Hi Bert - apologies for the very delayed reply about:

"Have you ever been to Wales
Where they drink Caergwrle ales"

Thank you for the info re "Cosher Bailey" on Mudcat:
Cosher Bailey's Engine

Yes - that is the song - or rather a North Wales version of it as the place names were different in thre version my father used to sing.

I remember this verse was the same,

"Cosher Bailey's sister Hanna
Well, she played the grand pianna
She went hammer, hammer, hammer,
Till the neighbours said, "Goddamn her!"

Although Caergwrle is a small village now it was once very well known as a spa and famous for its ales, so the reference in the North Wales version makes sense.

I found this reference:

http://www.redandwhitekop.com/forum/index.php?topic=304444.0

(I could not find the site it was copied from)

In 1902 the owner of Rhyddyn Hall, Lieutenant Roe Brown had the waters there analysed. He saw their potential. In 1907 he sold the hall and the wells there to a syndicate who developed them into a successful tourist attraction - Caergwrle Spa.Caergwrle Spa became a popular resort with people from Manchester and Liverpool at the beginning of the twentieth century. However, like many other Welsh watering places, nothing is left of the spa, except one very solid, but boarded up, red brick building.

In its heyday the now defunct spa at Rhyddyn Hall produced 14,000 bottles of saline fizz every day.

The wells were first referred to in 1740 by Dr. Short of Sheffield and in 1760 it was noted that the clear spring water possessed the ability to cure 'scarbetic disorders and leprosy'.

An account by a young girl from Liverpool "Every Wednesday and Sunday in about 1911/13 the railway company ran one shilling (old money, of course) day trips to 'Caergwrle Castle and Wales' and the trains from Seacombe were absolutely packed with Liverpudlians.

Outside Caergwrle station would be three or four women from Liverpool with shawls over their heads and baskets full of fruit etc. They shouted to the trippers thus:-

'Apples a pound pears – nice ripe nanas for the children – Kig-girlie rock a penny a bar, two bars for three ha'pence' all in the famous Liverpool accent!

The men would go straight into the 'Bridge' by the station (then the railway ticket gave them the right to drink on Sundays) and the women and children went up the Castle Hill , Hope Mountain or into the Spa where you could drink the health-giving waters, walk along the river bank or even listen to the Band. (I have postcards to prove what a pretty place this was). My family lived in Waterloo, near Liverpool and we went on Sundays, usually in September, straight up to Plas-yn-Bwl Woods collecting baskets of lovely blackberries, then down to a grocer's shop in the village where Mrs. Edwards supplied us with ham and eggs and lashings of tea before catching the last train to Seacombe, then boat to Liverpool and train from Exchange Station to Waterloo". How idyllic it sounded.

Special excursion trains would run on Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays. At busy weekends, seven or eight trains a day would bring hundreds of people. In 1914 passenger numbers were estimated to be 1500 on May Day bank holiday and 2 - 3000 on 20th June.Other visitors came by bicycle or charabanc and later by motor car, motor bike and bus."

The village over the river Alyn is Hope and, as they say in these parts,
"Live in Hope . . . and die in Caergwrle"! :-)

Best wishes,
Lizzie