The Barber and Barber's Hill

Around 1870, John Hughes, owner of Lower Dee Mills, recorded in his diary a tale told to him by Old Edward Humphreys y Ddol. Edward Humphreys would have been around 80 years old at that time, but had lived 30 years earlier at Dolhiryd on Abbey Road, where John Hughes was living at the time that he recorded the story. Edward Humphreys was recounting a story that had occurred 50 years before he was born.


“In one of the small houses under the churchyard lived the barber. He was also the schoolmaster of the village: an irritable character. One day, in a dispute between him and his wife about the boiling or roasting of a neck of mutton, he drew his razor across her throat and killed her. He ran out and shut the door. The schoolchildren did not know what was the matter, but saw their Mistress bleeding and staggering (and) ran out and told their neighbours. A lot of men were mustered and followed him up Cross Lane and over the fields to the Old Workhouse. They caught him washing himself at Pistyll Aber Adda (or Pistyll y Workhouse).


The following assizes at Ruthin he was condemned to be gibbeted on the nearest hill overlooking the town of Llangollen. At the appointed day he was brought on a lean horse without a saddle, his legs tied underneath, from Ruthin to Llangollen. At the Gib Pendol he was regaled with a pint of ale, and seeing the people and children running and climbing up the Geraint, he turned to them and said in Welsh 'You need not hurry, there will be no sport until I am there.' 

The story goes that a Mrs. Parry, the landlady at the Hand, gave him a jug of ale as passing. He was hung in Gibbets on the top of the Hill. Hence 'Moel y Barbwr',  'The Barber’s Hill'. It is said that the oak forming the Gibbet now forms a beam in an old barn at Vivod.”