The massive Wrexham AFC history thread (The sad case of a founding members and player of Wrexham...)

[Cymru_Am_Byth_WXM]

Originally Posted by WasanActonlad

Are you responsible for details on wikipedia re extinct wrexham area clubs....?

The 3 town teams that interested me were
Grosvenor
Gymnasium
And hibernian...

One of the G's played on as it was bennions lane...
Another on chester rd
One played in sky blue ...which always thought the classic late 60s early 70s second strip may have been a nod to.
One of them at turn of century also played in the west cheshire league which they won
The wxm hibs must have been one of the first Irish linked clubs out side of scotland......after hibs celtic and various Dundee irish team prior to Dundee utd...

Yeah I did create a few of the articles, although like most things on Wikipedia they’re open to editing from others. It was Wrexham Gymnasium who played in Sky Blue. Wiki wouldn’t let me create an article for Gymnasium. Apparently criteria for inclusion is playing in the Welsh Cup. The Gyms only played in the Amateur Cup.

Wrexham Victoria played on Bennions Lane and played in the West Cheshire League, the Chester & District League and the Combination. It looks as though there were two different incarnations of this club, both of which won the Welsh Amateur Cup.

Speaking of the Chester & District League, a club called Wrexham St Giles also played in this league.

Wrexham Hibernian played on Bradley Road. The earliest reference I could find for them was in 1889. With them being an Irish club I do wonder if their ground was in close proximity to the Catholic Cathedral. There was also a club called Wrexham St Mary’s who I assume were linked to the Catholic Church and therefore could be a successor club to Wrexham Hibernian.

There are some brilliant names clubs from Victorian and Edwardian times. Would love to see a few of them re-emerge.

[WasanActonlad]

Erddig albion...
Re hibs bradley rd. . My hunch belle vue..

Re chester & district
Gresford & rossett for years played in the Chester
Also another town team Mae's y dre

[Bobo99]

Just before they extended the Acton Council Estate about 1970, when the farms became vacant, locals marked out a soccer field and built changing rooms out of wooden pallets on a flat area between the 4 dogs entrance and the future St Margaret Way. The team may have been called Acton Villa. Humans have a history of building on the same spot.

[WasanActonlad]

Originally Posted by Bobo99

Just before they extended the Acton Council Estate about 1970, when the farms became vacant, locals marked out a soccer field and built changing rooms out of wooden pallets on a flat area between the 4 dogs entrance and the future St Margaret Way. The team may have been called Acton Villa. Humans have a history of building on the same spot.

Sir
Thank you so much for this post
One was beginning to think their memory was beginning to play tricks...
I can recall when first moved into the area mid 60s..thinking I can remember a soccer pitch in the area described.
As you entered through the 4 digs gate Sam's milk bar on your left.
I seem to recall some ministry of pension houses on your right (similar to others around the park) and a vague memory of a soccer pitch behind them..
The bottom goal would be parrarell to the sandway road/acton gate junction on Chester rd..
First time I've seen anyone also mention it
Thank you

[eastsussex]

