Over an autumn weekend at the end of September a group of Cambrians explored a less well known corner of Wales. Staying in the centre of Wrexham in the Wynnstay Arms hotel we studiously avoided Wrexham football ground which is what the town seems to be best known for today. The group assembled on the Friday afternoon, September 27th, and started our tour by exploring the magnificent St Giles Parish Church which was followed by a tour of the centre of Wrexham itself. At a cursory glance you could be forgiven for thinking that much of historic Wrexham has disappeared, but our tour proved us wrong. A kind bar owner even let us in to see a fantastically restored timber framed building. This fitted well with our evening talk which was all about the work of the Discovering Old Welsh Houses group, given by one of the Trustees of DOWH, Zoe Henderson. Over the years the Cambrians have grant aided the work of DOWH and it was interesting to hear about the work undertaken.
On Saturday, 28th, we headed off in a coach for Minera Lead mines and Bersham Ironworks. Both sites are owned by Wrexham County Borough and had been developed for visitors in the days when local authorities had some revenue funding. Both sites gave us an interesting insight to the industrial nature of the area we were exploring and the early development of this, certainly rivalling some of the south Wales sites in age. Before lunch we visited the spectacular All Saints Church in Gresford, which like St Giles in Wrexham, is one of the ‘Seven Wonders’ of Wales. Just a week before the church had a special service to mark 90 years since the tragic Gresford mining disaster when 266 people lost their lives. Saturday was rounded off with a visit to the remains of an historic steel works which was established in the very late 18th century but nor closed until 1990. We found out about a much older part of the site, an amazing fossil forest dating from 300 million years ago.
Our Saturday evening talk was from Jonathan Gammond who works with Wrexham County Borough and is very involved with the development plans at Wrexham Museum. It will become the National Football museum of Wales whilst also having enhanced galleries for archaeology and local history.
Sunday, the last morning of our weekend visit, started with a hike up Caergwrle Castle. A site excavated in the late 1980s and recently taken under Cadw’s wing as a guardianship site. Finally we explored a completely different site, an old quarry, where a Roman fort is being rebuilt, at Park in the Past. It was interesting to hear about the approaches to the rebuild and the ideas incorporated to make the site and fort sustainable into the future.