History of Wrexham

The history of Wrexham from the prehistoric to the present day. Wrexham is a large town in the north-east of Wales with a long history of both heavy industry and as a market town.

Prehistoric to Roman times

Approximately 8,000 years ago Mesolithic man ventured to what is now the Wrexham area. These people were hunter-gatherers and led a nomadic existence. They left little tangible evidence of their existence, save a number of small flint tools called Microliths that have been found in the Borras area.

A number of Neolithic (4300 - 2300 BC) stone axe heads have been found in Borras, Darland and Johnstown.

Two Bronze age mounds are situated at Fairy Mount, Fairy Road and Hillbury on Hillbury Road. Both of these mounds lie within the grounds of Victorian properties in the south west of the town. It is likely that construction work within this area during the early 20th century eradicated other related features.

The area surrounding Wrexham is well served by several rivers, including the Clywedog, Alyn and Gwenfro, all of which are tributaries of the Dee. These rivers would have served as highways for early man. Finds within the Alyn area reveal that trade was taking place along this river with places as far away as Ireland during the Bronze Age.

A number of Iron Age hillforts also exist within the surrounding area, including Bryn Alyn (near Bradley), Y Gaer (near Broughton, Flintshire) and Y Gardden (near Ruabon).

At the time of the Roman conquest of Roman Britain, the area which Wrexham formed part of was held by a tribe called the Cornovii. The Cornovii held the lowland forests of Cheshire and Shropshire. Their tribal capital was at Wroxeter, near Shrewsbury. In 48 A.D the Roman Legions reached Wroxeter and then proceeded to attack a tribe called the Deceangli who were based in what is now Flintshire. Around 70 - 75 A.D the Legionary fortress of Deva was constructed (modern-day Chester) and for the next 300 years was the home of the Twentieth Legion.

Evidence of Roman occupations can be found at nearby Holt, where a tile and pottery works were constructed on the banks of the River Dee and at Ffrith where the remains of buildings have been located. In recent years evidence of Roman occupation nearer the town centre, was found during the construction of the Plas Coch retail park. It is alleged that during the construction of the retail development in 1991, a hoard of Roman currency coins was discovered by workmen, however all of the coins disappeared. In 1995 further construction work on the site revealed traces of Roman field boundaries, hearths and a corn drying kiln. It is thought that these are the remains of a farmstead.

Middle Ages

In the early 8th century, Æthelbald King of Mercia, who reigned from 716 to 757, constructed Wat's Dyke; this 40-mile (64 km) long earthwork passes through the area and close to the western edge of the town.

Wrexham is not mentioned in the Domesday Book. It is first mentioned in 1161 when reference is made to a Norman motte and bailey castle at 'Wristlesham'

The town became part of the county of Denbighshire when it was created in 1536. Wrexham was divided into two distinct townships, Wrexham Regis (which was under the control of the King) and Wrexham Abbot (generally the older parts of the town, which originally belonged to Valle Crucis Abbey at nearby Llangollen).

During the English Civil War, Wrexham was on the side of the Royalists as most Welsh gentry supported the King, even though local landowner Sir Thomas Myddelton, owner of Chirk Castle gave his support to Parliament. Wrexham became the main town in the area and grew wealthy with its markets.

In the 17th century wool was woven and fulled in Wrexham. After wool was woven it was cleaned and thickened by pounding it in a mixture of clay and water. This was called fulling. After it dried the wool was dyed.

Military heritage

A permanent military presence was established in the town with the completion of Hightown Barracks, the depot of the Royal Welch Fusiliers, in 1877.^[1] The Fusiliers also had a large drill hall on Poyser Street on the opposite side of town.

