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

[Inside Left]

Refer to old aerial photos as well as those of us who lived through the changes.
There was no entrance to the ground from the side (North) where the Yale Stand is. The boundary was a rickety fence at the back of the Popular covered side of the ground. That fence ran the length of the north boundary. It has been known that occasionally the fence was breached by those who wanted to avoid the entrance fee! (The fence life with ease i places).

The back of the Popular covered terrace was used as an open toilet at half time using the corrugated steel as a urinal (Sorry is this to much detail or is it me romanticising about the Racecourse in the 1950's ) I am sure someone of an age will verify or not.

The only entrance and exit was off Crispin Lane and that gate was improved over the years to that which stood recently. There was a small open air toilet block at the bottom of the kop bank.
Another entrance to the kop was of course just off the driveway at the side of the Turf between the pub and its bowling green, As we know the concrete gateway is still in situ.

As for the 'training ground' in the picture. This field was owned by Denbighshire County Council as part of their Technical College estate. I think it would be in the 1960's ?
That part of the field was offered to the club by the County Council for a car park and to provide access to the new Yale Stand. I think people such as 1926 would be able to add to this 'knowledge'
On part of the land DCC built Yale High School.

A couple of local County Councillors were instrumental in bringing the football club land deal to fruition. Had they lived to see this car park in the ownership of the flat owners they would have been furious.

[eastsussexred]

Thanks IL. I haven’t looked into the history much beyond the beginning of the 20th Century, as Pete Jones and others have covered most of the clubs history from this time. I went to my first game in the 60’s and remember the bowling green and the wall with a drain at the bottom of it, at the side of the kop near to the bowling green, which served as a urinal.

[eastsussexred]

Originally Posted by eastsussexred

We can say with some certainty that Crispin Lane evolved as an ancient track-way on the silted-up base of the ditch of Wat’s Dyke, because the location of this defensive structure was recorded on maps, prior to the introduction of The North Wales Mineral Railway. Navvies excavated a cutting for the mineral line on the eastern ‘town-side’ of the defensive rampart from 1844 and the mineral line was opened in 1846.
More of the rampart was excavated on the town-side of the dyke to accommodate the platform and line of The Wrexham, Mold and Connah’s Quay Railway, which was opened in 1866, but the ditch on the western side of Wat’s Dyke remained intact and still served as an ancient thoroughfare, which connected Rhosddu Lane with the road, which was then called Hope Street, but is now known as Mold Road, while also serving as an access road to the property known as The Crispin, from whence the name Crispin Lane was derived.
The property and farm known as The Crispin had been built on the ridge of Wat’s Dyke’s rampart, facing eastward to the town of Wrexham and overlooking a large pond. Thomas Durrack bought the property and renamed it Bryn Llyn (lake on the hill) at the beginning of the 19th Century, although the lake was removed when the mineral railway was built in the 1840’s and the east facing garden was also removed to make way for the WM&CQR in the 1860’s. John Strachan- the borough surveyor kept his horses in the stables at the farm in 1866, but the outbuildings were gradually demolished leaving just a cottage, which was used as living accommodation for the station master until this too was demolished in the 1870’s.
The lane on the silted up ditch to the rear of property (Crispin Lane) which had been known locally as a lovers lane, was given a gravel surface in 1855, and had been widened, in part, in the 1860’s.
The top corner of the lane was later diverted through the Turf Tavern gardens and across the corner of the Racecourse when the railway bridge was constructed on Mold Road in 1886/87. The armoury of The Royal Welsh Fusiliers Volunteer Force was also demolished to accommodate this diversion, but the lane was returned to its original location when the construction work was completed.
The pavement on the railway side of Crispin Lane now follows the original course of the ditch of Wat's Dyke.

