Mrs Olwena Hughes

Mrs Olwena Hughes
Age:86
Years in the Village 86









"I was raised in no 3 London Road, which was then a row of cottages and not a single home as is is today.
As a little girl,I remember trying to sneak onto the back of Will Smith's cart with my friend Megan Lewis and was told off sternly for doing so!".
Will Smith was the coal merchant and he lived in your cottage down Cwm Road, though your cottage was known as Llan Cottage Number 1 rather than it's name now which is Bwthyn-y-llan"*

"Will Smith had a white horse which was always grazed in fields next to the Church.
His Daughter was called Brenda and she  played the piano , I remember going around to their house from time to time, to be taught songs in their (your) front room!"


Olwena was born in the first cottage on the left in the white building in front of the general stores , she was later to live in the stores itself with her parents and sister's family then she moved to a house on well street
The above picture was taken before 1908 as the Memorial Hall had not yet been built
The very small building on the end of the Olwena's row was a butcher's shop



The same scene taken today. The row of cottages have been converted into one house. The village stores is now two cottages

Olwena showed me the above piece of tiny pottery which I suspect is incredibly rare: it has a interesting history as she explained:
"This pot comes from Shop Ucha **. This shop was the paper shop which  was on Chapel Street, .and was always very popular when there was a concert on in the Memorial Hall when everyone wanted sweets.
If you look very, very closely you can see that there is a tiny picture of the memorial hall on the pot itself...I doubt anyone else in the village has a pot like this one"


This is Arcadian China and on the underneath it has printed
"Made for J Jones, Shop Ucha, Newmarket"
If you look closely the picture shows the Hall as having a weather cock  and a smaller cupola on the roof indicating that the photograph that was used for the pot decoration was taken before 1918



The Memorial Hall pre 1918

A rare photo of Choir members turning up for practice at the Memorial Hall in the early 1950s. Shop Ucha can be seen clearly in the background. The shop is now a private house

*Llan in Welsh means Church....Bwthyn-y-Llan therefore means "Church Cottage" in Welsh

Olwenna (right) in a local newpaper story of Trelawnyd in 1980