Town in Flintshire, Wales
Mold
A woman once saw a ghost in golden armour glowing on a Mold hillside. In 1833 workmen dug up the proof: a Bronze Age gold cape that now sits in the British Museum.
Key information
- County
- Flintshire
- Nation
- Wales
- Population
- About 10,000 (2021 Census)
- Known for
- The Mold Gold Cape, novelist Daniel Owen, Theatr Clwyd, Bailey Hill
- Famous people
- Daniel Owen, Richard Wilson
- Football clubs
- Mold Alexandra
About Mold
The ghost in golden armour
In 1833, workmen digging stone from a mound on the edge of Mold found a skeleton wrapped in something astonishing: a sheet of beaten gold, shaped to cover the shoulders and upper arms. It was the Mold Gold Cape, made around 3,600 years ago in the Bronze Age. The mound was already known locally as Bryn yr Ellyllon, the Hill of the Goblins. Local tradition told of a ghostly figure in shining golden armour seen near it at night. When the cape turned up, the old tale suddenly looked very well informed. The cape had been crushed by centuries of soil and came out in pieces, along with traces of amber beads. It is now in the British Museum and counts among the finest pieces of prehistoric goldwork ever found in Europe. Mold has been trying to get it home for visits ever since.
Why the town has two names
Welsh speakers call the town Yr Wyddgrug, a name that points to a mound or tomb. The English name Mold is thought to come from the Normans' Mont Hault, meaning high hill. That hill is Bailey Hill, the site of a motte-and-bailey castle built by Robert de Montalt around 1140, in the 12th century. Welsh forces took it more than once during the turbulent centuries that followed. The timber and stone are long gone, but the great mound is still there, and today it is a public park with a view over the rooftops.
The tailor who wrote Wales a novel
Daniel Owen was born in Mold in 1836 and began working as a tailor's apprentice. He ended up as the man often called the greatest Welsh-language novelist of the 19th century. His books Rhys Lewis, Enoc Huws and Gwen Tomos portray chapel life, gossip and character in a small Welsh town, and many readers see Mold in the background. A statue of him stands outside the town's library, and a festival still carries his name. The painter Richard Wilson, a pioneer of British landscape painting, spent his last years at Colomendy near Mold. He died in 1782 and is buried in the churchyard of St Mary's in Mold, so the town holds the grave of one of the first great painters of Welsh scenery.
The day soldiers fired on the miners
Mold sits close to the Flintshire coalfield, and in 1869 that put it at the centre of one of the bleakest days in Welsh industrial history. The dispute involved wage cuts and the unpopular Leeswood Green colliery manager, John Young. The riot followed the sentencing of miners who had attacked him. Soldiers called in to guard the court fired on the crowd and four people were killed. The Mold Riots became a lasting reminder of the tensions of Victorian industrial Wales, and the story is still told in the town.
A theatre that sends shows to the West End
Theatr Clwyd opened in 1976 and made Mold an unlikely centre for drama. It has produced shows that have gone on to London's West End. Its main auditorium was formerly named the Anthony Hopkins Theatre, a name replaced during the 2025 redevelopment. The theatre also draws audiences from across North Wales, Cheshire and Merseyside, and it keeps a busy programme of Welsh and English-language work.
Out to the hills
Mold's back garden is the Clwydian Range. Loggerheads Country Park, with its river walks beside the Alyn, is only a short trip away, and Moel Famau, the range's highest summit at 554 metres, is close beyond it. On top stood the Jubilee Tower, begun in 1810 to mark George III's jubilee. It was never finished and blew down in a storm in 1862. Its ruined base remains, and the view takes in Snowdonia and the Cheshire plain on a clear day. Back in town, a busy market and a lively football scene round things off. Mold Alexandra carry the town's name on the pitch.