At the end of the 19th Century, a local historian by the name of Alfred Neobard Palmer began to publish a series of books relating to the history of North Wales, and he uncovered a mystery in Stansty, which he was not able to resolve.
Palmer identified a farmhouse that had been owned by the Ambrose Lewis family in an area that he termed ‘Lower Crispin’ which he found in parish registers, under the Latin name of ‘Crispianus’ in 1699 and 1700, and ‘Crispin Anna’ in 1731 and 1777. He also found another farmhouse at an area that he termed ‘Upper Crispin’ owned by the Edwards family of Stansty, which in 1620 was known as ‘Plas Ucha (Upper Hall) and was also sometimes known as ‘Stansty Hall’ but at the end of the 17th Century was called ‘The Crispin Inn’. In the parish register of 1695 the inn was called ‘Crispinienne’ and he deduced that this was a corruption of ‘Crispinian’ (The farmhouse in Lower Crispin was located on, what we now know as Crispin Lane, and the farmhouse at Upper Crispin was on the Mold Road side of Stansty Park). The Crispin Inn was also recorded in 17th Century travel books, and Ogilby’s Road Map of 1675, which further identified a mansion in the precise location of the property that would come to be known as ‘The Crispin’ on Crispin Lane, although Ogilby’s map referred to this property as ‘Stanty’ (Stansty).
Palmer had noted that both of these properties came to be known as The Crispin toward the end of the 17th Century and he postulated that the name could have been derived from an ancient guild of shoemakers, as St Crispin was the Patron Saint of Cobblers and Shoemakers. He also stated that this association may have been related to a ‘John ap John of Stansty’ who was listed in the parish registers as a weaver in 1615 and a shoemaker in 1619, although he noted that no such guild was ever recorded in the area, and he added ‘I cannot prove this conjecture, for conjecture only it is, to be true, but it is the only explanation I have to offer’.
Likewise, Palmer could not offer any explanation as to why two properties, in different locations and owned by different families, would each share the same name.

Having studied the area for the last few of years, I now believe that I have been able to untangle this mystery.
It would appear that Palmer’s intuition had been partially correct, in so much as the name was derived from St Crispin, but he had been wrong in his notion as to why the land and property were named after the saint.

The first reference to Crispin in this area dates back to 1666, shortly after Charles II was returned to the throne in The Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660, at the end of The English Civil War

Wrexham became the centre of Puritanical rule in North Wales during The English Civil War, and Stansty, in particular, was a hotbed of Puritans.

The following is a bit complex and long winded, but is necessary to explain the context in order to understand the reason why the name of Crispin became associated with Stansty


The English Civil War (1642-1651) was a series of civil wars and political and religious machinations between Royalists (Cavaliers) and Parliamentarians (Roundheads) which ended in a victory for the Parliamentarians in 1651.
The outcome led to the trial and execution of Charles I in 1649 and the exile of his son, Charles II in 1651. The English Monarchy was replaced with The Commonwealth of England between 1649 and 1653 and the Protectorate under the rule of Oliver Cromwell between 1653 and 1658, followed briefly by his son Richard from 1658 to 1659. The war also ended the monopoly of the Church of England on Christian worship, while in Ireland the victors consolidated the established Protestant Ascendancy, although the idea of Parliamentary sovereignty was only legally established as part of the Glorious Revolution in 1688.
Parliamentarian forces had taken control of North Wales back in 1647 and Morgan Llwyd- a radical Puritan preacher, was ordained as Vicar of Wrexham, which then became the centre of Puritanism in the region.
During this time, most of the land in Stansty was owned by two families- The Edwards family of Stansty Park and their cousins- The Meredith’s of Plas Coch.
William Meredith of Plas Coch (d 1603-04) had been dismayed by the teachings of the conventional church in North Wales and in his will he left the sum of £30, which was to be used to pay for a new minister who could reform the church. John Edwards (1573-1635) was a Puritan, and as an executor of his cousins will, he used the money to establish a Puritan Lectureship in Wrexham. John’s daughter-Margaret was also an ardent disciple of Morgan Llwyd- who had served with the Parliamentary forces during the first and second Civil Wars. Religion had played a major part in The English Civil Wars as the government's persecution of Puritans meant that the vast majority of Puritans supported Parliament, whereas most Anglicans and Catholics favoured the Royalists. Puritans were vehemently opposed to the influence that Anglicans and Catholics had within the Church of England and they sought a more traditional Biblical form of Christianity. But The Church of England was a state church, which held a monopoly over all religious teaching and so all other unsanctioned Christian gatherings were made illegal.
Margaret Edwards married another Puritan- Colonel John Jones ‘the regicide’ who was one of the 57 Parliamentarian commissioners that signed the death warrant authorising the execution of Charles I following his trial in December 1648.
Margaret Edwards died in 1651, and the colonel was remarried to the sister of Oliver Cromwell in 1657, but he returned to Wrexham for a while after Charles II was returned to the throne in May 1660, although he was eventually captured in London in June of that year and sent to The Tower of London before he was executed by being hanged, drawn and quartered at Charing Cross on 17th October 1660.
Margaret’s sister- Sarah also married a Parliamentarian by the name of Edward Davies of Eglwysegl, who was also known as ‘the blue shearer’ due to his enthusiasm for fleecing local Royalists, while another sister- Mary was married to Puritan Watkin Kyffin, who was a steward for the Parliamentarian Colonel- Thomas Myddleton of Chirk Castle. The Edwards family retained very strong links to the Puritan/Parliamentarian cause throughout the 17th Century.



