Mostyn


Mostyn is a village and community in Flintshire, Wales, and electoral ward lying on the estuary of the River Dee, located near the town of Holywell. It has a privately owned port that has in the past had a colliery and ironworks and was involved in the export of commodities, and nowadays services the offshore wind industry and ships the wings for the Airbus A380 which are manufactured at Broughton.

History

Mostyn was mentioned in the Doomsday Book of 1086. Henry Bolingbroke landed here in 1399 before attacking Richard II at Flint Castle. Coal was mined at Mostyn and iron production started in the mid nineteenth century. The combination of a colliery, iron works and the docks made this a profitable enterprise. Nineteen hundred people were employed at one time. The coal eventually became exhausted and the ironworks closed in 1965.
Between 1848 and 1966 there was a railway station in the village on the Chester to Holyhead line. Mostyn once served as a port from which ferries used to sail to Dublin on the Liverpool-Dublin route. Today, manufactured wings for the Airbus A380 aircraft leave Mostyn on the ship Ville de Bordeaux, after travelling down the River Dee by barge from the Airbus wing factory at Broughton, Flintshire. See Itinéraire à Grand Gabarit for more details of the transportation. Mostyn's port area is home to the headquarters of Warwick International Group Limited, manufacturers of bleach activators for detergent applications.

Port of Mostyn

The Port of Mostyn is privately owned and is one of the oldest ports in the country, having in the past handled cargoes including steel, coal, timber, woodpulp, animal feedstuffs and fertilizers. Nowadays it specialises in the assembly and installation of wind turbines and has been involved in the construction of North Hoyle,, Burbo Bank, Rhyl Flats, Gwynt y Môr and part of the work involved in the Robin Rigg and Walney windfarms.

The village

Just down the A548 road from Mostyn at Llanerch-y-Mor is the now closed Mostyn Fun Ship. The ship started life as the Duke of Lancaster, a car ferry and cruise ship. After it was permanently dry-docked in Mostyn, it earned its later name from its new operation as an arcade and bar.
In 2008–09, the football team Mostyn Dragons were champions of Clwyd League Division Two and were promoted to division one.

Governance

Mostyn is also an electoral ward, coterminous with the community. It elects one county councillor to Flintshire County Council. A by-election was held on 31 July 2014 after the disqualification of the longstanding Independent councillor, Patrick Heesom,

Notable people