Category Archives: Social History

The magnificent Grade 1 listed Parish Church of St Giles in Wrexham and its medieval context

Introduction

Aerial view of the Parish Church of St Giles from the south. Source: Wikimedia Commons

The Grade-1 listed Parish Church of St Giles, (or St Silin or Silyn in Welsh), was the heart of medieval Wrexham and is still the main architectural anchor of the town. It is possible that it lies over the site of an earlier medieval church, perhaps dating to the 11th century. Today’s church, built of local yellow sandstone, dates mainly to the late 15th and early 16th centuries. It is a huge and impressive structure built in two main phases of the gothic style, with five vast windows on the north side and six on the south. None of the glass is original, all dating to the 19th and 20th centuries, but some of it is very fine, and it all gives a sense of how the church would have looked originally.

Plan of the church from the leaflet available on the table just as you walk in to the main church.

The tower at the west end and the polygonal chancel at the east end were both added in the early 16th century. The famous tower and the roofs of nave and chancel are elaborately decorated with crenellations and sculptural features. Only a fraction of the original churchyard remains, but you can still do a full circuit around the church and of the remaining grave markers there remain some fine chest-type grave markers.

The interior is influenced by the window apertures of the Perpendicular Gothic, but the arcades themselves are more consistent with the earlier Decorative style. At the east end a polygonal chancel (5) with a three-sided apse protrudes (3), with the still remarkable remains of a Doom painting over the chancel arch (over 5). There is a 41m (136 feet) tall tower at the west end (12) that is visible from miles around, and from which the views are reportedly spectacular.

The plan today consists of a nave (1) divided from its flanking north and south aisles by an arcade of six arches. Running along the top of the nave are the clerestories, a row of windows above the level of the aisles that let in light to supplement the stained glass. The east end of the north aisle (the side on which you enter, facing into the town), is now dedicated to the Royal Welsh Fusiliers (9). Opposite this, the east end of the south aisle is fully occupied by the 19th century organ (7) where the medieval Lady Chapel was once located. The organ dates to 1894 and its pipes are very nicely decorated, although it hides a stained glass window aperture and the original piscina. At the western end of both aisles, and lying beyond them, connecting the nave with the tower, is the ante-nave, which is where the font (8) is located.

The nave, with the chancel beyond.

I have included a summary below of some of what is known about medieval Wrexham, the period that created the main architectural legacy of the church, mainly because I knew so little about it myself before visiting the church. Hopefully it will also help others unfamiliar with Wrexham’s past to put it into some sort of context. I have also included a list of features that I particularly enjoyed. More formal lists of features are available in a leaflet on the table just beyond the north porch in the ante-nave, as well as in a comprehensive and invaluable visitor guide, with lots of photos, available from the church shop, but I have simply singled out the features that particularly grabbed my attention.

Apart from the font (possibly 15th century) stand-alone features such as the brass eagle lectern (16th century) are generally of post-medieval date. The pulpit and pews are all Victorian and the choir stalls are missing, which is a crying shame as they were probably beautifully crafted with sculptural carvings. Inevitably there were 19th century alterations and additions mainly by Benjamin Ferrey in 1866-7, with the chancel refurbished by T.G. Jackson in 1914 and again between 1918 and 1919. For the most part, with notable exceptions such as the chancel reredos, these have been done quite sensitively, usually with the intention of restoring the appearance of the church rather than elaborating the original vision.

Who was St Giles?

According to the guide book (Williams 2018), this is St Giles on the north face of the tower standing on a “grotesque” corbel.

St Giles, whose name in Latin is Aegidius, is one of two saints whose name is associated with the Wrexham parish church. The other is the Welsh saint Silyn, whose name in Latin is also Aegidius, which may explain why the church has different names in English and Welsh. An alternative explanation is that the church of St Giles sits over the site of a much earlier medieval church dedicated exclusively to Silyn.

St Giles was featured in the 13th century compilation of nearly 200 stories (hagiographies) of saints called Legenda Aurea (the Golden Legend), by Dominican Friar Jacobus de Voraigne, in which “legend” meant passages of text to be read out aloud. It was designed as a handy tool for preachers who wanted rousing content for their sermons, a who’s who of revered Christian saints. It spread quickly even before the invention of the printing press in the mid 15th century, after which it went viral with over 80 editions printed, with four editions in English. It remains an invaluable resource for understanding which saints were most appreciated throughout the medieval period, what was understood about them and how they were valued as models of divinely approved behaviour. St Silyn was a purely native saint and is not included in the Legenda, but the description of St Giles indicates why he was so valued in the medieval period.

St Giles in the Legenda Aurea, Huntington Digital Library

St Giles in the “Legenda Aurea.” mssHM 3027 f.118v. Source: Huntington Digital Library

According to the Legenda, St Giles was an aristocratic Athenian, who died A.D. c.710. His earliest miracle took place when he gave his coat to a sick beggar who, as soon as he put on the coat, was cured. On another occasion Giles prayed for a man who was bitten by a snake, and the poison was driven out. He decided to leave his homeland to escape his spreading fame and head west, and was given passage by some sailors who were saved from wreckage by the saint’s prayers. Having arrived in southern France, where he remained, he stayed for a while with a hermit, before moving away to become a hermit himself with a spring nearby and with the company of a doe who provided milk.

When the doe fled to him for protection during the local king’s hunt, Giles was accidentally pierced by an arrow let loose by one the king’s hunters. Giles miraculously lived, but he prayed for his wound not to be fully healed so that he might experience how “power is made perfect in weakness.” The king, duly impressed, established a monastery and convinced Giles to become its head, which became an important site of pilgrimage.

