The Green Valley with a Dark Heart

We recently visited the Greenfield Valley Heritage Park at Holywell (Treffynnon), north Wales. You can enjoy a lovely tranquil walk along the valley. There’s a museum of rural life and farm, replete with friendly chickens and pigs, and you can picnic by the ruins of Basingwerk Abbey. As you explore the valley, there are many more reminders of Greenfield’s past. The stream which supplied St Winefride's Well (from which Holywell derives its name) provided the power for a thriving industrial community, with lead, brass and copper works, paper mills, cotton mills, and more. Child workers (some were parish apprentices) toiled in the cotton mills, and you’ll be able to find out more about the children’s stories in The Children History Forgot.

Images: Basingwerk Abbey. The remains of the Lower Cotton Mill at Greenfield Valley where children once worked. It was later converted into a flour mill. © Sue Wilkes