Hawarden Airport is the only public airfield in north Wales, although services are intermittent. Its primary function is to serve the Raytheon and BAe Systems aerospace factories in the adjacent village of Broughton, where BAe manufacture the wings of the Airbus airliners before they are flown in a Beluga cargo aircraft to Toulouse, France for final assembly of the complete aircraft.
Hawarden's most famous residents are the former Prime Minister, William Ewart Gladstone (1809-1896), who lived in Hawarden Castle -- the home of his wife's family, the Glynnes; and the professional footballer Michael Owen (b. 1979) who, although born a few miles away in Chester and thus eligible to play for England, was raised in Hawarden and currently lives a few miles away at Northop Hall (Owen famously bought a small street of houses for his extended family in the adjacent village of Ewloe).
Gladstone bequeathed his library, now known as St. Deiniol's Library, to the town.