St Giles, Avignon 1335 (Indulgence from 15 archbishops and bishops for the St. Aegidius / St Giles Chapel of the Teutonic Brothers in Aachen). Source: Picryl (PublicDomain)

St Giles became the patron saint of the sick (particularly cripples and lepers), the poor and nursing mothers. Books like the Legenda ensured that the inspirational story spread across Europe. There are records of around 162 churches dedicated to him in England and at least 24 hospitals bearing his name. A leper hospital dedicated to him was located in Chester beyond the Northgate. He can be identified by his main symbols, a deer, an arrow, and sometimes an abbot’s staff. His feast day is annually on September 1st.

St Silyn is far more elusive, although sometimes associated with St Tysilio, a Welsh monastic saint of the 7th century (broadly contemporary with St Winefrede of Holywell), whose cult was centred in Powys.
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Medieval Wrexham

Wrexham Town Centre Conservation Area Character Assessment and Management Plan map 2009, with my annotations in pink to show the Parish Church of St Giles and roads that the report states were laid down during the medieval period

St Giles is a vast edifice, the visible architecture built mainly in the 15th and 16th century to house a large congregation in style, something that required a considerable investment in its basic form, its ornamental embellishments and its furnishings. Today the church is surrounded by a mixture of urban buildings from different periods. Throughout Wrexham Georgian and Victorian buildings speak of 18th and 19th century confidence, but unlike Chester, where there are plenty of echoes of its medieval and Tudor past, there are scarcely any obvious indications of a medieval heritage. However, a bit of hunting around in local resources (with thanks to the local history section at Wrexham’s public library) produced some useful information about the medieval townscape of Wrexham.

Valle Crucis Cistercian Abbey, Llangollen, founded 1201

The earliest sign of a settlement in the immediate area is a motte and bailey castle prior to 1161 located 1 km away at Erddig, called “de Wristlesham,” which must have supported a settlement, although it is now known exactly where the accompanying settlement was located. The predecessor of today’s Wrexham was certainly founded by 1220 because it is at this time that Bishop Reyner of St Asaph allocated half of Wrexham’s income to Valle Crucis Abbey in Llangollen (established 1201), with the other half granted to them in 1227 by Bishop Abraham, also of St Asaph. Prince Madog ap Gruffyd of Powys Fadog, the founder of Valle Crucis, added to its coffers in 1247 when he granted the abbey the tithes (a type of religious tax earned by parish churches) of the parish church of Wrexham, sealing the link between the town and the abbey, even beyond Henry VIII’s suppression of the monasteries. By accepting the tithes, the abbey also accepted certain responsibilities to the church, including appointing its clergy and maintaining the chancel.

Seal of John de Warenne, 6th Earl of Surrey. Source: Wikipedia

Wrexham’s history started to take a more recognizable and politically stable shape following Edward I’s shake-up of Wales after the defeat of Llywelyn ap Gruffydd (Llywelyn the Last), his brother Daffyd and their supporters in 1282-3. This destroyed the 13th century challenge to England’s control in northeast Wales. As part of Edward’s plan to bring northeast Wales under English control, Wrexham became the centre of lordship of Bromfield and Yale within the cantref (administrative district) of Maelor under the lordship of John de Warenne, 6th earl of Surrey (best known for building the castle at Holt on the River Dee to the north, completed c.1315). It is recorded that in 1316 Wrexham was spelled Wrightlesham, and was based in the current location with an accompanying church. By this time there was a thriving community of 44 tenants who held 52 tenements, with several markets. In 1330 the church tower fell during a storm, which must have created quite an impression on the town!

The Grade 2* listed 7-9 Church Street, thought to date to the 1500s. Timber-framed, originally thatched, and possibly a single storey mid-medieval hall house, the oldest remaining buildings in Wrexham to which alterations were later made. A floor was added in the 17th century, and it was renovated in the 1990s

The growing importance of Wrexham was confirmed by the king’s grant of a market charter in 1391, permitting it to hold a weekly regional market and annual fair, becoming a focal point for trade and encouraging the growth of local manufacturing and service industries. Based initially on agricultural activities, with land suitable for some cultivation and a lot of livestock herding, the town’s commercial status was given a boost in the 15th century with the development of coal mining, initially for local consumption, and iron production. A leather tanning industry, together with all its associated skills, was also well established.

As well as almshouses at Llangollen Abad, a number of documents also refer to the abbey having almshouses in Wrexham, although their original location is not mentioned. They were destroyed in 1589 by inhabitants of Wrexham, angry by the appropriation of all of the abbey’s properties and financial resources by incomers, and the buildings were converted to raw materials (brick, tile, wood etc) that could be carried off for use elsewhere.

5 – 7 Town Hill, medieval, timber-framed buildings renovated in the 1990s

The revolt of Owain Glyndŵr in the first decade of the 15th century, unlike other unluckier towns in Wales, had no direct impact on Wrexham in terms of attacks and damage to property. Its effect would have been felt, however, in terms of the disruption to economic activities, transport and communications. In rural areas the attacks, resulting in loss of resources and income in some areas, would have caused great hardship, and would have led to the fluctuating availability of goods in the Wrexham markets. Ripples of uncertainty would also have felt throughout the town, as the potential impacts of Glyndŵyr’s activities and the future of Wales, as well as concerns about the immediate fate of the town, would have been extensively debated.