Although most of the landed gentry in Wales supported the king, Thomas Myddelton, owner of a considerable amount of land surrounding his castle at Chirk, was a Puritan who fought many battles for the Parliamentarian cause and it was Myddelton who established a garrison of Parliamentarian forces on the Edwardses land in Stansty; a collusion between Parliamentarian families, which would be remembered by all Royalists in the area.

https://wiki.bcw-project.org/parliam...omas-myddleton

On 10th March 1645, Myddleton wrote to Sir William Brereton of the Cheshire Army asking for the loan of a company to reinforce his own depleted force at the newly-established garrison at Stansty, although it is not known if the garrison was ever replenished. A shortage of troops was not the only issue that Myddleton had faced, as he had previously been forced to break up the organ in St Giles Church to make lead bullets from the organ pipes.
Muskets, which fired lead shot, were used extensively by both Royalists and Parliamentarians during the conflicts, and lead shot as well as other relics from the civil war have since been found in the area of the Stansty Garrison.

The Edwards Family estate was finally ended when the great-great grandson of John Edwards- Peter Edwards died without heirs in 1783 and the estate was passed to the Lloyds of Pengwern, before eventually being sold to Richard Thompson (the iron master).
Thompson demolished The Crispin Inn (then known as ‘Stansty Hall’) when he built a new Stansty Hall further back from Mold Road in 1830-32. He also redesigned the gardens and landscaped the area, but a field that had been associated with The Crispin Inn (Crispin Meadow) was still being illustrated on tithe maps in the 1880’s.
Another area of land, known as Crispin Field was located directly opposite Crispin Meadow, on the opposite side of the Mold Road. This field formed a part of the Stansty Lodge Estate. The full history of Stansty Lodge has never been recorded (as far as I am aware) but I have discovered that this property and the land on which it was built also had very strong links to the Parliamentarian cause.

Jane Eyton inherited Stansty Lodge and plenty of other land and property in Stansty, Gwersylt and Wrexham from her cousin- Samuel Powell (jnr). Samuel had built a new house in Stansty (Stansty Lodge) and he bequeathed it to Jane with the proviso that after she died, the inheritance would be passed on to his daughters.
Jane died in 1729 and accordingly, Stansty Lodge was passed onto Samuel’s daughter- Martha (Powell) Morgan.
Martha Powell had married Jane’s cousin-James Morgan, and in Jane’s will (dated 2nd November 1727) she had recorded that James (presumably with Martha) was living with her at another property that she owned in Stansty at that time.
Martha and her husband later moved into Stansty Lodge and when Martha died, James Morgan inherited Stansty Lodge, although he also later became the owner of Gyfynys in Brymbo.
Gyfynys had been the family seat of the Powell family since the family name was first established by Thomas Powell. When Thomas died, Gyfynys was passed onto one of his sons - Samuel Powell (snr) a cousin of John Edwards of Stansty. When Samuel Powell (snr) died, much of his estate, including land and property in Gwersylt, Wrexham and Stansty went to his own son-Samuel Powell (jnr) and it was this younger Samuel Powell who had built Stansty Lodge, sometime between 1675 and 1720, directly opposite the hall (Stansty Hall/Plas Ucha/Crispin Inn, which was owned by his cousins- the Edwards family of Stansty.
Like many other families of the time, the Powell family had been torn apart due to different family members having loyalties to opposing sides during the civil war, and Samuel Powell (jnr) had fought on the side of the Parliamentarians, while his older brother- Thomas had fought for the Royalists. This developed into a savage family feud, which broke the family apart and resulted in Thomas (the Cavalier) later suing his brother (the Roundhead) and two of his sisters over the terms of their fathers will.

