Our annual “afternoon” talk, which is held at the Community Centre and open, as are all our meetings, to anyone who would like to join us. This year we had a very distinguished speaker in Fiona Gale, who was until her retirement the County Archaeologist at Denbighshire CC together with other projects she was and still is invested in. She was also awarded the MBE for her services to Heritage in Wales.

Richard started the proceedings by welcoming Fiona and all attending including the 15 visitors who joined us.

To construct a railway, any railway even today, there has to be passed an \Act of Parliament and so the Vale of Clwyd Railway (VoCR) was opened in 1858 This was a standard-gauge line which connected Rhyl, St Asaph and Denbigh. At first this was not connected to the main line at Rhyl, but this happened in1862 At Denbigh a connection could be made onto the Mold Denbigh Junction Railway. This line never realised its potential even though it was a popular holiday area. It closed to passengers in1955 and totally in 1968.

Fiona then took us up the line with photographs of past stations along track. Rhuddlan people who remember our Station now know that the area has now been occupied by Aldi and the Nature Reserve but not many will realise that the ponds in the Nature Reserve were once the means for topping up the water on the steam trains, now adapted for nature's creatures.

St Asaph's remaining railway heritage can still be partly seen where RN Williams business is and then on to Denbigh which had a permanent station built in 1860 this building was described as more like a French chateau than a railway station. This is also now the site for an Aldi store and very little remains here.

The extension to Ruthin was now required so another Act of Parliament was needed and while people surmised the direction of the track and built a hotel and houses it was rerouted to the other side of the town because of local pressure.

This area is now occupied by the Craft Centre and a Tesco store. If you visit the Craft Centre you will see in the centre a weighing machine and a large crane which have been renovated as a relics from the past having been used for lifting all and anything from the trains.

In total there is a history of nearly 100 years of the Vale of Clwyd railway, this includes freight and passengers and there was a period in 1961 when a service called “Land Cruise” was able to carry passengers on the freight lines as a holiday trip.

There was so much more information that Fiona told us about, but it needs a book to do it justice, this is just a sample.

Richard thanked Fiona for her talk and informed the Members that our next meeting will be on 6th September in the Community Centre at 7pm.

The speaker will be Lorraine Jones who will talk about “Kinmel Camp”.

We will have our popular Rhuddlan Calendar 2025 on sale that evening and the price is still £6.00 (3yrs running).

Please come and join us, you can enjoy any 1 meeting for only £3 ‘if you don’t want a full membership.

This most enjoyable afternoon ended with refreshments and lots of cake, as usual, provided by our inhouse baker Josie, thank you Josie once again.