The timberwork revealed in the passageway between 7 and 9 Town Hill Street.

The medieval timberwork revealed in the passageway between 7 and 9 Town Hill.

Unlike Chester, the medieval and Tudor past of which is writ large on the cityscape, Wrexham’s early past is architecturally elusive, most of it demolished and replaced by much more recent buildings, roads and the former Ellesmere-Wrexham railway, its fugitive remnants hidden in nooks and crannies. The main indicator of medieval Wrexham today is the arrangement of roads that once fanned out in all directions in a radial pattern from the church itself. Original medieval roads, lanes and alleyways in Wrexham were very narrow, mainly straight, and were characterized by narrow, low buildings. According to the Wrexham Town Centre Conservation Area Character Assessment and Management Plan report, the wider roads were those where market stalls lined the sides, such as the High Street. Other medieval roads and lanes are Abbot Street, College Street, Temple Row, Town Hill, and The Ney. In 1643 around one quarter of the part of the town that was clustered around the market area was burned down. It was quickly rebuilt, reflecting both the importance of the town and the funds available locally in the Stuart period, but the fire almost certainly took with it a number of medieval buildings.xxx

The former Wrexham and Ellesmere Railway of 1895. The carriage in the distance next to a white building shows the Central Station (moved in 1998) and beyond is the church of St Giles, with one branch of the railway running to its south. This section of railway partially closed in 1962 and completely closed in 1981. Source: Wikipedia

In spite of the 1643 fire, the 19th century railway that tore up part of the town, and the unsympathetic redevelopments of the 1960s, there are two complete medieval buildings remaining, although you need a sharp eye to spot them, on Church Street (no.s 7-9) and Town Hill (5, 7 and 9). The Golden Lion pub at the north of the High Street originated in the 16th century. Otherwise, remnants of medieval timber frames can still be found within some later buildings, the footprints of long thin burgess plots and footprints of shopfronts with yards, where only the yards remain. Beneath the current ground level there is still potential for learning more about the medieval period: “The medieval core remains a highly sensitive archaeological area. There is a strong likelihood that remnants of buildings and deposits may be found in the excavation of land, provided this has not been destroyed by later structures” (Wrexham Town Centre Conservation Area Character Assessment and Management Plan 2009, p.9).

Railway passing just south of St Giles through what was once the southern extent of the churchyard. Source: Facebook

A brief history

The Gothic church

The parish church of St Giles in the first half of the 19th century by W. Crane. Source: medievalheritage.eu

As mentioned above, the earliest reference to a parish church in Wrexham was in 1220 when the Bishop of St Asaph granted the monks of Valle Crucis Cistercian Abbey in Llangollen half of the income of Wrexham. In 1247, the Prince of Powys, Madoc ap Gruffydd, granted the monks of Valle Crucis the tithes of the parish church of Wrexham. It is probably from this earliest period that the splendid stone effigy of Cyneurig ap Hywel dates. The full-sized depiction of the Welsh knight shows him with long hair, no helmet, but with a sword in his left hand and shield over his body, showing a lion rampant and the legend in Latin “here lies Cynerig ap Hywell.” It was found in the churchyard and moved indoors for its protection, now lying at the west end of the north aisle in the war memorial chapel.

14th century corbel sculpture with a mermaid holding a mirror and comb facing into the nave on the north face of the south arcade (left as you walk down towards the chancel)

In 1330 on St Catherine’s feast day the church tower fell during a severe storm. It was widely believed that this was because the weekly market took place on a Sunday, angering either St Catherine or God, or both; subsequently the market was held instead on a Thursday. The original church was largely rebuilt with an emphasis on the gothic Decorated style. The arcades with their very fine lancet-shaped arches and octagonal pillars date from this rebuild. Although some of the sculpted corbels were provided with their sculptural elements in the 19th century, others are thought to be 14th century, including a man with toothache in the north aisle, and a mermaid with mirror and comb in the south aisle (the latter very reminiscent of a medieval misericord in St Oswald’s church in Malpas). Some of the mason’s marks within the church are thought to belong to this period. There was no stone tower and no chancel, but it is thought that by the end of the 14th century a wooden bell tower had been added at the west end on the site of the fallen stone tower.

The east end of the church with the former east end window arch now serving as the chancel arch (see bits of tracery from the old window) and the Doom painting above. The three-sectioned apse lies beyond, behind an enormous stone reredos.The pulpit at left dates to the 19th century. The raised semi-circular dais in the foreground is modern.

In the mid 15th century, either in 1457 or 1463, the 14th century church went up in flames, and yet again the church had to be largely rebuilt, based on the footprint of the 14th century church, but adopting the new fashion for the Perpendicular. A new roof was added. Only a few elements of the Decorated style, such as the arcades, survived. Likewise, the decorated corbels that supported the former roof, although they no longer had a practical function, were left in situ.

In 1506 a new set of works took place to transform the church into the structure seen today. The roof was again replaced, this time with a wooden camber beam ceiling, supported on corbels featuring armorial shields. Sixteen brightly painted angels playing musical instruments or singing look down from the roof, and the glorious Doom painting was added above the chancel at this time (about which more below), with a small red devil’s face on the roof in front of it. The north porch and a new chancel were added, and the new tower was completed in 1525, extending the length of the church and giving it a magnificent presence in the landscape. The extension of the chancel was achieved by taking out the former east window, which now forms the chancel arch, with part of the former window’s tracery still clearly visible. The Perpendicular is usually a less lively version of the gothic aesthetic than the previous Decorated, and can be rather regimented and severe, but the sheer number of pinnacles, crockets, battlements, canopies, statues, sculpted corbels, bosses, angels, gargoyles and grotesques, both inside and out, but particularly the famous sculpted elements on the tower, provide the church with real energy. The font (see further down the page) was certainly present in the 16th century, but its date is unknown. It was lost during the Civil War, but was remarkably returned to the church in 1843.

