The village of Llanarmon-yn-Ial is situated on the B5431 approximately 12km (7 miles) south east of Ruthin. The river Alyn skirts around the eastern side of the village.

Llanarmon-ar-Ial has a long history. The first mention of the settlement is in the 1254 Norwich Taxation which referred to it as ‘Sancto Germano.’ Later it appears as ‘Lanarmavn’ in the ecclesiastical taxation of 1291. According to Clwyd Powys Archaeological Trust, ‘Its commotal name – as Thlanharmon in Yal – is revealed in a document of 1314. The name is of course a simple reference to the ‘church of Garmon’, but its appearance in this abbreviated form in 1254 is perhaps an indication of the status and ready recognition of the church. The church of St Garmon has long been held to be the leading church in the commote of Yale, and this dedication alone points to an early medieval beginning.’

Tomen y Faerdre motte, on the east bank of the river Alun, ‘was presumable established in the 12th century. Here too was the manorial court or caput of the lord of Yale (Iâl) complete with a mill and demesne land, all recorded in an Extent of Bromfield and Yale in 1315. Indeed, the mill, which is near the river Alyn, is said to occupy the same spot as an earlier mill which dated back to at least 1315.

Although the village was home to the mother church of the commote of Yale, by the late 17th century Edward Lluyd indicates that there were only four houses by the church. This means that Llanarmon was smaller than the neighbouring village of Llandegla. ‘The Tithe survey prepared in 1844/45 shows only a slightly larger scatter of dwellings,’ although amongst those dwellings would have been The Raven Inn, which was built in 1722, and the church school, which was built in 1777.

The first edition of the six-inch ordnance survey map, published in 1879, shows several houses centred around the church. Amenities in the village included a post office, a National School (for girls and boys), the Butchers’ Arms public house and three places of worship – St Garmon’s Church, an ‘Independent Methodists’ chapel on the eastern edge of the settlement and a Calvinistic Methodist Chapel a little to the north west of the village.

The 1914 edition of the six-inch Ordnance Survey map does not record a school and does not name the public house in the centre of the village. Llanarmon did still have a post office and another place of worship had opened – Tabor Wesleyan Methodist Chapel. The Independent Methodist chapel on the eastern edge of the village had been converted into Philadelphia Congregational Chapel.

In the twenty first century, ‘housing in the settlement is a mixture of 18th/19th-century cottages and modern houses. Several of the former have date stones, the earliest of 1749 being that for Llwyn Onn.’ Llanarmon has retained its post office and the Raven Inn public house. The old school is now used as a Church Hall. The church remains open as a place of worship, as does Bethel Welsh Calvinistic Chapel. Philadelphia Congregational chapel was sold at auction in 1979 and converted to residential use by 1995. Tabor Wesleyan Methodist chapel is also now in residential use.

Sources: historic Ordnance Survey maps, Google maps; Clwyd Powys Archaeological Trust Report no. 1257 ‘Historic settlements in Denbighshire’ by R J Silvester, C H R Martin and S E Watson (2014)

M. Ryder, RCAHMW, 5th January 2021