I remember the last census in 2021. Little did I know at that time the power that census will have for future history hunters. Now it is becoming clear. Just by searching a name and address there is so much information to be found in a census. There are also many ways of searching, in this case I started with the property name Plas Coch.
Pretty soon I became aware of the property having alternative identifiers. In other words, other ways to search for information!
Let me explain. Plas Coch sits in the Parish of Llanrhydd, it is also in an area of town known as Talysarn. Talysarn meaning along the embankment. Luckily for us the building also has numbers; 24 -26 Well Street! While none of this information changes the position of the property it does give us other angles of investigation to hammer into the internet search engines! That aside, I was very fortunate to have met with Gareth Evans, the local historian, who gave me a couple of hints at names and dates that might get me on the roll of the house-history-hunt.
And so it was, with this knowledge, that the inhabitants of Plas Coch or 24-26 Well Street in the 20th Century started to appear. Looking a little like this:
Within this selection of characters we have retired hotel proprietors, ironmongers, widowed ladies and a borough surveyor and family.
In 1911 we can see that Number 26 was now known as Plas Coch Cottage and where possible every year tells us the occupation and age of each person living there. Which, my friends, is most excellent.
There are gaps… and there are bound to be pieces of history that aren’t caught in the Census. Even still the inhabitants of the twentieth and twenty-first century in Plas Coch, Well Street, Ruthin are starting to appear.
*If anybody has information that would help us fill in the history of Plas Coch, please get in touch by contacting cs@laviniastamp.com*
