NORTHOP (NORTH-HOPE), a parish, in the union of HOLYWELL, Northop division of the hundred of COLESHILL, county of FLINT, NORTH WALES, 3 miles (N. by z.) from Mold, and 3 (S. by a.) from Flint; containing 3566 inhabitants. This place, which has obtained its present appellation in contradistinction to East, or Queen's Hope, was by the Welsh called " Llan-Eurgain," from the dedication of its first church to St. Eurgain, niece of St. Asaph, the second bishop of the see that from him derived its name. The parish, which comprises about 8000 acres, is situated on the estuary of the Dee, by which it is bounded on the north-east, and is traversed by the roads from Chester to Holyhead, 4nd from Mold to Holywell, which cross each other near the church. It comprises more than thirteen thousand acres of good arable and pasture land, inclosed and cultivated, exclusively of several thousand acres of sands on the estuary of the river, which, being almost entirely dry at low water, might at a comparatively small expense be brought into cultivation. The village, which is large, is pleasantly situated in a fertile and beautiful tract of country, abounding with finely varied and highly picturesque scenery, and is surrounded on all sides by elegant villas and handsome seats, inhabited by opulent families, among which the most conspicuous is Soughton Hall. The parish is rich in mineral treasure, and coal and lead-ore have been worked here for several centuries; a large colliery is still carried on in the hamlet of Soughton, and several shafts have been sunk on the Northop Hall estate, in the hamlets of Northop and Kelsterton. In the hamlet of Caervallwch are some very extensive lead-mines, which have been wrought from the earliest times, but are now rapidly declining, in consequence of the low price of lead. An ale and porter brewery, the first of the kind established in the county, was erected in the hamlet of Kelsterton, in the year 1818, and is conducted with great advantage to the proprietors; part of the city of Chester, and this and the adjoining counties being supplied from it. In the hamlet of Golvtyn a quay and pier have been constructed, within the last few years, by the Irish Coal Company, and vessels sail regularly from this place for Liverpool, London, and Dublin, and the ports of North Wales. The channel made by the River Dee Company passes for several miles through the parish; but the lands on the north side are still occasionally inundated. The LIVING consists of a rectory and a vicarage; the rectory, a sinecure, annexed, by an act passed in the 6th of Queen Anne's reign, to the bishopric of St. Asaph, in lieu of mortuaries, and rated in the king's books at £49. 14. 91f.; the vicarage endowed, rated at £14. 6. 8., and in the gift of the Bishop: the tithes have been commuted for a rent-charge of £1297, of which a sum of £797 is payable to the Bishop, subject to rates, averaging £110. 7., and one of £500 to the vicar subject to rates that average £54. 5. 4. per annum: there is a glebe-house. The present church, erected in 1571, and dedicated to St. Peter, is a spacious and embattled structure, with a lofty and elegant tower, ninety-eight feet high, and consists of a nave, chancel, and north aisle, with a sepulchral chapel adjoining the latter, in honour of St. Mary, and containing several ancient monuments. Of these, the oldest is one having the effigy of Edwyn ab Gronow, Prince of Tegengl, who died in 1073; another has the effigy of a knight in complete armour, with the hands crossed upon the breast, and a lion at the feet, the shield bearing a cross with five mullets; a third monument is to the memory of a female, whose effigy is well sculptured, having the head protected by an elaborately wrought canopy; from the neck depends a massive chain, and around the whole is a mutilated inscription, of which only the date mccccLxyxii. is legible. In digging a grave near the communion table, in 1798, was found an ancient figure of an armed knight, well sculptured; the armour of the period of the reign of Richard II. There are places of worship in the village for Calvinistic and Wesleyan Methodists; at Rhos Esmor, one each for Baptists and Calvinistic Methodists, for which latter denomination there are also one at Soughton and one at Golvtyn. The Free grammar-school was founded in 1606, by the Rev. George Smith, LL.B., who endowed it with £20 per annum for the salary of a master, and with £2. to a poor boy of each of the towns and parishes of Northop, Flint, Whitford, Cwm, and St. Asaph. Dr. D. Ellis, in 1624, augmented the endowment with £5 a year, for the better support of the master; and Owen Jones, Esq., in 1658, bequeathed all his lands and tenements in Northop to the vicar and churchwardens, in trust for the maintenance of seven boys of this parish in the above school, who should receive £4 per annum each for five years, at the expiration of that time be apprenticed with a fee of £8. Previously to 1815, the rents of the property had amounted to £131 per annum, and there was at that time a surplus of £547 in the hands of the trustees. By a decree of the court of Chancery, issued in that year, five more boys were added to the establishment; the annual payment to each was increased to £6, and the apprentice fee to £12; an addition of £10 per annum was also made to the salary of the master, and the remaining surplus was ordered to be distributed in weekly or monthly portions to the poor not receiving parochial aid. In 1609, three years after the Rev. George Smith's will, the parish built a school-house, on ground adjoining the churchyard; but it having been allowed to fall into a state of dilapidation, the National Society, at the request of the vicar, granted £80, which was increased to £100 by the Bishop of St. Asaph and the Vicar, and in 1831 it was completely repaired. A National school, in which are about 130 children, was erected in 1823 by subscription, aided by a gift of £100 from the parent society, upon ground presented by the Marquess of Westminster; it has an endowment of £40 per annum, being the interest of £800 raised out of the accumulations of Owen Jones's charity. In nine Sunday schools, maintained by voluntary contributions, about 420 males and 320 females are taught by gratuitous teachers; one on the National plan, five appertaining to Calvinistic Methodists, and the other three to Wesleyans. There are also three infants' schools, containing about fifty children, whose education is paid for by their parents. Various charitable donations and bequests in money and land have been appropriated to the endowment of the National school, the principal being a bequest of £50, by Mrs. Margaret Ellis, in 1700, for teaching female children, one of £40 by Hugh Carrison, and another of £20 by Mr. Edwards, of Soughton: of the charities not so applied are a rent-charge of £2 by Lady Catherine Hanmer, in 1646, and two others of £1 each, by Henry Kenrick, in 1609, and Hugh Price Wynne; but the chief benefactor of the parish was the above Owen Jones, in 1658, whose estates now produce £138. 16. 6. per annum, of which about £40 are distributed on Maunday Thursday and St. Thomas's-day among the poor. In the hamlet of Caervallwch, about two miles westward from the village, are the remains of a very extensive camp, called Moel-y-Gaer, or " the fortified bill," occupying an eminence surrounded by a deep circular fosse, and having an entrance on the western side: within the area, and near the northern extremity, is a small artificial mound, from the summit of which is one of the most extensive prospects in the principality. This camp, which is the most perfect of all the British posts in North Wales, commanded all the lines of stations on the Clwydian mountains, to the west: the view from it embraces the vales of Hope and Mold, as far as Wrexham, on the south; the estuaries of the Dee and the Mersey, with the port of Liverpool, on the north; and Chester, on the east. About three hundred paces to the north-west of it is a large artificial mound, commanding the pass of the mountain, and most probably intended as an outpost to the principal camp of Moel-y-Gaer. At the distance of a mile to the north of the village of Northop, and near the road leading to Holywell, are the ruins of Los Edwyn, the ancient palace of Edwyn ab Gronow, the above-named Prince of Tegengl: these remains, which are very inconsiderable, occupy a commanding situation; the foundations of the may still be traced, and the moat by which it was surrounded is still tolerably perfect on the northeast. Edwyn, in conjunction with several of the native princes of North Wales, attempted to oppose the progress of William the Conqueror in the subjugation of the principality, but without success, and, as appears from Domesday-book, was compelled to hold his territories subject to that monarch. After Edwyn's death, in 1079, they remained in the. possession of his descendants till the reign of Henry IV., when Howel Gwynedd, having embraced the cause of Owain Glyndwr, was taken prisoner and beheaded, and his estates were forfeited to the crown. Woes Dyhe, here erroneously called Offa's Dyke, enters the parish in the hamlet of Soughton, and, crossing the road to Mold near the turnpike-gate, takes a westerly course for some distance, and then forming an acute angle and taking a northern direction, crosses the Holywell road at the stone quarry, within a mile from the village of Northop, and passes near Lljls Edwyn, where it again pursues a westerly course, and leaves the parish near Cornist. William Parry, LL.D., representative in parliament for Qneenborough in the reign of Elizabeth, and who was executed before the door of the parliament-house, in 1584, for designing the death of that sovereign, was a native of the parish; and Dr. John Wynne, Bishop of St. Asaph, and afterwards of Bath and Wells, who received the rudiments of his education in the grammar school, was interred in the chancel of the church; he erected Soughton Hall in 1714.