An airbase, RAF Wrexham, was used to defend the industrial centres of Liverpool and Merseyside, as well as Wrexham's Royal Ordnance Factory, ROF Wrexham from air attack during World War II, and the airfield itself had been used for training purposes since 1917. There were a few incidents in its many years of operation, and care is being taken in construction of a new road around the site to not disturb any aircraft remains.^[2] The airbase was closed in the years after the war, and the land has since been used as a quarry. While the terms of the lease mandate the land must be returned to its previous state once finished with, it is anticipated this is a pre-airfield state.^[3]

The cemetery in Ruabon Road in Wrexham contains 40 Polish war graves. The burials of the soldiers were made in the years 1946 and 1947. The graves are under the care of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. A memorial to the memory of the Polish armed forces and their families was erected at the entrance to the cemetery in 1989. The inscription on the memorial, in Polish, English and Welsh, reads: "In memory of the Polish soldiers and their families, for whom a return to a Free Poland was not given, who rest here and in other cemeteries in Wales". The Polish war graves are located in a special plot in the cemetery. The plot contains both Polish and Commonwealth war dead.^[4]

Between 1962 and 1992 there was a hardened nuclear bunker, built at Borras for No 17 Group Royal Observer Corps North Wales, who provided the field force in Western Area of the United Kingdom Warning and Monitoring Organisation and would have sounded the four minute warning alarm in the event of war and warned the population of Wrexham in the event of approaching radioactive fallout.^[5] The building was manned by up to 120 volunteers who trained on a weekly basis and wore a Royal Air Force-style uniform. After the break up of the communist bloc in 1989, the Corps was disbanded between September 1991 and December 1995. However, the nuclear bunker still stands at Borras Park. Between the ROC vacating the premises in September 1991 and its new use as a recording studio around 1993, the building was under preparation for use as the Home Office North Wales Regional Government Headquarters (RGHQ) although it is unlikely it was ever actually activated as such, given the short time-scale.

Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries

In the 18th century Wrexham was known for its leather industry with skinners and tanners in the town. The horns from cattle were used to make things like combs and buttons. There was also a nail making industry in Wrexham but in the mid-18th century Wrexham was no more than a small market town with a population of perhaps 2,000.

In the late 18th century Wrexham was transformed by the coming of the industrial revolution. It began when the famous entrepreneur John Wilkinson (1728–1808) known as 'Iron Mad Wilkinson' opened Bersham Ironworks in 1762. In 1793 he opened a smelting plant at Brymbo.

Wrexham gained its first newspaper in 1848. Market Hall was built in 1848. In 1863 a volunteer fire brigade was founded.

In 1849 Wrexham was described as:

"A market town, a parliamentary borough, the head of a Union, and a parish, chiefly in the hundred of Bromfield, county of Denbigh; 26 miles (SE by E) from Denbigh, 18 (ESE) from Ruthin, and 187½ (NW) from London; ..... and containing 12,921 inhabitants, of whom 5818 are in the townships of Wrexham Abbot and Wrexham Regis, forming the town."^[6]

Wrexham benefitted from good underground water supplies which was essential to the brewing of good beer and brewing became one of its main industries. in the middle of the 19th Century, there were 19 breweries in and around the town^[7] Several of these were comparatively large breweries, together with many smaller breweries situated at local inns. Some of the more famous old breweries were the Albion, Cambrian, Eagle, Island Green, Nag's Head (Soames) and Willow.

However, the most famous was the Wrexham Lager brewery which was built between 1881 and 1882 in Central Road. This was the first brewery to be built in the United Kingdom to produce lager beer. Another major producer, Border Breweries, was formed in 1931 by a merger of Soames, Island Green, and the Oswestry firm of Dorsett Owen.

Wrexham is on the edge of the rich Ruabon area marl beds^[8] and several brickworks sprang up in the area, among these, the most well known was Wrexham Brick and Tile and Davies Brothers in Abenbury, on the outskirts of Wrexham.

Coal mining was an important industry in the area, and provided employment for large numbers of Wrexham people, however most of the mines were situated well outside of the town. Wrexham's coal field was part of the larger North East Wales field. A number of deep mines were constructed throughout the area including Llay, Gresford, Bersham and Johnstown. A number of new settlements were built on the edge of the town to accommodate miners at a number of the sites including Llay and Pandy (for Gresford).

Other forms of mining and quarrying have taken place around Wrexham throughout its history, these include lead extracted from Minera.

