Wrexham ( ; ) is a city in the north-east of Wales. It lies between the Welsh mountains and the lower Dee Valley, near the border with Cheshire in England. Historically in the county of Denbighshire, it became part of the new county of Clwyd in 1974. It has been the principal settlement and administrative centre of Wrexham County Borough since 1996. At the 2021 census, the built up area had a population of 44,785, the seventh largest in Wales and the largest in North Wales. The wider county borough, which also includes surrounding villages and rural areas, had a population of 135,117. It was awarded city status in 2022.
Wrexham was probably founded before the 11th century and developed in the Middle Ages as a regional centre for trade and administration. Wrexham has historically been one of the primary settlements of Wales, and was the largest settlement in Wales for a time in the 17th century. In the Industrial Revolution from the 18th century onwards, Wrexham and surrounding area was a major centre of coal and lead mining. Other significant industries included the production of iron, steel and leather, and brewing.
Wrexham serves north Wales and the Welsh borderlands as a centre for manufacturing, retail, education and administration. The city is noted for Wrexham A.F.C. (one of the oldest professional football teams in the world); the nationally significant industrial heritage of the Clywedog Valley; the National Trust Property of Erddig; and the fine Tudor church of St Giles, which towers over the historic Wrexham city centre.
Etymology The name Wrexham is most accepted to be a combination of the personal name "Wryhtel" and the old English place-name suffix "hamm". The suffix "hamm" is interpreted by modern authorities to mean "water meadows" referring to the low-lying ground of the rivers Gwenfro and Clywedog, although "river meadows" may be more accurate translation, leading to the probable old English meaning of "Wryhtel's river meadow". However, "hamm" (or "ham"), commonly adopted in the area following the advance of the Saxons, has also meant a "piece of enclosed land" without any watery connotations, a "pasture", or simply a home or hamlet. The person "Wryhtel" has not been identified, although a warrior, such as Cynwrig had been suggested as a possible origin. It has also been suggested that it is based on the old English "wryhta" meaning , or refers to the Wrocansætan from the Wrekin who had settled in the area, changing the overall meaning to be a settlement of the Wreocensæte people. Another theorised meaning for "Wrexham" is that it was a compound of and ham, so a "king's hamlet", or that it derives from "Writtlesham" which was stated to mean a "village/town of wreaths".
The first recorded reference to the town in 1161 is to a castle at "Wristlesham" (or "Wristlesha'"), with the present form "Wrexham" used in 1186, and again in 1200. In 1202, Madoc ap Gruffydd Maelor, Lord of Dinas Brân, referenced a 'Wrechcessham" where he granted some of his demesne lands to the abbey of Valle Crucis. "Wrixham", "Wrighesham" and "Wrightelesham" have also been described as some of the oldest spellings, but local historian Alfred Neobard Palmer credits some other older spellings as errors by transcribers who mistook "c" for "t". It has had various other spellings.
An earlier Welsh name for the settlement may have been (also spelled "K[aer] Vantell") which sometimes translated as "the mantle camp" or "mantle fort". Although this could be represented in the name of nearby Rhostyllen. By the 13th century the Welsh name was recorded as or , and later changing to , for it to be given a Welsh appearance and pronunciation. While it has no literal meaning in Welsh, it had been given the humorous (witty) meaning of , "Sam's wife". Nonetheless, this developed into the modern Welsh name , ultimately a cymricisation, derived from the English spelling that was adopted phonetically into Welsh, but maintains the pronunciation with "w" being a silent letter. The minor difference in spelling between the two modern names has led to calls to drop the original English name "Wrexham" for the Welsh one to promote Welsh-language culture and heritage. The Welsh Language Commissioner recommends, where there is minor difference of one or two letters between the two forms, that preference is given to the Welsh and not the English form, although it recognises some established dual-forms may still be recognised, with the commissioner recognising "Wrexham" as the English form. The council's bid to UK City of Culture used the Welsh name only.
History
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 city. Two Bronze Age burial mounds are located to the west of the modern city centre 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 is 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 Celtic 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 city.
It was probably during this first period of Mercian advance in the eighth century that the settlement of Wrexham was 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. 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 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.
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. Wrexham increased in importance throughout the Middle Ages as the lordship's administrative centre, and the then 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.
By 1327, Wrexham had become a market town. It became one of the largest settlements in Wales, and 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.
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 () and the poet Hywel Dafi addresses Siôn's heir as ().
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.
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.
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 and Parliamentarians occupied the town in 1643 and 1645. Wrexham served as military headquarters for both forces and a quarter of houses were burned down in 1643 during the quartering of troops in the town.
In the 17th century, Wrexham served as an educational and cultural focal point for local society and became a 'Puritan Metropolis'. Morgan Llwyd, the radical nonconformist preacher and writer, was educated at the Wrexham Grammar School and became Vicar of Wrexham in 1645. For a time in the 17th century, Wrexham was the largest settlement in Wales.
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.