Talacre

Talacre

The beach at Talacre
Talacre
 Talacre shown within Flintshire
OS grid referenceSJ122846
Principal areaFlintshire
CountryWales
Sovereign stateUnited Kingdom
Post town HOLYWELL
Postcode district CH8
Dialling code 01745
Police North Wales
Fire North Wales
Ambulance Welsh
EU Parliament Wales
UK ParliamentDelyn
Welsh AssemblyDelyn
List of places
UK
Wales
Flintshire

Coordinates: 53°21′04″N 3°19′09″W / 53.35117°N 3.31911°W / 53.35117; -3.31911

Talacre is a village in Flintshire on the north coast of Wales in the community of Llanasa.

It is near Point of Ayr on the west side of the River Dee estuary and has a sandy beach with dunes with large holiday caravan parks adjacent. The hills of the Clwydian Range behind the village form the eastern boundary of the Vale of Clwyd. The name Talacre is a combination of the Welsh words tal, meaning end, and acrau, meaning acres. In the north-east Welsh dialect, acrau is pronounced as acre.

A view of Talacre lighthouse

The village is probably most popular for the lighthouse on the nearby beach and the Talacre Beach Holiday Home Park, a short walk away from the Presthaven Sands holiday park. The lighthouse has been noted for numerous ghostly sightings, people claiming to see a figure wearing old fashioned lighthouse keeper clothes and standing in front of the glass dome of the abandoned lighthouse.[1] The lighthouse was featured in popular British television drama Skins, in the episode Skins Pure.

Talacre was used by the military during the Second World War, as an aircraft firing range. Fighters flew over the remote village every day, shooting at wooden targets in the dunes and at drogues towed by aircraft. It was also used for testing new devices, such as 'window' the anti-radar foil that, on occasion, covered the whole village with silver.

The village is often used as part of Paul O'Grady's comedy act, telling stories of how he spent many summers "Stuck in a four berth caravan in Talacre", and is therefore now part of popular culture as a famous "typically British" seaside holiday resort.

Part of the beach where the lighthouse is situated has been shown briefly in a recent Dulux paint advert with the Old English Sheep Dog mascot.

Talacre Abbey (Westbury Castle)

Talacre Hall, 1820s; Gauci, P., lithographer[2]

The Talacre estate (Talacre Abbey) and Talacre Hall, built in 1829, were the home of the Mostyn baronets of Talacre. The Carmelite Margaret Mostyn grew up on the estate in the early 1600s. In 1919 the Mostyn family sold the estate by auction and in 1921 it was occupied by a community of Benedictine nuns, who moved out in 1988.[3] The main hall, a grade II* listed building, now functions as a private house again, but renamed Westbury Castle.

Railways

Previously served by Talacre railway station which is currently closed on the North Wales Coast Line.

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Talacre.
  1. "Permanent 'ghost' for lighthouse". BBC News. 5 August 2009. Retrieved 2009-08-05.
  2. "Mostyn of Talacre manuscripts". Flintshire Record Office. A noble castellated stone built mansion, containing 40 rooms, with a handsome private chapel
  3. "English Benedictine Congregation". Retrieved 20 July 2013.


This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Monday, April 11, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.