Originally Posted by eastsussex

Hi Bobo. Yes, that is correct. Bryn y Llyn (lake on the hill) was located in a field known as Crispin Field, in front of a house known as The Crispin.
The house had been built on the town side of Wat’s Dyke (where the Connah’s Quay railway line now runs) and the associated outbuildings and cottage (later known as Crispin Cottage or Railway Cottage) was built on the Stansty side of the dyke, where the railings that run along the railway side of Crispin Lane are now located.
There are a number of posts about this further back in thread, although the thread is now getting a bit too long to search.
The house and its estate were first recorded on a map from 1675, and Alfred Palmer also found the house in parish registers from 1699 and the first decade of the 1700’s.
The house and its cottage and outbuildings were located on the railway side of Crispin Lane, opposite a position where the Yale now meets the kop, and the pond occupied the area where Spring Gardens are now located. And so the pond and ‘spring’ in ‘Spring Gardens’ do seem to be related to the ‘lake on the hill’.
At one time, the Crispin estate may have occupied as much as 27 acres, from at least as far as Watery Lane, across Mold Road (then known as Hope Street) up to Rhosddu, and also included at least one field on The Racecourse side of Crispin Lane. Although a small part of the fields (where the train station now stands) was owned by the church, and prior to the first station being built, there was a vicarage where the current ticket office now stands.
In front of the vicarage was another pond, known as ‘pwll y wrach’ (witches pond) and as the name suggests, this may have been used as a ducking pool for hags and witches in much earlier times.
The name ‘Byn y Llyn’ was adopted as the name of the house sometime around the end of the 18th Century and persisted until the late 1820’s, when the name of The Crispin resurfaced. The pond became then known as Durrack’s Pond, when William Durrack rented the property in the 1830’s/ early 40’s, but the house was gradually demolished to make way for railway lines, and the cottage and outbuildings were demolished later, in the 1870’s.
It’s difficult to imagine now, but if you had walked out from the town toward Stansty in the 16th Century, then the area outside of town consisted of fields and marshland as far as Wat’s Dyke. (these were known as the common fields).
Stansty, of course, was still under the ownership of Valle Crucis until Henry VIII’s Dissolution of the Monasteries from 1536; after which, the land passed into the hands of various knights, who sold off their interest. Plas Ucha, on Stansty Park was built by the Edwards family in 1577 and Plas Coch was built by the Merediths in the late 1590’s.
Henry VIII’s crown eventually passed through to his daughter-Elizabeth I, who also sold the rights of common pasture in 1581, and so most of the common fields were bought up by landowners who created new estates, and it is sometime after this date that I believe that the Crispin estate was created and the house known as The Crispin was built.

Palmer had identified two areas of the common fields, which had previously been known as ‘Pant y Crydd (shoemakers mound) and ‘twmpath y cryddion. (shoemakers hollow).
Pant y crydd’ was located in a plot of land on the fields between what is now known as Watery Lane and Mold Road, while ‘twmpath y cryddion‘ was situated off Bradley Road, where the old brewery was located before it was demolished in 2003.
Palmer believed that the name Crispin was derived from this connection with shoemakers, as St Crispin was the patron Saint of shoemakers.
I have since found that ‘Pant y Crydd’ was still a part of The Crispin estate in the late 18th Century and I have also found that an 1844 town map recorded Crispin Lane as Crid Pler Lane (Crydd Pler Lane), meaning untidy/messy shoemakers Lane’- most likely a reference to the fact that the lane was muddy until it received a gravel surface in 1854.
The Crispin Estate had been in the hands of the Ambrose Lewis family from ‘at least’ 1704 until the 1790’s when it passed into hands of the Lloyd family of the Gwrych Castle estate, through marriage, The Crispin estate appears to have then been split up and sold as leasehold, before different holders bought the leases, and a part of this estate was sold under the name of Bryn y Llyn in 1828. William Durrack then rented the house and field, and gave his name to the pond- hence Durracks Pond. A Mary Hughes was listed as the owner/occupier of the house and field around 1844 and one of our founding players- Thomas Broster (born 1845) was living in the railway cottage (Crispin Cottage) with his parents and family in 1848.
Crid Pler Lane (Crispin Lane) had evolved as a pathway on the silted up ditch of Wat’s Dyke.
I hope to provide a more comprehensive history of the house and estate in the future.
.

As I have previously shown on this thread, Crispin Lane evolved as a trackway on the silted up ditch of Wat’s Dyke, although the actual ditch can still be seen on the town map (attached) dated 1844, when the Racecourse side of the trackway was still known as Crid Pler Lane (untidy/messy shoemakers lane) which was most likely a reference to the fact that the lane was still muddy at that time (until it received a gravel surface in 1854).
The banks of the ditch/trackway are indicated on the map, on the opposite side of Hope Street/Mold Road, whereas the Racecourse side of the ditch is shown as an established lane, with a boundary line indicating a wall that had been built to separate the lane from The Turf Tavern Gardens.
Pwll Y Wrach is also shown on the map, although the vicarage, which used to be located where the current railway station ticket office now stands, had been demolished long before the map was drawn.

