MYNYDD ISA

'Mynydd Isa' [IPA: mənɪð ɪsɒ:] is a village in Flintshire, in north-east Wales. It lies between the county town of Mold, and Buckley. Mynydd Isa was originally a small hamlet on the north side of the Mold to Buckley road (now the A549) just downhill from the now demolished Calvanistic Chapel. It does not appear on Ordnance Survey maps until after the 1840s.
The name is Welsh, and translates literally into English as 'Lower Mountain' (although this name is never used).
Names of other old hamlets in the area included Pant y Fownog, a hamlet on the same road nearer Buckley (centred on the Griffin Inn) and although the name was used well into the 1900s on picture postcards of the area and by the local Co-Op shop next to the Inn, it has long since become disused (lending its name to a road only).
'Bryn-y-Baal' is an old hamlet now much enlarged since the 1970s and now contiguous with Mynydd Isa. Bryn-y-Baal takes its name from the a Middle English word ''"bale"'' (rhymes with "Carl") meaning small hill. Later it was then written in a Welsh form as 'bâl' with a ''tô bach'' (little roof or circumflex in English) over the "â". This has the effect in Welsh of lengthening the "a" rather than the usual short "a" (as in cat) in Welsh. This form appears on early Ordnance Survey maps. Eventually it was written in the Anglicised form 'Baal' - still correctly pronounced to rhyme with "Carl".^[1].
The local community council is Argoed Community Council (''Cyngor Cymunedol Argoed'' in Welsh) - Argoed being the name of the ancient township which had covered the area since the Middle Ages, which also lends its name to the local secondary school.
Schools located in the village are a secondary school known as Argoed High School a primary school (Mynydd Isa Junior School, or Ysgol y Bryn) in Bryn-y-Baal, and a local infant school (Wat's Dyke Infants) in Mynydd Isa.
The pubs in the two villages consist of ''The Griffin'' on Mold Road and''The Mercia'' on Mercia Drive.

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References

References

1. ''Flintshire Place Names'' by Hwyl Wyn Owen ISBN 978-0-7083-1242-1 (1995)