Flint
This small town was founded during the years of Edward I’s conquest of Wales in the 1280s. The stone castle, built here by order of Edward I, was the first of the fortifications established up and down the Welsh coast with the intention to suppress the indigenous population. In August 1399, Richard II surrendered to Henry Bolingbroke, soon to become King Henry IV, on condition that his life was spared following his abdication.
Flint and the surrounding area received much of its income from lead mining and processing between the late middle ages and the early Victorian period when the last smelting works closed. At that time, other branches of heavy industry developed, including coal mining, paper manufacture and chemical manufacturing.
Many of the international visitors were therefore not in town as holiday makers, but for professional reasons. Travelling on foot through the counties of north Wales in 1846, Franz von Löher found a coastal town comfortably settled between the adventurous life of seafarers and the serenity of harvesting cockles at low tide.
