Ysceifiog is a small village just off the A451, a little to the north of the river Wheeler, approximately four miles south west of Holywell. According to Clwyd Powys Archaeological Trust, 'Ysceifiog (otherwise Ysgeifiog) appears as both Schiviau and Schinan in Domesday Book in 1086, a name which, the most recent authorities tell us, is derived from ysgeifiog, the English meaning of which is `sloping [place]?. Sceinoc appears in the records between 1186 and 1204,
and the Norwich Taxation of 1254 terms the church Esceyvauc, while the later Lincoln Taxation (of 1291) has it as Skeynyanc. By the Tudor era, the name was taking on its present form, as with Yskeifioc in the period 1550-1562. Its origins and development are obscure. There is nothing to suggest that a church was founded here in the early medieval era, though that remains a possibility. It has even been postulated that Ysceifiog could have been a mother church for the area before the Conquest, but the evidence is ambiguous. In 1699 Lhwyd noted that there were five houses by the church at Ysceifiogand the situation
half a century later appeared to be little different. Overall, there is nothing to suggest that in the past this was a settlement of any size.'
'The layout of the village has changed fundamentally over the last three hundred years. An estate map of 1738 though of small-scale reveals that there were small tracts of open common to the west and east of the church. These had been largely infilled by 1805 when another estate map was prepared, on the west by houses from the church wall as far as Northgate Cottages, and on the east by the Old Rectory and its grounds. Five or six buildings lay around the southern and in one instance the western edges of these commons. An earlier estate map, from 1716, depicts the church and a single house on the land immediately to the west of the church, but this is almost certainly an incorrect picture, resulting from an inadequate survey. Immediately to the south of the village there were several relict open-field strips and it can be assumed that open fields had been extensive elsewhere in the parish.'
The first, second and third editions of the 25inch OS maps, published in 1872, 1899 and 1912 respectively, show that at the turn of the twentieth century Ysceifiog was a small, nucleated settlement with a church dedicated to St. Mary (NPRN 421297), a National School (NPRN 302025) and a public house called The Fox. A century later, Ysceifiog has retained its character as a small village. The church and the public house remain open, and the school is now used as a community hall.
Sources: modern and historic OS maps; Clwyd Powys Archaeological Trust report no. 1142 entitled 'Historic settlements in Flintshire' by R J Silvester, C H R Martin and S E Watson, published in April 2012 (p.63-4)
M. Ryder, RCAHMW, 18th February 2019