On the 23rd and 24th July in 1889, in the village of Bagillt,
Flintshire, North Wales, held their first Flintshire Chair and Crown
Eisteddfod. An old derelict building owned by Newton Keates & Co,
that was once ' The Copper Works ', was by much village ingenuity,
transformed into a magnificent pavilion for the event. It also was the
first pavilion in Wales to be lit by electric light !. The Bardic Chair
was a much coveted prize to win and, was offered for the best poem of
500 lines on " Seren Bethlehem "..but was never awarded, as submissions
were considered to have been of such mediocre standard. Thereafter, the
Chair disappeared from public view only to resurface in an antique shop
in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, where it was purchased by the
Craigdarroch Castle Society in 1976. How the chair traveled, by how and
with whom, to Canada, still remains a mystery.
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