The Rock Inn, Lloc
The name of this pub marks its historic association with the extensive quarrying in the area in the 18th and 19th centuries. The village of Lloc had several pubs in the stone industry’s heyday. The Rock Inn is the last survivor.
The history of mineral extraction in this area stretches back at least to Roman times. A Roman ingot of lead weighing about 68kg was unearthed when a new school was built in Carmel, 3km east of Lloc, in 1949.
With the coming of the Industrial Revolution, the scale of mining and quarrying increased rapidly. One of the main quarries by the early 19th century was Pen y Gelli. Limestone from the quarry was used for local buildings, including the church at Lloc, and for walls around fields. Some of the limestone was crushed and loaded into a limekiln, where it was burned with coal to produce lime. The lime was spread on fields to improve the soil or used for mortar (the material which bonded stones in buildings before cement was available).
Lead was also mined underground at Pen y Gelli from the early 19th century to 1877. Several shafts (vertical tunnels into mineworkings) can still be seen in or near woodland west of Lloc. A steam engine pumped water from the tunnels.
Lloc is a Welsh word for a pen or pound for stray animals, adapted from the Middle English “loc”. Here it was recorded as Llok in 1479 and Y Llocke in 1517, according to Prof Hywel Wyn Owen. A house beside the pen took the name (Y Lhock, 1683) and was later a post office, a community role which explains the adoption of Lloc as the hamlet’s name.
With thanks to Prof Hywel Wyn Owen, of the Welsh Place-Name Society, and to Clwyd-Powys Archaeological Trust
Postcode: CH8 8RD