Bryn-y-Baal
Its placename is Welsh for "lowest mountain".
Another old hamlet nearby was Pant-y-Fownog, on the same road nearer Buckley (centred on the Griffin Inn); although the name was used well into the 1900s on picture postcards of the area and by the local Co-Op shop next to the Inn. The name has long since become disused (except for lending its name to a road in nearby Buckley).
Bryn-y-Baal [ˌbrɨ̞nəˈbɑːl] is an old hamlet much enlarged since the 1970s and now contiguous with but not part of Mynydd Isa. Bryn-y-Baal takes its name from a Middle English word "bale" (rhymes with "Carl" in arhotic British English) meaning small hill and Bryn (Welsh for hill), i.e. hill hill. It was later written in a Welsh language form as 'bâl' with a circumflex over the "â". In Welsh this is pronounced as a long A. This form appears on early Ordnance Survey maps. Eventually it was written in the Anglicised form 'Baal' - still correctly pronounced to rhyme with "Carl".
In the area there is a secondary school known as Argoed High School in Bryn-y-Baal and a primary school Ysgol Mynydd Isa - the Junior department being in Bryn-y-Baal (formerly Ysgol y Bryn and before that Mynydd Isa Junior School), and the Infants department (formerly known as Wat's Dyke Infant School) on a separate site in Mynydd Isa.
The local community council is Argoed Community Council (Cyngor Cymunedol Argoed) - Argoed being the name of the ancient township which had covered the area since the Middle Ages, which also gives its name to the local secondary school.
Amenities include a pub, The Griffin on Mold Road. (The Mercia on Mercia Drive closed in 2010, and is now a supermarket), various shops and the village centre which houses a cafe 'Caffi Isa', a community interest group located in the old library and other clubs and associations.
The village has a large youth organisation (established in 1984) with football teams representing the village in the county league from 7 to 16 years old and adult football dating back to the 1930s; however the adult team disbanded in 2009.
References
- ^ Owen, Hywel Wyn (1994). Place-names of East Flintshire. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. ISBN 978-0-7083-1242-1.
External links