Point of Ayr lighthouse on Talacre beach in Flintshire, North Wales
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. 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 The owners of Point of Ayr lighthouse off the Flintshire coast have applied to erect a "human sculpture" inspired by sightings of a ghostly figure. The lighthouse has been locked and out of service for more than a century. In recent years, several people have reported seeing the figure at the lighthouse. 'The Keeper' is a sculpture made of highly polished stainless steel
Size: 3618px × 5428px
Location: Talacre beach, Talacre, Flintshire, North Wales, United Kingdom
Photo credit: © John Hopkins / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: Yes
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