The legs of Man, associated with the Stanley family. South aisle, arcade. Possible mason’s mark in the chiselled block at top right.

Although previous rebuilds had been the result of storm and fire damage, this time the 1506 works seem to have been the result of an investment in status, suggested by the proliferation of Tudor imagery throughout the church, including the Tudor rose and portcullis (associated with Henry VII) and the symbolism associated with the Stanley family (such as the legs of the Isle of Man) who are thought to have invested in a number of religious buildings in the area, including the parish churches at Gresford, Holt and Mold, as well as the superb chapel at the shrine of St Winefrede in Holywell. The devout Margaret de Beaufort, mother of Henry VII, who married Thomas Stanley in 1482 is often credited with much of this work, but it is not always clear from documentation what form her or her family’s influence or investment took. If the investment was not made exclusively by the Stanelys, it remains unknown how the financial injection was sourced and where from.

Decorated spandrel on the north porch, showing a splendid lion

Decorated spandrel on the 16th century north porch, showing a splendid, if slightly startled-looking lion

In Henry VIII’s Valor Ecclesiasticus of 1535, a valuation of all the monastic holdings in Britain, it is recorded that pilgrim offerings were being made to images in the church of St Giles (a property of Valle Crucis Abbey), amounting to £2.62.8d, which according to the National Archives Currency Converter is around £1029 in today’s money. The entire contribution of St Giles to the abbey was recorded as £14 2s 8d (c.£6000 today) for temporalities (secular income such as farms, mills, tenant farmers, mines and quarries and sundry rural and urban buildings that could secure rents), and £54 16s 8d (c.£23,000) for spiritualities (income derived from religious sources such as church tithes and other revenue, pilgrim donations, oblations, and chantries). It also showed how the abbey short-changed the vicars of its appropriated churches. The abbot claimed £50 9s 2d (c.£21,000) from Wrexham’s parish church, but the vicar only earned £19 9s 8d (c.£8209 – c.39%).

One of the interesting questions regarding the early Tudor period is what happened after Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries. The church and other Wrexham resources had become one of many possessions of Valle Crucis Abbey (founded 1201) during the 13th century, but after Valle Crucis had been dissolved, probably in January 1537, the abbey itself was granted by the king to a Yorkshireman, Sir William Pickering, causing significant local resentment from local landowners who had their own designs on the former abbatial property and its incomes. Although some of the abbey’s land and properties were dispensed of, and most of its building materials stripped down and the church dismantled, many properties that provided incomes were retained by Sir William, including revenues from Wrexham’s parish church. The income from St Giles for the year 1538-9 (in Appendix II of Derrick Pratt’s book on the subject of the dissolution of Valle Crucis) earned him £50.00 per annum (c.£21,000, according to the National Archives Currency Converter), one of five ecclesiastical incomes that he enjoyed, as well as those from secular properties. Quite what this meant for how St Giles was administered, including who was now responsible for appointing the clergy, and how and what they were paid is not clear.

The 17th century and Civil War

1524 brass lectern with an eagle on a sphere supported on an ornate stand, with four lion’s feet at its base, which went on to support an original 1601 copy of the King James Bible. It is a surprising survivor of the Protestant attack on the church

The 17th century was a tumultuous period for the churches of England and the borders. Many were targetted by Puritans determined to eliminate even a hint of pre-Reformation papism, finery and ritual. The Puritans, suspicious of any rituals and richly ornate ceremonial objects and vestments that echoed elaborate Catholic practices, set about destroying the ornate and the rich. Worship per se was not discouraged, but the Puritans demanded a purer and more modest relationship with God that reflected honesty and humility rather than wealth, artworks and ostentation.

The church of St Giles did not escape Puritan notice, although the damage could have been much worse. The organ was destroyed in 1643, the font was removed and a tomb was opened. John Rowland Phillips gives a vivid description in his Memoirs of the Civil War in Wales and the Marches, describing Sir William Brereton’s advance into Wales: “In Wrexham they broke in pieces the best pair of organs in the King’s dominions, the lead pipes of which were converted into bullets.” Phillips seems to feel that they should be congratulated for their restraint in not pillaging homes “purloining nothing save from churches and damaging nothing save what to them appeared superstitious and idolatrous.” (p.181). It was actually the Bishop of St Asaph who, in 1662, ordered the removal of the rood-loft from the church. Rood lofts were particularly targeted because they segregated the public from religious activities, instead of allowing them uninterrupted access to the clergy and their lessons. The sense of mystery and ritual was being placed by unambiguous preaching and sermons.

It is thought that after the destruction of the rood screen, the chancel was segregated from the nave and used for secular, possibly administrative activities, whilst the nave was used by the vicar and congregations. A surprising survivor of the Puritan visits is the 1524 brass lectern with an eagle on a sphere supported on an ornate stand, with four lion’s feet at its base, which went on to support an original 1601 copy of the King James Bible. Presbyterian preachers were appointed to St Giles as vicars.

