Talacre
Coordinates: 53°21′04″N 3°19′09″W / 53.35117°N 3.31911°W
| Talacre | |
 The beach at Talacre. |
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 Talacre
Talacre shown within Flintshire |
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| OS grid reference | SJ122846 |
|---|---|
| Principal area | Flintshire |
| Country | Wales |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | HOLYWELL |
| Postcode district | CH8 |
| Dialling code | 01745 |
| Police | North Wales |
| Fire | North Wales |
| Ambulance | Welsh |
| EU Parliament | Wales |
| UK Parliament | Delyn |
| Welsh Assembly | Delyn |
| List of places: UK • Wales • Flintshire | |
Talacre is a village in Flintshire on the North Wales coast with large holiday caravan parks adjacent. It is near Point of Ayr on the west side of the River Dee estuary and has a sandy beach with dunes. The hills of the Clwydian Range behind the village form the eastern boundary of the Vale of Clwyd. The name Talacre is a combination of the Welsh words tal, meaning end, and acrau, meaning acres. In the north-east Welsh dialect, acrau is pronounced as acre.
The village is probably most popular for the lighthouse on the nearby beach and the Talacre Beach Caravan Park, a short walk away from the Presthaven Sands holiday park. The lighthouse has been noted for numerous ghostly sightings, people claiming to see a figure wearing old fashioned lighthouse keeper clothes and standing in front of the glass dome of the abandoned lighthouse.[1]
Talacre was used by the military during World War II, as an aircraft firing range. Fighters flew over the remote village every day, shooting at wooden targets in the dunes and at drogues towed by aircraft. It was also used for testing new devices, such as "window" the anti-radar foil that, on occasion, covered the whole village with silver.
The village is often used as part of Paul O'Grady's comedy act, telling stories of how he spent many summers "Stuck in a four berth caravan in Talacre", and is therefore now part of popular culture as a famous "typically British" seaside holiday resort.
Part of the beach where the lighthouse is situated has been shown briefly in a recent Dulux paint advert with the Old English Sheep Dog mascot
[edit] References
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Talacre |
- ^ "Permanent 'ghost' for lighthouse". BBC News. 5 August 2009. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/north_east/8183123.stm. Retrieved 2009-08-05.
- ^ "Mostyn of Talacre manuscripts". Flintshire Record Office. http://www.archivesnetworkwales.info/cgi-bin/anw/fulldesc_nofr?inst_id=28&coll_id=1156&expand=. "A noble castellated stone built mansion, containing 40 rooms, with a handsome private chapel"
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