December 2019

Seen In Passing… The long-standing Jan’s Cards, Well Street, closed on November 3rd for Jan’s retirement. It’s hard to imagine lower Well Street without her. She was there as Jan’s Cards for some 40 years and, before that, had previously sold cards in the same shop for others, for 15 years. An end of an era. Expect the row of shops with accommodation above to go on the open market. Appeared alongside Cyril Arnold accountants in Caste Street is this set of reclaimed cast iron railings, which probably date from the mid-19th century. A casual glance and you’d think that they were always there. In fact, the originals were removed for the war effort. The “new” railings enhance the property, while lending it some defendable space for the resident occupying the remainder of the Cyril Arnold building. October 24th saw an automatic speed display appear on seemingly private land in Pentre Llanrhaeadr. It is official, though, and is reported to have had a tremendous impact on motorists who otherwise were ignoring or disregarding the posted 30mph limit. Might there be a role for these elsewhere? The limit through the village was first set to 30 in April 2015. No sooner had we reported in the September 2019 edition of In Passing… that gentlemen’s barbers in Ruthin had hit an all time high of five, a sixth appeared in early October, this time in the former beauty parlour next to Aydin’s chippy, Wernfechan. Appearing overnight on the doors of both County Hall and the Town Hall on September 6th/7th were warning notices from Extinction Rebellion. Was Ruthin to feature in one of its campaigns, perhaps? Apparently, not. The posters were soon removed.  Other walls than featured on p7 treated this autumn include at Prior Street/Park Road and that opposite the Memorial, finished before Remembrance Day.