Place:Wrexham, Denbighshire, Wales

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Wrexham is a market town and the administrative centre of Wrexham County Borough in Wales. It is located between the Welsh mountains and the lower Dee Valley, where it borders with the county of Cheshire in England. Historically in the county of Denbighshire, the town became part of the county of Clwyd in 1974 and then the principal settlement of the Wrexham County Borough in 1996.

Wrexham has historically been one of the primary settlements of Wales. At the 2011 Census, its built-up area had a population of 65,692,^[1] making it the fourth largest urban area in Wales and largest in north Wales. The town comprises the local government communities of Acton, Caia Park, Offa and Rhosddu. Wrexham's built-up area extends further into villages like Bradley, Brymbo, Brynteg, Gwersyllt, New Broughton, Pentre Broughton and Rhostyllen.

Wrexham was likely founded prior to the 11th century and developed in the Middle Ages as a regional centre for trade and administration.^[2] The market town became the most populous settlement in Wales in the 17th century^[3] and was at the forefront of the Industrial Revolution from the 18th century. Prior to de-industrialisation in the 20th century, the town and surrounding area were a hub of coal and lead mining; the production of iron, steel and leather; and brewing.^[4]

Today, Wrexham continues to serve north Wales and the Welsh borderlands as a centre for manufacturing, retail, education and administration. The town is noted for hosting Wrexham A.F.C. (one of the oldest professional football teams in the world); the nationally significant industrial heritage of the Clywedog Valley; the celebrated National Trust Property of Erddig; and the fine Tudor church of St Giles, which towers over the historic Wrexham town centre.

On 20 May 2022, it was announced that Wrexham's bid for city status was successful, and Wrexham would receive the status formally through Letters Patent later in 2022. It would become the seventh city in Wales.

History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Early history

Human activity in the Wrexham area dates back to the Mesolithic period (8000 to 4300 BC), with tools made from flint being found to the east of the town. Two Bronze Age burial mounds are located to the west of the modern town centre^[5] and there is evidence that the area had developed into a centre for an innovative metalworking industry by the early Middle Bronze Age. A series of Iron Age hill-forts are located to the west of present-day Wrexham along the upland-lowland line suggesting the presence of an ancient tribal boundary.

At the time of the Roman conquest of Britain, the area which Wrexham formed part of was held by a tribe called the Cornovii. A Roman civilian settlement was located in the Plas Coch area of Wrexham and excavations have revealed evidence of agriculture and trade with the wider Roman world. Following the end of Roman rule in Britain, Wrexham formed part of the Romano-British Kingdom of Powys.

Medieval

The Battle of Chester circa 615/616 marked the beginning of a long struggle between the Welsh and English for territory in this part of Wales. During the eighth century, the Anglo-Saxon royal house of Mercia pushed their frontiers westwards and established the earth boundaries of Wat's Dyke and Offa's Dyke to the west of the present town.

During this first period of Mercian advance in the eighth century, the settlement of Wrexham was likely founded on the flat ground above the meadows of the River Gwenfro. The name Wrexham probably comes from the old English for Wryhtel's river meadow.^[5] Alternatively, the name may have described a settlement of the Wreocensæte people, who were possibly a continuation of the Cornovii tribe of Roman Britain. The settlement may have originally been named 'Caer Fantell' in Welsh but by the 13th century was recorded in Welsh as 'Gwrexham' or 'Gregsam'.

The Mercians fought over north-east Wales during the eighth to tenth centuries but the Welsh Kings of Powys re-conquered the Wrexham area during the 11th century. Following the Welsh reconquest, Wrexham formed an integral part of the Powys lordship of Maelor and so does not appear in the Domesday Book of 1086. The first recorded reference to the town in 1161 is to a castle at 'Wristlesham'.

