One of the earliest references to ale being sold shows that on November 1 1662, the lord of the manor, Sir Henry Conway, granted licence reciting that it be held by grant from King Edward II.
The licence referred to the Dafaran Fawr, the predecessor of the Cross Foxes situated in the same block of buildings facing the top of the High Street. The Cross Foxes was built in 1664 making it the oldest pub in Prestatyn still standing today.
In the early 19th Century when Prestatyn began to acquire celebrity status as a holiday resort and sea bathing became the vogue, fashionable ladies from mansion houses in the Vale of Clwyd set aside their tours of Europe to explore the countryside and sea-line closer to home.
The most distinguished of these ladies was poet Hester Thrale of Bryn Bella, Tremeirchion, who was a close friend of Doctor Johnson, the celebrated diarist with whom she travelled all over North Wales.
When sea bathing at Prestatyn Mrs Thrale is said to have relished staying at the Cross Foxes and she described Prestatyn as a "melancholy place, very romantic, truly solitary, with screaming seagulls".
On her stay in 1790 she wrote: "For me though there's no breadth or length, no room to swing a cat in, when I'm distressed for health or strength, pray send me to Prestatyn."
By 1904, 28-year-old Edward Jones Evans had purchased the four-bedroomed Cross Foxes from his parents Richard and Katherine for the sum of £3,300. And in the outbuildings, records show, both ginger beer and lemonade were manufactured. 