https://thefireonthehill.wordpress.c...f-the-gyfynys/

https://thefireonthehill.wordpress.c...n-the-gyfynys/

https://thefireonthehill.wordpress.c...r-of-eglwyseg/

During the court case, which took place after Charles II had been returned to the throne, Thomas accused his brother- Samuel of being a traitor for having taken up arms against the king during the wars and he also accused one of his sisters of being a fanatic of Morgan Llwyd’s church. The sister in question was Mary and she had married Peter Edwards- the nephew of the Puritan Edwards sisters of Stansty Park.
Crispin Field, which stretched from Stansty Lodge down to the boundary line of Plas Coch, was still being recorded on tithe maps in the 19th Century, but there were also another two fields (Crispin Croft and Crispin Field) which were also being shown on maps at that time. These fields were associated with a large house called ‘The Crispin’ on Crispin Lane and Palmer had found that this property had been owned by the Ambrose Lewis family since at least 1704, although we know from Ogilby’s Road map that the house had existed since at least 1675. But when we look further into the history of the Ambrose Lewis family we find that Ambrose Lewis (d 1714) was a noted Puritan preacher and schoolmaster, who, like many of the Puritan families in Wrexham, including the Edwardses, were bought before the courts when Royalists regained control after The Restoration of The Monarchy in 1660.
All of the land and property that had been named after St Crispin in Stansty was owned by Puritans who supported the Parliamentarian cause, and the significance of this had been missed by Palmer, because the idea of a patron saint of shoemakers and cobblers took on a new meaning during the English Civil War.

As the civil war progressed, both sides turned to propaganda, with Puritans attacking their opponents from the pulpit, while Royalists started a smear campaign, which attacked the morals and motives of Puritans and Parliamentarians by means of tropes, libel and political satire. This was spread throughout the country in the form of poetry and ballads, printed on pamphlets and books that were circulated throughout the region during the 17th Century.

’A new Ballad of the Plagues wherewith Wrexham in denbighshire is sorely tormented this yeare 1647’

https://academic.oup.com/histres/art...251/39/5603606

These crude verses sought to stereotype Parliamentarians and Puritans as greedy thieves and cowards of low birth who took land and tithes that rightfully belonged to the Royalist landed gentry. Royalist propaganda also used sexual slurs to soil the image of their opponents, whose wives were portrayed as common, loose and sexually disordered women, while their husbands were stigmatised as sexually inadequate cuckolds.
Parliamentarians and Puritans alike were depicted as a band of misfits who were bound together by religious sectarianism and their intention to profit from their newfound authority. Royalists were ‘outraged that men from the dregs of society should lord it over the nation’; a lower order of common tradesmen and religious zealots who were frequently referred to as ‘cobblers’ and ‘the sons of Crispin’ which was a common term for shoemakers.
The figure of the cobbler was widely used in Welsh Royalist poetry as one of the forces of instability and disorder that were ruining the nation, and ‘the cobbler’ became a popular feature of wider printed Royalist propaganda, both before and after The Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660.
This reference was probably derived from an ancient proverb ‘let the cobbler stick to his last’ which was intended as a warning to common tradesmen that they should stick to what they know and not get involved in matters beyond their skill set or birthright.

In 1653, Oliver Cromwell assembled a new parliament of ‘godly men who had a divine calling to take on the supreme authority and government of this commonwealth’, which was known as ‘the parliament of saints’. But the perception that this assembly was a nest of hopeless political and religious radicals and sectarians was widespread, and exiled royalist and former MP Sir Edward Hyde characterised the assembly as ‘inferior persons, of no quality or name, artificers of the meanest trades; known only by their gifts in praying and preaching’. These Puritan saints were tarred with the same brush as cobblers and shoemakers and the image was propagated in Royalist literature and folk songs, such as The Wrexham Ballad, which mocked the false piety of Morgan Llwyd’s congregation of ‘Saints’ and derided the greed of ‘sequestrating saints’ so named due to the practice of sequestrating the tithes (the confiscation of a kind of land tax) which had previously been collected from tenants by Royalist landowners and conformist churches before the war, but were now collected by Parliamentarian committees.


