The Manor of Meliden comprises of the former Parish of Meliden, Prestatyn and a small part of Diserth in the county of Denbighshire North Wales.

The Manor lies within the ancient cantref (a Hundred can Townships tref) of Tegeingl a name derived from Deceangli a tribe mentioned by the Roman historian Tacitus in the first century. The remains of a Roman Bath House has been discovered and restored in the village. The earliest record of Meliden is to be found in the Doomsday Book 1086. The parish church is called St. Melyd's and named after Mellitus, later St. Melyd, an abbot of Rome who was sent with Justus and others to England in 601 to assist St Augustine in his mission. He is cited by most historians to be the first Bishop of London consecrated by St. Augustine of Canterbury in 604 AD. St. Melyd's day is May 9th. Parts of the church walls date back to the 13th Century and is the only church in Wales to be dedicated to the saint. St. Melyd's Well may have been a place of early pilgrimage.

After the Norman Conquest the Christian Church in Wales was formed into and governed by four principal bishoprics or diocese. The first was Landaff in mid South Wales followed by St. Davids in the South West, Bangor in the North West and finally St. Asaph in the North East. The first Bishop of the diocese of St Asaph was Gilbert appointed in 1143. The bishops were the principal property and landowners in their diocese and as such held the titles of Lord of the Manors. Each Manor provided income to the church by way of land rent, tolls, fishing rights, rights of wreck, markets and fairs and in the case of Meliden the valuable Talargoch lead mines at Craig Fawr in Diserth which were in use until the early 1900's. The common lands were enclosed in 1869 and the Bishop received alternative land as compensation.

The centre of the manor of Meliden was Llys yr Esgob or Bishop's Court now called Llys Farm where Manorial Courts were held until 1894. The farmhouse still contains two 16th century mullioned windows.

Each successive Bishop became the Lord of the Manor until the disestablishment and disendowment of the Church of England in Wales and the formation of the Church of Wales in 1920. The ecclesiastical manorial titles were passed to the custody of the University of Wales who disposed of some of them in the mid 1980's and all the remaining thirteen titles in July 2000 including the Lordship of the Manor of Meliden. Because the Lord of the Manor was the legal owner of most of the property and land in the manor including the common land these ancient titles are counted as property and purchased and transferred in the same way as all agricultural land and property by legal contract and conveyance.

And so it was on July 8th 2000 the ownership of the ancient title of the Lord of the Manor of Meliden which is at least 850 years old and probably a lot older, for the first time became the property of a lay person and his family. His name will be recorded and added to the manorial Rolls which are held in safe custody by the Master of the Rolls at the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth.

Gone are the lands, the Commons, the rights of wreck, the courts and the property. What still remains is the ancient title and a small piece of the history of England, the history of Wales and the Christian Church that is unique and can never be repeated. On this special day Peter David Vincent and his wife Margaret Aline Vincent and their family assumed the titles of Lord and Lady of the Manor of Meliden with great pride, pleasure and humility, and if perhaps you should wonder why, well

Some might buy a picture and hang it on a wall

Others, antique furniture and place it in the hall

Somewhere there are old papers, that we may never see

That tell of Melidens ancient manor and our small piece of history.

Top