which led to Holywell; from St. Davids through Ruthin, from Shrewsbury through Caergwrle and Mold, from Chester through Flint, and the post road from Chester to Holyhead through Hawarden. At the beginning of the 18th century the system of “road trusts” was formalised. The 17th century had seen a revival of road tolls and the setting up of gates or “turnpikes” at which tolls were collected but now local gentlemen could obtain private acts of parliament to enable them to borrow money on the security of turnpike tolls and to use this to improve the roads. The system spread quickly and country people disliked the tolls enough to attack and destroy some of the toll houses in the period of the Rebecca Riots. It would appear that the Flint District Turnpike Trust which covered Holywell, Greenfield, Bagillt, Northop and Flint was formed in 1769. One of the early Trustees was Thomas Pennant. In 1782 John Jones paid £10 for the right to charge tolls at the Coleshill Tollgate at Flint Bridge for 1 year. In 1799 Richard Ingleby paid £100 and in 1803 Edward Davies paid £85 for 1 year. In 1789 the fee for each horse drawing a carriage went up from 3 pence to 4 pence. The turnpike from Flint to Walwen, Bagillt was called the Flint Causeway or Pavement.
In the later 18th and early 19th centuries, the Flintshire Turnpike trust made improvements to both the Chester-Holyhead road (the modern A548) which runs through the town, and to the Northop Road, south of the town – the Flint-Mold turnpike. Milestones were put up on the Chester-Holyhead turnpike near Pentre Farm to the east of the town, giving distances to Flint and Kings Ferry (Queensferry) and near the present-day Aber Park Industrial Estate to the west, giving distances to Flint and Holywell. There was also a milestone giving distances to Flint, Northop and Mold near Plas-y-Mynydd, just a mile from the southern edge of the town in the early 19th century. Toll houses which levied tolls to repay investors were built on each of these roads – the Flint Turnpike at Summer Hill to the east of the town centre, the Coleshill Turnpike to the west and the Bryn Coch Turnpike on the Northop Road in the Mount Pleasant area to the south.

The development of the town was probably hindered by the lack of good communications and the deplorable state of the roads in the early eighteenth century. By 1756 all the major roads were under Turnpike Trusts including the Chester-Hawarden-Northop-Holywell; Chester-Mold-Denbigh; Mold-Northop-Flint; Mold-Leeswood-Wrexham; Holywell-Caerwys-Denbigh roads. Private enterprise was still important despite the Turnpike Trusts. The coast road, Chester to Flint was widened, straightened and resurfaced under the Road Act 1788 sponsored by the local landowners, local colliery owners and the Greenfield Copper Company. Later, the Turnpike Trustees became responsible for the maintenance of the roads, improving old roads and making new ones. They frequently employed convict labour, and able-bodied prisoners sentenced to hard labour in the old Flint Gaol, were often employed on road-work. The general betterment of the roads advanced the coaching age, with the development of regular passenger and freight services, which widened communications and the distribution of goods to the important markets. The stagecoach and mail coach horses were generally changed at each stage where there was a post house on the route.  The coast road from Flint to Queensferry was shortened and improved about 1820. In the early nineteenth century ‘The Lord Mostyn’ coach, conveying passengers from Holywell to Rock Ferry for Liverpool, called daily at the Ship Inn in Market Square and later the Royal Oak in Church Street. In January 1885, responsibility for the roads was passed to the local Highway Boards ”

from

http://www.fflint.co.uk/railway.html

Aside from The Boot Inn there is The Red Lion

and the Northop Village website offers these options for eating and drinking around Northop

http://www.northop.org.uk/index.php?option=com_sobi2&catid=3&Itemid=69

but probably the most famous pub on the old Chester to Holyhead coaching route is The Glan Yr Afon Inn in Milwr, Dolphin near Holywell.

The road that The Glan is on is a dead end now but it used to be part of the Chester to Holyhead coaching route.

Coaches would pass through Halkyn and Pentre Halkyn and then drop down to Holywell past The Glan.

It is reputed that Queen Victoria stopped at The Glan on her way to Ireland via Holywell.

It is certainly known that The Glan had stables and a couple of letting rooms at this time but now it has 8 letting rooms, a number of bars and a restaurant.

The Glan’s website is here:

http://www.glanyrafoninn.co.uk/

Phone: 01352 710052