Puritanical rule and Parliamentarian control from 1642 had introduced a period of huge change across the country, although many of the changes were reversed after the monarchy was restored in 1660. But in the common culture of that time, Parliamentarians were widely regarded as mere ‘cobblers’- ‘the sons of Crispin’, and Puritans were mocked as false ‘saints’, and so it is no surprise that the fields in which a Parliamentarian garrison had been established in 1645 would come to be named after St Crispin- the patron saint of shoemakers and cobblers; a localism that was carried forward in the names of a house and an inn that had been owned by Puritans who had supported the Parliamentarian cause throughout the civil wars.
The last remnant of this long-forgotten tradition can still be found in the name of Crispin Lane (IMO).

[eastsussexred]

I would ask that if you use any of the information in this thread, for whatever reason, then please include a link or reference back to this thread.

[eastsussexred]

Originally Posted by eastsussexred

At the end of the 19th Century, a local historian by the name of Alfred Neobard Palmer began to publish a series of books relating to the history of North Wales, and he uncovered a mystery in Stansty, which he was not able to resolve.
Palmer identified a farmhouse that had been owned by the Ambrose Lewis family in an area that he termed ‘Lower Crispin’ which he found in parish registers, under the Latin name of ‘Crispianus’ in 1699 and 1700, and ‘Crispin Anna’ in 1731 and 1777. He also found another farmhouse at an area that he termed ‘Upper Crispin’ owned by the Edwards family of Stansty, which in 1620 was known as ‘Plas Ucha (Upper Hall) and was also sometimes known as ‘Stansty Hall’ but at the end of the 17th Century was called ‘The Crispin Inn’. In the parish register of 1695 the inn was called ‘Crispinienne’ and he deduced that this was a corruption of ‘Crispinian’ (The farmhouse in Lower Crispin was located on, what we now know as Crispin Lane, and the farmhouse at Upper Crispin was on the Mold Road side of Stansty Park). The Crispin Inn was also recorded in 17th Century travel books, and Ogilby’s Road Map of 1675, which further identified a mansion in the precise location of the property that would come to be known as ‘The Crispin’ on Crispin Lane, although Ogilby’s map referred to this property as ‘Stanty’ (Stansty).
Palmer had noted that both of these properties came to be known as The Crispin toward the end of the 17th Century and he postulated that the name could have been derived from an ancient guild of shoemakers, as St Crispin was the Patron Saint of Cobblers and Shoemakers. He also stated that this association may have been related to a ‘John ap John of Stansty’ who was listed in the parish registers as a weaver in 1615 and a shoemaker in 1619, although he noted that no such guild was ever recorded in the area, and he added ‘I cannot prove this conjecture, for conjecture only it is, to be true, but it is the only explanation I have to offer’.
Likewise, Palmer could not offer any explanation as to why two properties, in different locations and owned by different families, would each share the same name.

Having studied the area for the last few of years, I now believe that I have been able to untangle this mystery.
It would appear that Palmer’s intuition had been partially correct, in so much as the name was derived from St Crispin, but he had been wrong in his notion as to why the land and property were named after the saint.

The first reference to Crispin in this area dates back to 1666, shortly after Charles II was returned to the throne in The Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660, at the end of The English Civil War

Wrexham became the centre of Puritanical rule in North Wales during The English Civil War, and Stansty, in particular, was a hotbed of Puritans.

The following is a bit complex and long winded, but is necessary to explain the context in order to understand the reason why the name of Crispin became associated with Stansty