The 18th Century

In the early 18th century, Wrexham had not moved particularly far, in terms of its economic structures, from the medieval period, still based on agriculture, leather tanning and a nail-making industry, with some coal and lead mining. However the area benefitted from the expansion of the Industrial Revolution, and in the late 1700s John “Iron Mad” Wilkinson opened the Bersham iron foundry in 1762 and the Brymbo smelting plant in 1793. Even so, by 1801, Wrexham’s population was still only some 2,575 inhabitants, less than half the size of the population in 1841, suggesting that a slow start in the direction of industrialization soon gained traction.

The low screen into the chancel by Robert Davies of Croesfoel

The church benefited from the generosity of Elihu Yale of Plas Grono, best known for his investments in Yale University in Connecticut, today one of the most prestigious American universities, founded in 1701. His contributions to St Giles were a gallery at the eastern end of the nave in 1707, moved to the west end in 1718, but removed in 1779. Also in 1707 he is thought to have paid for the installation of the low wrought iron screen that marks the entrance to the chancel, by Robert Davies of Croesfoel. A Royal Arms of Queen Anne was added at his expense to the north porch in 1718. Finally, Yale paid for a new organ to be added in 1779, to replace the one destroyed in 1643. The chest tomb of Elihu Yale is still located at the west end of the church.

A magnificent addition to the church was the wrought iron gateway and flanking railings by Robert Davies (about which more below), who is also thought to have made the screen to the chancel. They were installed in 1720 and attached to buildings on either side of Church Street, moved to their present position a century later in 1820.

In 1747 the most impressive of the church’s memorials was added. Sculpted by Louis Francois Roubiliac, it commemorated the life of Mary Myddelton (on which more later). In 1793 the pressure on the churchyard, where all Anglican burials were interred, was relieved when a new dedicated cemetery was laid out on Ruthin Road.

The 19th and 20th-21st Centuries – restoration and adaptation

The rather chunky sundial was added to the churchyard in 1809

The 18th and 19th centuries marked considerable growth in Wrexham. By 1841 the population had reached 5,854 and by 1881 it was 10,903. This was a good period for the church, with the presence of large congregations ensuring its continued relevance and ongoing maintenance. The presence in Wrexham of new wealth founded on industry, now including brewing, translated into investment in the town’s infrastructure and architecture, as well as the church’s structure and features. Fortunately in the case of the church, much of the work carried out was sympathetic to the medieval building. In 1809, the Grade 2 listed octagonal sundial was added to the churchyard, a gift from Edward Ravenscroft. In 1822 new box pews were added so that the wealthy could purchase their own private places for attending services. In the same year a new south porch was added. Sadly for the medieval and later remnants of historic Wrexham, the railway ploughed through much of the town south of the church, taking most of the churchyard with it, opening in 1895.

19th century statue of Moses with the tablets listing the 10 Commandments standing on a corbel that has a portcullis emblem, one of the armorial symbols of the Stanley family in the Tudor period

A major programme of church restoration was carried out, lead by Benjamin Ferrey in 1866-7, during which a wall painting of the crucifix was found in the north porch. The family box pews installed in 1822 were removed in 1867 to make way for open pews and the giant statues on the arcades of St Augustine, St Paul and Moses were added in the same year, as was the stone pulpit gifted to the church by Willow Brewery proprietor Peter Walker, twice mayor of Wrexham). The c. 1747 Roubiliac memorial to Mary Myddelton (more below) was moved to the north aisle in the same year, where it remains. The 14th century corbels were fitted with new sculptural elements at the same time, although the mermaid holding a mirror in the south aisle and the man with toothache in the north aisle are almost certainly original. The present organ, with its pipes colourfully decorated, was installed in 1894. A ceiling boss showing St Giles was added to the north porch some time later, in 1901. The Robert Davies gates were renovated at around the same time. The south aisle stained glass was installed sometime in the 19th century, five of them by well known stained glass designer Charles Eamer Kempe. Most of the south aisle is now screened off at least some of the time for community activities, so it may not always be possible to see the windows.

The 1914 reredos by Thomas Graham Jackson

The 1914 reredos by Sir Thomas Graham Jackson

The 1914 refurbishment of the chapel included the installation of the enormous alabaster reredos by Sir Thomas Graham Jackson showing four scenes from the life of Christ, and the three stained glass windows in the apse designed by Jackson and made by James Powell and Son. The central window depicts the Jesse Tree (substantially hidden by the reredos) and on the left St Giles and the doe is also represented.

St Giles an the doe by Sir Thomas Graham Jackson

St Giles and the doe by Sir Thomas Graham Jackson, in the chancel, facing northeast

The charmingly decorated organ, built in 1894, was restored in 1984. The next major work at the church was the re-ordering of the church in 2012, which created new facilities for administration, the congregation and visitors, including kitchen, toilets and a meeting room, the conversion of most of the south aisle into a screened-off community space and the re-positioning of the altar, pews and the removal of choir stalls so that the available space could be used more efficiently.
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The uplifting Angel Festival at St Giles. Source: The Church in Wales

The church is still going strong today, with services, baptisms, weddings and funerals, as well as ongoing community activities, such as community lunches and regular events such as heritage talks, art exhibitions, music concerts and Christmas and other seasonal celebrations. Following the Coronavirus pandemic of 2019 and the losses experienced during the lockdowns, the church organized a remarkable commemorative event, with the making of over 6000 fabric and paper angels, each representing a death directly caused by Covid, all strung across the church. The photographs from that time show that it was a remarkable sight, a touching commemoration of a terrible period that both involved the community and helped to support it. As 2026 is the official celebration of the 1876 Year of Wonder, the church is celebrating with a special 1876 Liturgy Service on St. David’s Day on 1st March, together with a celebratory bell-ringing performance using the innovative Ellacombe mechanism that was installed in the bell tower in 1876.

