In his work- The Thirteen Country Townships of The Old Parish of Wrexham (1903) Alfred Neobard Palmer reported that Crispin Farm was called ‘Crispianus’ in Latin documentation dated 1699 and 1700, and ‘Crispin Anna’ in 1731 and 1777. The farm had belonged to The Ambrose-Lewis family of Wrexham from at least 1704 until 1810, when it was bought by Thomas Durack of Wrexham. Durack changed the name to ‘Bryn y llyn’ and the pond in front of the house (previously mentioned) which in earlier times was known as ‘Witches pond’ was thenceforth known as ‘Durack’s pool’.
Robert Williams, brother of the first Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn, lived at ‘The Crispin Anna’ for a number of years in the 1730’s.
Later described as a genteel cottage with outbuildings, plantations and land measuring seven acres and thirty three perches, Bryn y llyn was advertised for sale in The
Chester Chonicle in August 1828, along with around 17 acres of adjoining land. The property was located on the embankment of Wat’s Dyke, on the town side of Crispin Lane, opposite the far end of the kop, although some of the outbuildings were demolished when navvies first cut the embankment for railway lines from the 1840’s, with the cottage and stables finally being knocked down, sometime after 1867. The field in which the property stood, was at different times, known as Crispin’s field and another
field on the north side of The Racecourse, was called ‘Crispin’s Meadow’.
The earliest reference to a substantial house in the immediate area of The Crispin, that I have found, is shown on Ogilby’s Road map (previously posted) which was surveyed sometime prior to 1675.
Crispin cottages was also the collective name given to a cul-de-sac of 44 small cottages that occupied Ashfield Road, Nelson Terrace and Windsor Road, which faced onto Crispin Lane between The Racecourse and Ashfield House. Built in the early to mid 19th Century, the cottages were demolished in the mid to late 19th Century.
Another property that was briefly known as Crispin Cottage was found next to The Crispin Smithy, in the apex of the triangle at the base of Stansty Park, where Summerhill Road used to meet Mold Road, prior to the construction of the current Mold Road interchange. This property, which was the family residence of district surveyor- John Strachan, was enlarged in the 1870’s and renamed ‘Crispin Lodge’. The field in which this lodge was sited, was known as ‘Crispin Meadow’ and directly opposite, on the Plas Coch side of Mold Road, was another grassland, known as ‘Crispin Field’. This area was generally known as ‘The Crispin’ at the end of the 19th Century.
Further along Mold Road, opposite Stansty Chain Road was a tavern called ‘The Crispin Inn’, which was recorded on Ogilby’s Road map (published 1675) and subsequent 17th Century road maps, as well as early 18th Century documents. According to Palmer, the tavern had previously been a farmhouse that belonged to the Edwards family, called ‘Plas Ucha’ (1620) and he suggested that the name ‘Crispin Inn’ was a corruption of the Latin ‘Crispiniene’ as recorded in the Stansty Parish register of 1695. However, Ogiby’s road map was produced in English, so even if the parish register entry had been corrupted; the same could not also be applied to Ogilby’s survey. Palmer further suggested that the Crispin connection may have been derived from John ap John of Stansty, who was recorded in 1615 as a weaver, and in 1619, as a shoemaker. He added that John ap John may have been related to the Edwards’s and as St Crispin was the patron saint of shoemakers, he might have provided the Crispin link to the area, although he also stated ‘I cannot prove this conjecture, for conjecture only it is, to be true, but it is the only explanation I can offer.’