The English Civil War (1642-1651) was a series of civil wars and political and religious machinations between Royalists (Cavaliers) and Parliamentarians (Roundheads) which ended in a victory for the Parliamentarians in 1651.
The outcome led to the trial and execution of Charles I in 1649 and the exile of his son, Charles II in 1651. The English Monarchy was replaced with The Commonwealth of England between 1649 and 1653 and the Protectorate under the rule of Oliver Cromwell between 1653 and 1658, followed briefly by his son Richard from 1658 to 1659. The war also ended the monopoly of the Church of England on Christian worship, while in Ireland the victors consolidated the established Protestant Ascendancy, although the idea of Parliamentary sovereignty was only legally established as part of the Glorious Revolution in 1688.
Parliamentarian forces had taken control of North Wales back in 1647 and Morgan Llwyd- a radical Puritan preacher, was ordained as Vicar of Wrexham, which then became the centre of Puritanism in the region.
During this time, most of the land in Stansty was owned by two families- The Edwards family of Stansty Park and their cousins- The Meredith’s of Plas Coch.
William Meredith of Plas Coch (d 1603-04) had been dismayed by the teachings of the conventional church in North Wales and in his will he left the sum of £30, which was to be used to pay for a new minister who could reform the church. John Edwards (1573-1635) was a Puritan, and as an executor of his cousins will, he used the money to establish a Puritan Lectureship in Wrexham. John’s daughter-Margaret was also an ardent disciple of Morgan Llwyd- who had served with the Parliamentary forces during the first and second Civil Wars. Religion had played a major part in The English Civil Wars as the government's persecution of Puritans meant that the vast majority of Puritans supported Parliament, whereas most Anglicans and Catholics favoured the Royalists. Puritans were vehemently opposed to the influence that Anglicans and Catholics had within the Church of England and they sought a more traditional Biblical form of Christianity. But The Church of England was a state church, which held a monopoly over all religious teaching and so all other unsanctioned Christian gatherings were made illegal.
Margaret Edwards married another Puritan- Colonel John Jones ‘the regicide’ who was one of the 57 Parliamentarian commissioners that signed the death warrant authorising the execution of Charles I following his trial in December 1648.
Margaret Edwards died in 1651, and the colonel was remarried to the sister of Oliver Cromwell in 1657, but he returned to Wrexham for a while after Charles II was returned to the throne in May 1660, although he was eventually captured in London in June of that year and sent to The Tower of London before he was executed by being hanged, drawn and quartered at Charing Cross on 17th October 1660.
Margaret’s sister- Sarah also married a Parliamentarian by the name of Edward Davies of Eglwysegl, who was also known as ‘the blue shearer’ due to his enthusiasm for fleecing local Royalists, while another sister- Mary was married to Puritan Watkin Kyffin, who was a steward for the Parliamentarian Colonel- Thomas Myddleton of Chirk Castle. The Edwards family retained very strong links to the Puritan/Parliamentarian cause throughout the 17th Century.



Although most of the landed gentry in Wales supported the king, Thomas Myddelton, owner of a considerable amount of land surrounding his castle at Chirk, was a Puritan who fought many battles for the Parliamentarian cause and it was Myddelton who established a garrison of Parliamentarian forces on the Edwardses land in Stansty; a collusion between Parliamentarian families, which would be remembered by all Royalists in the area.

https://wiki.bcw-project.org/parliam...omas-myddleton

On 10th March 1645, Myddleton wrote to Sir William Brereton of the Cheshire Army asking for the loan of a company to reinforce his own depleted force at the newly-established garrison at Stansty, although it is not known if the garrison was ever replenished. A shortage of troops was not the only issue that Myddleton had faced, as he had previously been forced to break up the organ in St Giles Church to make lead bullets from the organ pipes.
Muskets, which fired lead shot, were used extensively by both Royalists and Parliamentarians during the conflicts, and lead shot as well as other relics from the civil war have since been found in the area of the Stansty Garrison.

The Edwards Family estate was finally ended when the great-great grandson of John Edwards- Peter Edwards died without heirs in 1783 and the estate was passed to the Lloyds of Pengwern, before eventually being sold to Richard Thompson (the iron master).
Thompson demolished The Crispin Inn (then known as ‘Stansty Hall’) when he built a new Stansty Hall further back from Mold Road in 1830-32. He also redesigned the gardens and landscaped the area, but a field that had been associated with The Crispin Inn (Crispin Meadow) was still being illustrated on tithe maps in the 1880’s.
Another area of land, known as Crispin Field was located directly opposite Crispin Meadow, on the opposite side of the Mold Road. This field formed a part of the Stansty Lodge Estate. The full history of Stansty Lodge has never been recorded (as far as I am aware) but I have discovered that this property and the land on which it was built also had very strong links to the Parliamentarian cause.

