Lightwood Green, North Wales

The present chapel at Lightwood Green was Wesleyan. But that is a different Lightwood Green, and is in Cheshire. My booklet on the early Primitive mission to North Wales says little or nothing about the Lightwood Green in Flintshire, as I confused it with the one in Cheshire. These few notes are about the one in Flintshire.

The 1830 Primitive Methodist Magazine (pp. 68-9) quotes the Journal of John Walford for 1828:

1st May spoke at Lightwood Green. Several shook and trembled under the word. Afterwards we agonized with the Lord… fourteen were brought to the ground, two got liberty, several received entire sanctification, and three were caught into vision.

The Oswestry Branch of the Prees Circuit (1831) was holding a Sunday afternoon service at 2 o’clock at Lightwood Green, and also a midweek meeting.

The Oswestry Circuit planned a camp meeting there in 1837. The 1840 Primitive Methodist Magazine (pages 432ff) quotes the Journal of Richard Ward:

Friday 6th March, 1840: I visited at Cloy and Lightwood Green. I found two persons very ill, but ready to depart and be with Christ.

The 1840 Primitive Methodist Magazine also gives extracts from the Journal of William Doughty:

Sunday 26th May 1839 At Lightwood Green 10.30, and Knolton Bryn 2.30. There was a great melting down among the people, and the power of God was present to heal.

Doughty had been an itinerant minister, but had become a local preacher by 1839.

By 1846 the circuit still included Lightwood Green, but with no members. The same was true in 1849, and in March 1852 it was decided “that Lightwood Green come off plan.” Nonetheless, a further camp meeting was planned. Overton in Times Past (Brian Done & Betty Williams, Clwyd County Council, 1992) states that early camp meetings were held on Lightwood Green and continued well into the twentieth century.

Lightwood Green lies about half-way between Overton and Penley, each of which gained a Primitive Methodist chapel.