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Prestatyn - From 'A Topographical Dictionary of Wales' (1849)
PRESTATYN, with Nant, a township, in the parish of Meliden, union of St. Asaph, hundred of Prestatyn, county of Flint, North Wales, 6 miles (N. N. E.) from St. Asaph; containing 404 inhabitants. This place, from which the hundred derives its name, was once a lordship, and had a castle, supposed to have been erected at a very early period by the native British inhabitants of the district. The fortress was wrested from its ancient owners, in the reign of Henry II., by the English, who had possession of it in the year 1167, when it was destroyed by Owain Gwynedd, Cadwaladr, and Rhŷs, Prince of South Wales, who then reduced the whole of Tegengle to the power of Owain. King Richard I. granted the lordship to Robert Banaster, who kept it for nearly four years, and built a town, which was afterwards burnt by Owain Gwynedd. In the seventh year of Edward I. Robert de Crevecœur laid claim to it, in right of his ancestor Banaster, and, on an inquisition taking place, it was determined in his favour. From the Crevecœurs the lordship passed by marriage to the Conways of Bôdrhyddan, and on the division of the family estates, after the death of Sir John Conway, it fell, in right of his mother, to the Rev. Richard Williams of Vron, who disposed of it to his brother-in-law, Richard Wilding, Esq. There are still some small vestiges of the ancient castle, consisting of portions of the foundation, on an elevated spot called Plâs Prestatyn, in a meadow below the mill; and likewise traces of the fosse by which it was surrounded, at some distance. The township is situated on the shore of the Irish sea, in a flat district, which is highly cultivated and richly productive of all kinds of grain, but more especially of wheat, for the growth of which the soil is peculiarly favourable. From the fine sandy beach there extends for a distance of four miles, in a western direction, a sand-bank termed Chester Bar, which is dry at low water; and other extensive banks are observable at a greater distance from the coast, projecting into the sea, and occupying the mouth of the estuary of the Dee: at the distance of half a mile from the shore the water varies from one to two fathoms in depth. The Chester and Holyhead railway, opened in 1848, has a station at Prestatyn, about twenty-six miles distant from the terminus at Chester. There are places of worship for Calvinistic and Wesleyan Methodists, in each of which a Sunday school is also held.
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