Jane Eyton inherited Stansty Lodge and plenty of other land and property in Stansty, Gwersylt and Wrexham from her cousin- Samuel Powell (jnr). Samuel had built a new house in Stansty (Stansty Lodge) and he bequeathed it to Jane with the proviso that after she died, the inheritance would be passed on to his daughters.
Jane died in 1729 and accordingly, Stansty Lodge was passed onto Samuel’s daughter- Martha (Powell) Morgan.
Martha Powell had married Jane’s cousin-James Morgan, and in Jane’s will (dated 2nd November 1727) she had recorded that James (presumably with Martha) was living with her at another property that she owned in Stansty at that time.
Martha and her husband later moved into Stansty Lodge and when Martha died, James Morgan inherited Stansty Lodge, although he also later became the owner of Gyfynys in Brymbo.
Gyfynys had been the family seat of the Powell family since the family name was first established by Thomas Powell. When Thomas died, Gyfynys was passed onto one of his sons - Samuel Powell (snr) a cousin of John Edwards of Stansty. When Samuel Powell (snr) died, much of his estate, including land and property in Gwersylt, Wrexham and Stansty went to his own son-Samuel Powell (jnr) and it was this younger Samuel Powell who had built Stansty Lodge, sometime between 1675 and 1720, directly opposite the hall (Stansty Hall/Plas Ucha/Crispin Inn, which was owned by his cousins- the Edwards family of Stansty.
Like many other families of the time, the Powell family had been torn apart due to different family members having loyalties to opposing sides during the civil war, and Samuel Powell (jnr) had fought on the side of the Parliamentarians, while his older brother- Thomas had fought for the Royalists. This developed into a savage family feud, which broke the family apart and resulted in Thomas (the Cavalier) later suing his brother (the Roundhead) and two of his sisters over the terms of their fathers will.

https://thefireonthehill.wordpress.c...f-the-gyfynys/

https://thefireonthehill.wordpress.c...n-the-gyfynys/

https://thefireonthehill.wordpress.c...r-of-eglwyseg/

During the court case, which took place after Charles II had been returned to the throne, Thomas accused his brother- Samuel of being a traitor for having taken up arms against the king during the wars and he also accused one of his sisters of being a fanatic of Morgan Llwyd’s church. The sister in question was Mary and she had married Peter Edwards- the nephew of the Puritan Edwards sisters of Stansty Park.
Crispin Field, which stretched from Stansty Lodge down to the boundary line of Plas Coch, was still being recorded on tithe maps in the 19th Century, but there were also another two fields (Crispin Croft and Crispin Field) which were also being shown on maps at that time. These fields were associated with a large house called ‘The Crispin’ on Crispin Lane and Palmer had found that this property had been owned by the Ambrose Lewis family since at least 1704, although we know from Ogilby’s Road map that the house had existed since at least 1675. But when we look further into the history of the Ambrose Lewis family we find that Ambrose Lewis (d 1714) was a noted Puritan preacher and schoolmaster, who, like many of the Puritan families in Wrexham, including the Edwardses, were bought before the courts when Royalists regained control after The Restoration of The Monarchy in 1660.
All of the land and property that had been named after St Crispin in Stansty was owned by Puritans who supported the Parliamentarian cause, and the significance of this had been missed by Palmer, because the idea of a patron saint of shoemakers and cobblers took on a new meaning during the English Civil War.

As the civil war progressed, both sides turned to propaganda, with Puritans attacking their opponents from the pulpit, while Royalists started a smear campaign, which attacked the morals and motives of Puritans and Parliamentarians by means of tropes, libel and political satire. This was spread throughout the country in the form of poetry and ballads, printed on pamphlets and books that were circulated throughout the region during the 17th Century.

’A new Ballad of the Plagues wherewith Wrexham in denbighshire is sorely tormented this yeare 1647’

https://academic.oup.com/histres/art...251/39/5603606

These crude verses sought to stereotype Parliamentarians and Puritans as greedy thieves and cowards of low birth who took land and tithes that rightfully belonged to the Royalist landed gentry. Royalist propaganda also used sexual slurs to soil the image of their opponents, whose wives were portrayed as common, loose and sexually disordered women, while their husbands were stigmatised as sexually inadequate cuckolds.
Parliamentarians and Puritans alike were depicted as a band of misfits who were bound together by religious sectarianism and their intention to profit from their newfound authority. Royalists were ‘outraged that men from the dregs of society should lord it over the nation’; a lower order of common tradesmen and religious zealots who were frequently referred to as ‘cobblers’ and ‘the sons of Crispin’ which was a common term for shoemakers.
The figure of the cobbler was widely used in Welsh Royalist poetry as one of the forces of instability and disorder that were ruining the nation, and ‘the cobbler’ became a popular feature of wider printed Royalist propaganda, both before and after The Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660.
This reference was probably derived from an ancient proverb ‘let the cobbler stick to his last’ which was intended as a warning to common tradesmen that they should stick to what they know and not get involved in matters beyond their skill set or birthright.