Highlights of a visit to the church

The church of St Giles approached from Church Street, with the white medieval buildings, nos 7-9 Church Street on the right.

The leaflet and guide book, both available in the church, will give you their recommended features. I’ve taken just a handful that struck me particularly for these highlights.

The main approach to the church is via Church Street. This is recommended, as not only can you see the medieval buildings, numbers 7-9, on your right as you approach the church, but you enter the churchyard via the magnificently ornate gate and flanking railings painted in black and gold. These were made by Robert Davies of Croesfoel forge near the local source of iron at Bersham, and were fitted to buildings on opposite sides of Church Street in 1720, only being moved to their present position in 1820. The Davies brothers are probably best known for the stunning gates at Chirk Castle. On the way in to the churchyard of St Giles the legend over the gateway reads O GO YOUR WAY INTO THESE GATES WITH THANKSGIVING AND INTO HIS COURTS WITH PRAISE,” and on the way out, the optimistic “GO IN PEACE AND SIN NO MORE.”

On the exterior of the church, there is a plethora of masonry features to admire – almost too many to get to grips with. The 16th century north porch, through which you enter the church, is two-storey and features the Virgin Mary over the entrance. Today’s 41m tall tower replaced the original tower that collapsed during a storm in 1330, and was built in the early 16th century. It is impressively elaborate with statues in niches standing on sculptural corbels and topped with ornamented canopies, its top ornamented with plenty of pinnacles and crockets. The aisles of the main building, feature huge windows with flattened arches along each side, topped with battlements and an army of gargoyles. The exception, pointed out to me by one of the church volunteers (sorry – I forgot to as your name!) is a lancet-shaped arched window at the west end of the south aisle, which looks like the earlier Decorated arches that make up the interior arcades. It is the only one of its type along the aisles, sitting to the east of the chancel, and is not visible from the interior where it is blocked by the organ.

The anomalous window at the east end of the south aisle

Continuing to walk to the east, the three apse windows each feature elegant ogee frames around the arched windows. There is not much of the churchyard left, but some fine chest tombs are a reminder that this was once the burial place for all Anglican burials in Wrexham before the 1793 cemetery open on Ruthin Road.

Chest tombs in what remains of the churchyard of the parish church of St Giles

St Giles and the doe in the north porch, 1901

The two-storey north porch, through which you enter the church itself, was added in the early 1500s, and on the exterior has a niche with a sculpture of Mary and child. On entering, you will see a vaulted roof with a number of ceiling bosses, the central of which, dating to 1901 is St Giles. Straight ahead, but very difficult to make out, there was a painting on the wall, thought to have been of a crucifix, but sadly only a few black lines remain and the original subject matter is impossible to make out.

The North Porch

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The entire north aisle (left as you enter the church), entered via a wooden screen at its west end, is designated as a chapel lined with marvellously colourful flags (regimental colours) belonging to the RWF.

The north aisle

Royal Welch Fusiliers window by Joseph Nuttgens

A window in the north aisle, dating to 1989, is a lively celebration of the Royal Welch Fusiliers by Joseph Nuttgens, showing different uniforms that have been used by the regiment between 1689 to 1989.

The end of the aisle, as you approach the chancel end, note the effigy of Cynerig ap Hywel, mentioned above. The end of the aisle is now the Wrexham War Memorial Chapel, but was originally a chapel dedicated to St Catherine, whose image appears on the east side of the tower. The alabaster reredos shows the twelve apostles, with the 19th century window above showing the Sermon on the Mount. Note the 19th century ceiling decorated with colourful bosses. Although it was built during the 1847 restoration to resemble the roof in the main nave, the ceiling bosses all represent local organizations, some of which are still operating today.

Inside, as you begin to walk down the north aisle note the 1910 Edward Burne-Jones stained glass on the left, which was moved from St John the Baptist Church in Hightown in 1988, prior to its demolition, originally presented to St John’s by the owner of the Island Green Brewery in memory of his parents. With its Pre-Raphaelite palette of bright, rich colours and the almost androgynous holy faces, it is a particularly fine piece, showing eight saints from both Old and New Testaments. all on the background of green foliage (John, Peter, Elizabeth, Paul, Isiah, Daniel, David and Elijah). The lights at the very top are filled with angels with crimson halos and blue wings. The inscription at the base, with Art Nouveau foliage wending its way along the bottom, records the date of the window being moved, and the reason for its original installation. It is easy to walk past stained glass windows without distinguishing between them, particularly in a church where there is so much of it, but there are some fine examples in the church of St Giles that are worth noting. See a complete set of the St Giles stained glass on the Stained Glass in Wales website.

