Deeside, Flintshire

The Flintshire Bridge

Deeside is a predominantly industrial conurbation of towns and villages that lie on, or near the River Dee in Flintshire. These include, Connah's Quay, Mancot, Pentre, Shotton, Queensferry, Sealand, Broughton, Hawarden, Ewloe, Sandycroft and parts of Saltney. The population is around 50,000, of whom the majority, 16,526 in 2001, live in Connah's Quay.

Deeside is known for its industry, providing jobs for the people of Cheshire, south Lancashire, Flintshire and Denbighshire. The biggest employment area in Deeside is Deeside Industrial Park which has both historical and contemporary significance, and provides Deeside and the surrounding area with jobs in many different industries from construction to food production. Deeside is also home to steel manufacturer Corus and aircraft manufacturer Airbus. The Airbus factory is in Broughton, where wings are produced for the Airbus A330 and the A380. The motto of the factory in Broughton is "Without us, it's just a bus" meaning that the parts that make Airbus aircraft fly, rather than just run along the ground, are made in Deeside. Toyota's highly advanced engine manufacturing plant is located here.

History

Ancient history

The industrial estate still contains visible relics of Deeside's ancient history, such as the remnants of a human-made henge on a roundabout on a motorway roundabout in the Deeside Industrial Area.

Shotton's history dates back around 1000 years to Saxon times. It was considered part of Cheshire for much of the Early Middle Ages.

Recent history

Connah's Quay power station

Until industrialisation in the nineteenth century, Shotton remained a cluster of hamlets: a settlement comprising Shotton, Nine Houses and Shotton Hall, which itself dates back to 1637.

Coal mining developed in the eighteenth century, then in 1889 the opening of the Hawarden Railway Bridge over the River Dee improved access to the reclaimed Dee Marshes. Following this, in 1895, the Summers family purchased 40 acres of Dee marshland, on which they established Shotton Steelworks. In September 1896, Shotton Steelworks began producing sheet steel. The development of this steelworks on the banks of the River Dee changed an area that was once mainly marshland, with Shotton - just across the Dee - previously little more than a hamlet. Shotton Steelworks led to the development of whole communities to house the influx of workers, estimated up to 13,000 at the height of the industry, with Shotton and Connah's Quay Jetty hubs of activity serving the steelworks. There were also brickworks and other industries in and around Shotton, and Connah's Quay developed as a town on the banks of the Dee Estuary, becoming known for its shipbuilding industry.

Sights about Deeside

The most striking landmark in Deeside is the fixed cable-stayed bridge, which was opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 1998. The bridge is known as the Flintshire Bridge but is commonly referred to by locals as the "New Bridge".

The area also has the Brewmeister Brewery, which produces the Deeside Pale Ale amongst others.

Local media

• Television: The area is mainly covered by the Winter Hill, Lancashire signal for BBC North West and ITV Granada.
• Radio:
  • Dee 106.3 which broadcasts from its studio just off Sealand Road in Chester.
  • BBC Radio Merseyside
  • Radio City 96.7
• Newspapers
  • The Evening Leader
  • The Chronicle
  • Evening Standard.

Outside links

• "North East Wales Photos: Old and new photos of Connah's Quay, Shotton & Queensferry". BBC. http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/northeast/sites/deeside/photos.shtml. Retrieved 25 April 2010.