Wrexham was connected to the rest of the UK by rail in 1849 and this eventually became a large and complex network of railways, the main branch being the Wrexham and Minera Branch, which supported the steelworks at nearby Brymbo Steel Mill and the Minera Limeworks. In 1895, the Wrexham and Ellesmere Railway was completed^[9] and cut a swathe through the town centre.

Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries

In the latter half of the 20th century, Wrexham began a period of depression: the many coal mines closed first, followed by the brickworks and other industries, and finally the steelworks (which had its own railway branch up until closure) in the 1980s. Wrexham faced an economic crisis. Many residents were anxious to sell their homes and move to areas with better employment prospects, however buyers were uninterested in an area where there was little prospect of employment. Many home-owners were caught in a negative equity trap. Wrexham was suffering 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) intervened to improve Wrexham's situation: it funded a major dual carriageway called the A483 bypassing Wrexham town centre and connecting it with Chester and Shrewsbury, which in turn had connections with other big cities such as Manchester and Liverpool. It also funded shops and reclaimed areas environmentally damaged by the coal industry. The town centre was regenerated and attracted a growing number of high street chain stores. However, the biggest breakthrough was the Wrexham Industrial Estate, previously used in the Second World War, which became home to many manufacturing businesses including Kellogg's, JCB, Duracell and Pirelli. It is now the fifth largest industrial estate in Europe (second in UK) by area with over 250 businesses. There are also a number of other large industrial estates in the Wrexham area, with companies such as Sharp, Brother, Cadbury, and Flexsys.

On 21 November 2012, Brother made the last British typewriter at its Wrexham factory.^[10]

Economy

In November 2006 unemployment in Wrexham stood at 1.9%. This was below the averages for Wales of 2.3%, and England and the UK of 2.5%.

Caia Park riot

In June 2003, a large disturbance took place in the Caia Park estate, which has become known as The Caia Park Riots. Tension developed between Iraqi Kurds and some locals centred on one of the estates' pubs (The Red Dragon, Wrexham), which gradually escalated and resulted in petrol bombs and other missiles being hurled at police trying to restore order.^[11][12][13]

Developments and regeneration

Recent years have seen a large amount of redevelopment in Wrexham's town centre. The creation and re-development of civic and public areas such as Queens Square, Belle Vue Park and Llwyn Isaf have improved the area dramatically. New shopping areas have been created at Henblas Square, Island Green and Eagles Meadow.

The bid for City status

Wrexham is the largest settlement in North Wales, and has applied for city status several times, most recently in 2002 as part of the celebrations for the Golden Jubilee of Elizabeth II. Other Welsh applicants were Aberystwyth, Machynlleth, Newtown, Newport and St Asaph. The local Authority cited the following claims as to why Wrexham should be granted City status:

• The town is the largest urban area north of the Brecon Beacons
• Despite not having a Protestant cathedral (one of the historical criteria for city status), it is home to one of only three Roman Catholic cathedrals in Wales
• It is the centre for education, culture, retail, industry and business in North Wales
• It has the largest catchment (in terms of area) of any other major Welsh settlement
• The town has a long and proud history of industry, including coal mining, steelmaking, brewing and tanning.
• It has recently transformed from an historic market town and industrial hub into a forward-thinking business and manufacturing centre (including one of the largest industrial estates in Europe)
• The population of the conurbation surrounding the town is over 100,000 people

In the end, the Welsh award was given to Newport in South Wales, however the borough still holds out hope of gaining the status in the near future.

Wrexham, again applied in 2012 as part of the Diamond jubilee. However lost out to St Asaph. With a population of only 3142 making it only the 2nd smallest city in the UK.

References

External links

• BBC Wales History of Wrexham and BBC Wales Wrexham sites
• Wrexham on Vision of Britain
• Wrexham Council history of Wrexham
• I Know Wales - Wrexham's history
• Wrexham on Gathering the Jewels the website for Welsh cultural history
• Welsh Coal Mines - ALL the Welsh pits including all the local ones