The map can be found in A. N. Palmer’s ‘A History of the Town of Wrexham’ 1893, although Palmer made no mention of the name ‘Crid Pler Lane’ in any of his books, and so it had not been previously realised or explained in any of the history books that Crispin Lane was actually the ditch of Wat’s Dyke.

[eastsussex]

I should have also explained that the top section of Crispin Lane, at the junction with Mold Road, was diverted a few metres closer to The Racecourse in 1868.
The diversion started where the house known as The Crispin had been located, and you can clearly see this diversion as a bend in the top end of the current Crispin Lane.

[dragonspark]

so looking at that map, wats dyke is where the railings are currently situated, is that correct?

[eastsussex]

Originally Posted by dragonspark

so looking at that map, wats dyke is where the railings are currently situated, is that correct?

Hi DP. I hope you are well?
Yes. There is still a remnant of the Wat's Dyke ditch in existence, just inside of the railings, opposite the University block next to the all weather pitch- behind the club shop car park, which archaeologists discovered some years back.
https://ancientmonuments.uk/132037-w...rexham-rhosddu

And there is another section of the bank and ditch, which archaeologists reconstructed outside of The Premier Inn.
https://ancientmonuments.uk/132059-w...130m-long-offa


We know from old maps that the original ditch/lane ran in a straight line between these locations, and so I have added a line onto a satellite view from Google maps (attached), which identifies the line of the original ditch/lane.
As you can see in the satellite view, the original line of the ditch, which later became Crid Pler Lane (Crispin Lane) was located where the railings now run on the present embankment of the railway, but only as far as the kop, where Crispin Lane veers closer to The Racecourse.
This diversion in the road took place in 1868, and there were a number of complaints from locals at that time, who said that the railway company had placed marker pegs on the original trackway of Crispin Lane. There was a corporation meeting about it, and the surveyor stated that the railway company intended to widen the lane, although the lane itself ended up being diverted across the old Turf Tavern Gardens; which gives us the current layout of Crispin Lane.
The road which they laid out at that time was also amended slightly at the junction of Mold Road in the 1890’s, although the original lane still existed as a kind of cut through, next to the road, and this can still be seen on the photo (attached) from the end of the 1880’s. But by the time the photo was taken, the construction of the railway bridge in 1887/88 had grubbed out most of the original ditch ‘as far as the section opposite the university block’ in the top link, and so the trackway/lane in the photo from the end of the 1880's was just following the original route of the ditch. Today, that trackway in the photo would now be located in the old footpath that used to take passengers to the Connah’s Quay railway line on the Crispin Lane side of the station.

Elsewhere, there are still sections of the ditch in existence, which now serve as a trackway for a country walk, and so I have attached a photo of such a section from the Greenfield Valley, to give an idea of what Crid Pler Lane (Crispin Lane) may have looked like in the 19th Century, before the railway came to town.

I often write these replies on the hoof- from the top of my head, as I don’t always have time to check through the archives to find the exact dates that I quote in my replies, but I believe that the dates that I have quoted are correct, and will certainly be within a year or two of those that I have quoted.

[dragonspark]

a few of us went across the border for a pint last saturday by train, i noticed what i presumed to be a remnant of wats dyke by the premier inn but elsewhere it seems to be less noticeable especially down crispin lane unless i am looking in the wrong place, there are places where it is more pronounced that i have walked along such as the field leading to Pandy from the bypass, it does just look like a field bondary until you realise it is the remnants of the dyke, again in the fields by the river Alyn looking towards the Bryn Alyn hillfort it can be seen clearly, at Errdig it is again quite clear and forms part of the defences of the motte and bailey castle, which may also have been an earlier celtic hillfort, in the fields from Erddig towards Ruabon it is also quite obvious particularly where the road cuts through it right by a farm, i suppose because of the development of Wrexham large parts of the dyke are now lost