Rhewl is a small village built near the river Clywedog, along the north eastern side of the A525. It is located approximately a mile and a half north west of Ruthin. The first edition of the 25inch maps, published in 1874, depicts a very small, rural village centred around its flour mill, a public house called the Drovers' Arms and its Welsh Calvinistic Methodist chapel, which was built in 1844 (NPRN 7819). On the eastern edge of the village was Rhewl Railway Station (NPRN 54011) on the Denbigh, Ruthin and Colwyn railway. To the north east of the railway station, around 0.5km from the village centre, there was a post office. Little had changed by the time the second and third editions of the 25 inch map were published in 1899 and 1912 respectively, except that the post office had moved nearer to the village centre.
In the twenty-first century, the flour mill has closed and the railway line dismantled, although the chapel and the Drovers Arms remain open. There are now more houses at Rhewl, especially to the south east of the village centre. Shortly after the third edition of the 25inch maps was published in 1912, a village school was built. This remained open for a century but in 2018, on the year of its centenary, Rhewl County Primary School closed. At its last Estyn inspection in 2017, the school was educating 24 pupils aged three to eleven, primarily through the medium of English.
Sources: modern and historic OS maps; Coflein database; Estyn report on Rhewl County Primary School published in September 2017; article in www.denbighshirefreepress.co.uk entitled 'Emotional farewell to Ysgol Rhewl on its 100th birthday,' published on 18th July 2018
M. Ryder, RCAHMW, 12th February 2019