Stability under the princes of Powys Fadog enabled Wrexham to develop as a trading town and administrative centre of one of the two commotes making up the Lordship. In 1202, Madoc ap Gruffydd Maelor, Lord of Dinas Brân, granted some of his demesne lands in 'Wrechcessham' to the abbey of Valle Crucis and in 1220 the earliest reference to a church in Wrexham is made.^[6]

Following the loss of Welsh independence and the death in battle of Prince Llywelyn ap Gruffudd in 1282, Wrexham became part of the semi-independent Marcher lordship of Bromfield and Yale.^[2] Wrexham increased in importance throughout the Middle Ages as the lordship's administrative centre, and the town's position made it a suitable centre for the exchange of the produce of the Dee valley and Denbighshire uplands, whilst iron and lead were also mined locally.^[2]

From 1327 onwards, the town is referred to as a villa mercatoria (market town) and became a celebrated centre for Welsh craftsmen. The town was particularly well known in the 14th and 15th centuries for the manufacture of Welsh bucklers, as illustrated by the mention in the 1547 Inventory of King Henry VIII of 'wreckesham Buckelers'. In 1391 Wrexham was wealthy enough for a bard, jester, juggler, dancer and goldsmith to earn their living there. The traditional pattern of Welsh life – law, administration, customs and language – remained undisturbed through the Middle Ages and the pattern was for local English people to rapidly adopt the Welsh-language and to be assimilated into Welsh culture, even to point of adopting Welsh Patronymic surnames.^[6]

The local Welsh nobility and peasantry backed the uprising led by Owain Glyndŵr against King Henry IV of England during the early 15th century. Local poet Guto'r Glyn (c. 1412 – c. 1493) heralded Siôn ap Madog, the great-nephew of Owain Glyndŵr, as 'Alecsander i Wrecsam' ("an Alexander for Wrexham") and the poet Hywel Dafi addresses Siôn's heir as 'Gwregys am ais Gwregsam wyt' (the armour around Wrexham's ribs).

Early Modern

The Acts of Union passed during the reign of Henry VIII brought the lordship into the full system of English administration and law. It became part of the new shire of Denbighshire in 1536.

In 1584 St Richard Gwyn, a local Recusant, schoolteacher, and poet in the Welsh-language, was convicted of high treason based on his Catholic beliefs by a panel of judges headed by the Chief Justice of Chester, Sir George Bromley. On 15 October 1584, Gwyn was taken to the Beast Market and hung, drawn and quartered for his faith. He was canonised by Pope Paul VI in 1970 as one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales. His Feast Day is 17 October.

The main body of the church of St Giles was rebuilt in the late 15th and early 16th centuries to become one of the finest examples of ecclesiastical architecture in Wales.^[7]

The economic character remained predominantly as an agricultural market town into the 17th century but there were workshops of weavers, smiths, nailers as well as dye houses. The 1620 Norden's jury of survey of Wrexham Regis stated that four-fifths of the land-holding classes of Wrexham bore Welsh names and every field except one within the manor bore a Welsh or semi-Welsh name.

A grammar school was established in 1603 by Alderman Valentine Broughton of Chester.^[2]

During the English Civil War, most of the local Welsh gentry supported King Charles I and in 1642 the King addressed enthusiastic crowds in the town. However, local landlord Sir Thomas Myddelton declared for the Rump Parliament^[8] and Parliamentarians occupied the town in 1643 and 1645. Wrexham served as military headquarters for both forces ^[2] and a quarter of houses were burned down in 1643 during the quartering of troops in the town.^[2]

In the 17th century, Wrexham served as an educational and cultural focal point for local society and became a 'Puritan Metropolis'.^[2] Morgan Llwyd, the radical nonconformist preacher and writer, was educated at the Wrexham Grammar School and became Vicar of Wrexham in 1645.^[4][8]

Late Modern

Wrexham was known for its leather industry and by the 18th century there were a number of skinners and tanners in the town.

The Industrial Revolution began in Wrexham in 1762 when the entrepreneur John Wilkinson (1728–1808), known as "Iron Mad Wilkinson", opened Bersham Ironworks. Wilkinson's steam engines enabled a peak of production at Minera Lead Mines on the outskirts of Wrexham.