The Louis François Roubiliac memorial to Mary Myddleton c.1747

The Louis François Roubiliac memorial to Mary Myddelton c.1747

The north aisle also boasts a memorial sculpture by Louis François Roubiliac to Mary Myddleton (1688-1747) of the 17th century Croesnewydd Hall (still standing next to the Wrexham Maelor hospital). Mary Myddelton was the daughter of Sir Richard Myddelton of Chirk Castle. I normally don’t pay attention to memorials, as they are very rarely designed to blend in with the architecture and are often dreadful carbuncles on the face of beautiful buildings (Westminster Abbey is a prime example), but this one does require recognition, although to modern tastes it is extravagantly ornate and somewhat melodramatic. It is a rather good contrast to the Doom painting over the chancel arch, showing a completely different style of interpretation of the same foretold event. Roubiliac (1702-1762) was a highly regarded sculptor in his French homeland, coming second for sculpture in the Académie Royale’s Prix de Rome. He moved to London in 1730, where he became very fashionable. The subject shows the Day of Judgement. An angel in a cloud blows his trumpet to summon the dead, and Mary Myddelton, discarding her shroud, climbs from her black stone tomb, which bears an indistinct inscription. Behind her is a palm frond, signifying the Christian promise of everlasting life triumphing over death. The toppling pillar or obelisk in the background represents diveine judgement and the final end of the material world.

It has been suggested that this corbel represents Thomas Stanley, but quite why Stanley should have the ears of a donkey remains unexplained

Unlike most of the church, which reflects the late medieval fashion for the rather severe and highly linear Perpendicular style of gothic architectural design with flattened arches, the parallel arcades that separate the nave from the aisles were built in the earlier Decorative style, with elegant lancet-shaped arches supported on strong octagonal piers (columns). The livelier and more expressive Decorative style is also found in some of the corbel sculptures found throughout the church (bearing in mind that some of them are 19th century, built in the same style). Original medieval examples include a man with toothache (north aisle) and a mermaid holding a mirror (north arcade, facing into the nave, photo further up this post), a man with donkey ears (behind the pulpit) and a lady, possibly Margaret de Beaufort (on the east side of the chancel arch, at the very top). The 19th century imitations have taken gothic examples as their models and are an imaginative collection that offer an insight into how the late medieval church originally looked. In the 18th century the arcades were fitted with galleries, which somewhat minimized the elegant impact of the arcades, but were a curiosity in their own right. They were removed in the early 19th century.

The 16th century camber beam roof features ornamental bosses and 16 splendid musician angels, each holding a musical instrument or singing. In his guide to the church, Williams lists the instruments as follows: 10 playing citherns (similar to lutes), 1 with bagpipes, 1 with a double pipe (shown near the top of this post), 2 playing harps, and 2 playing an unknown instrument. Follow the line of the roof towards the early 16th century chancel, and look at the chancel arch. The arch was part of the wall at the far end of the church prior to the building of the chancel, it and once housed a vast stained glass window. Look at the inner line of the arch (photo below) and you will see the remains of the tracery that once held the stained glass.

Above the chancel arch is one of the most remarkable features of Welsh church art – the fabulous Doom painting showing the Day of Judgement. It is the most complete example known in Wales, thought to be contemporary with the chancel itself. The central section is much better preserved than those flanking it, suggesting that the central portion may have been covered over at some stage for some time. The clerestory windows were enlarged to cast light onto it and make it more visible to the congregation, to whom the warning of an impending Judgement Day was directed. The central scene is missing its upper register, eliminating Christ’s head and shoulders, but the rest of the scene shows him presiding over figures emerging from coffins, the whole composition highlighted against a background of black merging into dark green. Christ himself is seated on a rainbow, signifying the promise of redemption, and wears a red robe decorated with floral motifs. Wounds on his hands and feet and in his side are visible. To his right (the onlooker’s left) is the Virgin Mary in a cloak of ermine with her breasts exposed to indicate her role as mother. On the opposite side is St John the Baptist in an animal skin, with the head still attached. Either side of Christ are saints in robes of yellow or red, and beyond them angels with the symbols of the Passion – nails, pincers and lances. Below this hierarchy of the divine are small naked figures rising from their graves, some in shrouds. A mitred bishop and a crowned monarch make it abundantly clear that no-one is spared Judgement. Hell is at the lower right, further down the side of the arch, with rows of barely visible figures and red flames licking upwards.

Faint remains of the painting at far right

The Doom painting is flanked by two wooden painted angels, with another immediately above. Just before them is a small, bright red feature that looks like a conventional ceiling boss on the roof. If you have binoculars or a long lens you will find yourself looking the devil in the face.

Within the chancel itself, with its triple-sided apse, is a very fine triple sedilia, for the clergy officiating over services, consisting of three recesses canopied arches set into the northeast wall of the chancel, where the clergy sat during services. Above the canopies are highly ornamented panels between the pinnacles. A piscina was sometimes positioned next to the sedilia, but in St Giles this remained in the nave and is now concealed behind the organ.
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The Sedilia

Detail of the carvings above one of the sedilia canopies

Don’t forget to look at the baptismal font in the ante-nave on your way back towards the tower. It is octagonal, with a different motif on every face, and is very fine. Its date is uncertain, but it was known to have been one of the fittings of the church in the 16th century. It was lost during the Civil War, but was rediscovered in the early 19th century in Little Acton House (since demolished), returning to the church in 1843.

Walking around in the churchyard, keep an eye out underfoot because, as with many churchyards in the area, some of the gravestones have been put into practical use as paving stones.

Final Comments

Wooden, painted angel holding a shield, and stone Green Man with foliage growing out of his mouth.

