Babell is a hamlet in Flintshire, Wales. It is part of the

community A community is a social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place, norms, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, tow ...

Ysgeifiog Ysceifiog, also written Ysgeifiog, is a small village, community (Wales), community and parish in Flintshire, Wales. It lies on a back road just north of the A541 highway between Nannerch and Caerwys. The name translates roughly as "a place where ...

. The hamlet takes its name from the Babell

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's b ...

chapel, built in 1836, but the surrounding area, a

township A township is a kind of human settlement or administrative subdivision, with its meaning varying in different countries. Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, that tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, Ca ...

of Ysgeifiog parish, was formerly known as Gelliloveday or Gellilyfdy. The name was recorded in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...

in the form "Cheslilaved", and as "Kelliloveday" in 1602.Davies, E. (1959) ''Flintshire place-names'', University of Wales Press, p.72 It has been suggested to mean " wych elm wood" (from

Welsh Welsh may refer to: Related to Wales * Welsh, referring or related to Wales * Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales * Welsh people People * Welsh (surname) * Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peop ...

''gelli'', "wood", and ''llwyv'', ''llwyfanen'', "wych elm"),John Gwenogryn Evans, ''Facsimile & text of the Book of Taliesin'', v1, 1910, xxiii but the placename scholar Ellis Davies stated that it probably came from the personal name "

Loveday Loveday is a name, thought to derive from Old English ''Leofdaeg'' or alternatively ''Lief Tag''. ''Leofdaeg'' is composed of the words ''leof'' meaning dear/beloved or precious and ''daeg'' meaning day. ''Lief Tag'' literally translates to Love ...

", ("Lyfdy"): "Loveday's wood". There is a section of the ancient earthwork Offa's Dyke nearby at Llyn-Ddu.Sir Cyril Fox, ''Offa's Dyke: a field survey of the western frontier works of Mercia in the seventh and eighth centuries A. D.'', OUP, 1955, p. 22 Although rural the area is dotted with old copper workings from the 19th century. The notable 17th-century

antiquary An antiquarian or antiquary () is an fan (person), aficionado or student of antiquities or things of the past. More specifically, the term is used for those who study history with particular attention to ancient artifact (archaeology), artifac ...

John Jones lived at the hall of Gellilyfdy, to the west of the present-day village.

References

External links

* Villages in Flintshire {{Flintshire-geo-stub