Gemig Street & former Red Lion Inn, St Asaph

Cadwyn Clwyd LogoGemig Street & former Red Lion Inn, St Asaph

The name of this street derives from the Welsh word “cam”, meaning crooked. It’s basically a crescent-shaped street, as it was when John Speed mapped St Asaph in 1611. However, the same map reveals how most of the other streets were straight, making Gemig Street stand out. The descent as well as the curve also emphasise the irregularity.

old photo of red lion innIf you’ve just scanned the QR codes at the street’s junction with High Street, walk a short distance down Gemig Street and look to your left to see the former Red Lion Inn (set back from the road, behind Felton House). The inn was built in the late 16th or early 17th century. Some 200 years later, the first floor was used as a theatre. A programme listing plays which were staged there in 1806 survives.

A large model of a red lion stood guard on the flat roof above the crenellated porch, as can be seen in the 1905 photo on the right. The lion was removed after the pub closed in the early 21st century. The building is now a private house – please don’t disturb the residents.

Police often had to visit Gemig Street in olden times. People were sometimes arrested for being drunk and disorderly there, and in 1899 one of the street’s residents, Emma Jones, was sent to jail for four months, with hard labour, for neglecting her children because she was nearly always drunk. She spent her husband’s wages on drink, despite being warned by the NSPCC (National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children).

One morning in December 1904, five-year-old Agnes Durcan left her bed in a Gemig Street house and hurried downstairs to sit near the fire, which her father James had lit before going to his work as a labourer. Her nightdress caught fire. Hearing her screams, her brother rushed in and wrapped a coat around her. Medics tried to save her but she died about five hours later.

Another child from Gemig Street was killed by her own mother, who was possibly suffering what today would be identified as postnatal depression. Annie Mary Walsh had moved to the street from the Workhouse Infirmary, where she’d given birth to daughter Dinah. In February 1918, Annie threw three-month-old Dinah into the river Clwyd and then told a policeman what she had done.

Postcode: LL17 0RY    View Location Map