From the late 18th century numerous large-scale industrialised collieries operated in the southern section of the North East Wales coalfield, alongside hundreds of more traditional small-scale pits belonging to a mining tradition dating back to the Middle Ages.

18th century literary visitors included Samuel Johnson, who described Wrexham as "a busy, extensive and well-built town", and Daniel Defoe who noted the role of Wrexham as a "great market for Welch flannel". The artist J. M. W. Turner also visited the town in 1792-93 and 1794 which resulted in his drawings of St Giles Parish Church and surrounding buildings and a watercolour painting of a street scene. Rev. William Bingley described Wrexham in 1839 as "of such size and consequence as to have occasionally obtained the appellation of the metropolis of North Wales". Wrexham gained its first newspaper in 1848. The Market Hall was built in 1848, and in 1863 a volunteer fire brigade was founded. In addition to brewing, tanning became one of Wrexham's main industries. In the mid 19th century Wrexham was granted borough status.

By 1851, the population of Wrexham was 6,714; within thirty years this had increased to 10,978 as the town became increasingly industrialised.

Wrexham benefited from good underground water supplies which were essential to the brewing of beer: by the mid-19th century, there were 19 breweries in and around the town. Wrexham Lager brewery was established in 1882 in Central Road and became the first brewery in the United Kingdom to produce lager beer. A permanent military presence was established in the town with the completion of Hightown Barracks in 1877. The Poyser Street drill hall was completed in 1902.

When the 1912 National Eisteddfod of Wales was held at Wrexham, T.H. Parry-Williams achieved for the first time the feat, almost unheard of since, of winning both the Chair and the Crown. Parry-Williams later recalled returning home to Rhyd-ddu, where had been working as a hired hand upon the farm of a relative. Upon telling his employer of his double-victory, Parry-Williams was advised to, "seek grace." When Parry-Williams then explained that both victories had gained him £40, the relative shouted in angry disbelief, "Ac mi gwnest nhw i gyd ar dy din!!!" ("And you earned them all sitting on your arse!!!!")

By 1913, the North East Wales coal field was producing up to 3 million tonnes a year and employed over 10,000 people, dominating the economic and cultural life of the area. One of the worst mining disasters in British history occurred at Gresford Colliery in 1934 when underground explosions and a subsequent fire cost the lives of 266 men. However the industry went into decline after the First World War, and of the seven large-scale collieries operating in the Wrexham area in 1946, only two functional collieries remained by 1968. The last pit to close in the Borough was Bersham Colliery in 1986.The leatherworks in Pentrefelin and Tuttle Street, the many coal mines in the area, the brickworks in Abenbury, Brymbo Steelworks and the breweries all closed in the latter half of the 20th century. Wrexham suffered from the same problems as much of industrialised Britain and saw little investment in the 1970s.

In the 1980s and 1990s, the Welsh Development Agency (WDA) funded a major dual carriageway (the A483) bypassing Wrexham town centre and connecting it with nearby Chester and with England's trunk road network. New shopping areas have been created within the town at Henblas Square, Island Green and Eagles Meadow and the Wrexham Industrial Estate, previously used in the Second World War, has become home to many manufacturing businesses.

Wrexham Town Hall, an early 18th century arcaded structure with an assembly hall on the first floor, which had been built at the top of Town Hall, was demolished to improve traffic flows in the area in February 1940.

Wrexham's former police station on Regent Street, originally the barracks for the Royal Denbighshire Militia, is now home to Wrexham County Borough Museum. The museum has two galleries devoted to the history of the town and its surrounding communities. The museum also holds the archive of the Royal Welch Fusiliers; battalions were stationed in Wrexham during the First World War. The collection is notable for containing original documents in the handwriting of Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Graves, J. C. Dunn and other notable members of the RWF, as well as official records.

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