St Giles' Church, Wrexham

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The Steeple of St Giles' Church in Wrexham is one of the Seven Wonders of Wales.

St Giles' Church is the parish church of Wrexham, Wales, and its tower is traditionally one of the Seven Wonders of Wales and commemorated in an anonymously written rhyme:

Pistyll Rhaeadr and Wrexham steeple,

Snowdon's mountain without its people,

Overton yew trees, St Winefride wells,

Llangollen bridge and Gresford bells.

The market and industrial centre of Wrexham, by far the largest town in North Wales, is the home of the steeple in the rhyme. It can be seen for many miles around as the tallest building in the town, but in fact it turns out to be not a steeple at all, but the 16th century tower of the Church of St. Giles.

The richly-decorated tower, 135-feet high, with its four striking hexagonal turrets, was begun in 1506. It is graced by many medieval carvings including those of an arrow and a deer, the attributes of Saint Giles. The interior of the church also contains many late medieval carvings and monuments. On a window you can find the words of the Evangelical hymn "From Greenland's Icy Mountains." which was written by Reginald Heber and first performed at the Church in 1819. Just west of the tower is the grave of Elihu Yale, after whom Yale University in the USA is named, with its long, fanciful epitaph containing the following lines:

Born in America, in Europe bred,

In Africa travell'd, and in Asia wed,

Where long he lov'd and thriv'd;

At London dead.

The grave of Elihu Yale.

To enter the churchyard, you pass through the magnificent wrought-iron gates, completed in 1719 by the Davies Brothers of nearby Bersham, who were also responsible for the even more elaborate gates of Chirk Castle, perhaps the finest example of wrought-iron work in Britain. It is well worth a short diversion to the little village of Chirk to view these gates; their painstaking detail makes us wonder why they were not given an honoured place as one of the so-called seven wonders of Wales. The only comparable ironwork is found in two other sets of Davies Brothers' gates: at Sandringham House, one of the English monarch's residences and at Leeswood Hall, near Mold in Flintshire.

St Giles is a must for any visitor to the town. It is a welcoming place and there are regular tours up the tower.