In 1653, Oliver Cromwell assembled a new parliament of ‘godly men who had a divine calling to take on the supreme authority and government of this commonwealth’, which was known as ‘the parliament of saints’. But the perception that this assembly was a nest of hopeless political and religious radicals and sectarians was widespread, and exiled royalist and former MP Sir Edward Hyde characterised the assembly as ‘inferior persons, of no quality or name, artificers of the meanest trades; known only by their gifts in praying and preaching’. These Puritan saints were tarred with the same brush as cobblers and shoemakers and the image was propagated in Royalist literature and folk songs, such as The Wrexham Ballad, which mocked the false piety of Morgan Llwyd’s congregation of ‘Saints’ and derided the greed of ‘sequestrating saints’ so named due to the practice of sequestrating the tithes (the confiscation of a kind of land tax) which had previously been collected from tenants by Royalist landowners and conformist churches before the war, but were now collected by Parliamentarian committees.


Puritanical rule and Parliamentarian control from 1642 had introduced a period of huge change across the country, although many of the changes were reversed after the monarchy was restored in 1660. But in the common culture of that time, Parliamentarians were widely regarded as mere ‘cobblers’- ‘the sons of Crispin’, and Puritans were mocked as false ‘saints’, and so it is no surprise that the fields in which a Parliamentarian garrison had been established in 1645 would come to be named after St Crispin- the patron saint of shoemakers and cobblers; a localism that was carried forward in the names of a house and an inn that had been owned by Puritans who had supported the Parliamentarian cause throughout the civil wars.
The last remnant of this long-forgotten tradition can still be found in the name of Crispin Lane (IMO).

Parliamentarian committee men were removed after The Restoration of The Monarchy (1660) as Royalists sought revenge and tried to re-establish conformity to the Church, which meant that Puritans were again persecuted. In 1663 John Edwards (jnr) of Stansty (and others) were bound over at the Quarter Sessions for worshipping at a Puritan assembly at Bryn y ffynnon, and two years later a detachment of militia were sent to the same house, where twenty one people, mostly common trades-folk were arrested and either fined or sent to gaol. At another court in the same year, Thomas Powell accused his younger brother Samuel Powell (jnr) of being a traitor for having taken up arms against the king, while also accusing his own sister of being a fanatical Puritan.
As a Puritan commentator later recorded “There was a time when the nonconformists groaned under the iron rod of oppression, and were exposed to fines, penalties, and imprisonment, as well as to cruel mockings, and the lawless rage of a rabbie, for worshipping God according to the light of their consciences."
But the issue didn’t go away and in 1681, Sir George Jeffries of Acton Hall (the hanging Judge) summoned Ambrose Lewis, his old school master at Wrexham to be presented in court, "and rallied against him particularly, with great keenness in his charge to the grand jury, for 'keeping conventicles' as he called it, in the school; by which means,' saith he, your children get the twang of fanaticism in their noses when they are young, and they will never leave it.”

It was during this period of reprisals that the place-names relating to ‘Crispin’ first appeared in the area, as a derogatory term used in common culture to define the land and property of the well known Puritan ‘saints’ and ‘cobblers’- ‘the sons of St Crispin’ in Stansty.
At the end of the 18th Century, the entire area from Wat’s Dyke to the middle of Stansty Park, including the land where Y Cae Ras now stands, was commonly known as ‘Crispin’.

[jonesfach]

https://www.skysports.com/football/n...b-in-existence

Interesting-I know it’s not Wrexham but thought best place for it

[eastsussexred]

Originally Posted by jonesfach

https://www.skysports.com/football/n...b-in-existence

Interesting-I know it’s not Wrexham but thought best place for it

The article attached from The Surrey Comet in March 1865 also states that they had been established for three or four years at that time, so it looks like Palace are the oldest professional club?

[jonesfach]

Originally Posted by eastsussexred

The article attached from The Surrey Comet in March 1865 also states that they had been established for three or four years at that time, so it looks like Palace are the oldest professional club?

Which changes the idea the game was started professionally in the north of the country.

There may be other teams London based also as just who did they play against??

[eastsussexred]

Originally Posted by jonesfach

Which changes the idea the game was started professionally in the north of the country.

There may be other teams London based also as just who did they play against??

I think that Palace turned professional in 1905 Jonesfach. There was a newspaper report of that time about it, but no doubt there were plenty of other teams around London in the early days too