I have no idea why it took me so long to visit the Parish Church of St Giles in Wrexham, but I am very glad that I have not merely visited, but thoroughly familiarized myself with it over a number of visits, and enjoyed it. As well as architectural magnificence, the church has real heart, and there is an unusual feeling of continuity between past and present. Sadly, the 17th century fire, the 19th century railway and the painful decisions of the authorities during the 1960s have destroyed much of the older town’s heritage, as happened in many towns in England and Wales. However, there remain some fine buildings dating to the 18th and 19th centuries, when the church was well used, providing good hints of what the town must have looked like. Although the medieval town has almost vanished from modern view, the church itself speaks loudly about the importance of Wrexham to northeast Wales from the 13th century onwards. It continues to feel like a living part of the community. A very fine building, and a very fine legacy.

2026 is Wrexham’s commemoration of the 1876 Year of Wonder, with events to showcase Wrexham’s Arts, Culture, Industry and Commerce. As well as marking the four-month long great Art Treasures Exhibition of 1876 and the first National Eisteddfod to be held in Wrexham, the Parish Church of St. Giles is currently celebrating the 300th birthday of their bells, so January 2026 is a good time to talk about the church, and to visit its architectural finery and get a sense of its importance to centuries of community life.
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Visiting Details

The Parish Church of St Giles is very welcoming to visitors. It is heated, very well lit, with friendly volunteers on hand to answer questions, and is open every day to visitors except Sundays when it is confined to those attending services,or during weddings and similar events. There is a small shop selling the guide book (including a 41-point self-guided tour on the back – Williams 2018), postcards and souvenirs. There are digital payment posts for taking card donations, which help to keep the church open and well maintained. Outside, there is a path that enables you to do a full circuit of the church, which is well worth doing so that you can see some of the carvings, big and small, that line the upper levels of the walls and the roof pinnacles.

Binoculars are very strongly recommended. There are some superb features to see in the interior including the roof itself, the Doom painting and features just above the arcade level which are very high up and cannot be seen clearly without binoculars or a telephoto lens. Likewise, there are some splendid features on the exterior of the building, and in particular tower, which are not visible without optical assistance.

Small grotesques on the south side of the church. I love the way the drainpipe has been carefully diverted around both the grotesque and the window.

The nearest car parking is behind the church in the St Giles Car Park off Tuttle Street (pay and display) – see fees etc here), for three hours maximum, with a capacity of 69 cars. You can walk out of the car-park straight up a flight of stairs into the churchyard. The car park does fill up quickly, and parking to the north of the church is better for anyone with unwilling legs, to avoid stairs. There is plenty of other parking throughout Wrexham. I often park at the multi-storey car park at Tŷ Pawb on Market Street (What3Words address ///track.lazy.poppy), which is long-term but inexpensive (at least at the time of writing in January 2026) and has elevators (What3Words ///waddled.famed.filer). On entry into the car park the system records your registration number and you need this to pay on return to the car park, so do make sure that you know what it is! The pay point (which is thankfully indoors) is outside the pedestrian entrance to the car park and you have to enter your registration before you pay. I have always found that there is always plenty of room there if other car parks are full.

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Sources:

Leaflets available at the church

The Parish Church of St Giles, Wrexham n.d. A Brief Guide to the Church. Leaflet with site plan.
(Also available online at https://stgilesparishchurchwrexham.org.uk/index.php/history)

The Parish Church of St Giles, Wrexham n.d. Stained Glass Window Guide. By Dr Malcolm Seaborne 1998

Books, booklets and papers

The foot of the tower, October 2025

Ebsworth, David 2023. Wrexham Revealed: A Walking Tour with Tales of the City’s History. Carreg Gwalch

Evans, D.H. 2008. Valle Crucis Abbey. Cadw

Farmer, David 2011 (5th edition). The Oxford Dictionary of Saints. Oxford University Press

Hubbard, Edward 1986. The Buildings of Wales. Clwyd (Denbighshire and Flintshire). Penguin Books / University of Wales, p.297-302

Palmer, Alfred, N. 1893. A History of the Town of Wrexham. Woodall, Minshall, and Thomas.
https://archive.org/details/historyoftownofw0000palm

Phillips, John Rowland 1874. Memoirs of the Civil War in Wales and the Marches, 1642-1649, vol 1. Longman, Green and Co.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=U28LAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

Pratt, D., 1997. The Dissolution of Valle Crucis Abbey. Bridge Books

Price, G. Vernon 1952. Valle Crucis Abbey. The Brython Press

Suggett, Richard with Anthony J. Parkinson and Jane Rutherfoord 2021. Painted Temples. Wallpaintings and Rood-screens in Welsh Churches, 1200-1800. RCHAMW. (Dual language, English and Welsh)

de Voraigne, Jacobus 1993 (with an introduction by Eamon Duffy 2012) . The Golden Legend. Readings on the Saints. Translated by William Granger Ryan. Princeton University Press

Williams, D.H., 1984. The Welsh Cistercians. Cyhoeddiadau Sistersiaidd

Williams, W. Alister 2001, revised 2010. The Encyclopaedia of Wrexham. Bridge Books

Williams, W. Alister 2018. The Parish Church of St Giles, Wrexham. Published by the Parish Church of St Giles, Wrexham. The best place to find all the most useful information in one place, with an excellent 41-feature annotated map on the back for those wishing to do a self-guided walk. Available to purchase in the shop at the church
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Websites

Cadw
DE158 – Wrexham Churchyard Ornamental Wrought Iron Gates and Screen
https://cadwpublic-api.azurewebsites.net/reports/sam/FullReport?lang=en&id=309

The Church in Wales
Angel festival for Covid victims attracts thousands. 13th January 2022
https://www.churchinwales.org.uk/en/news-and-events/angel-festival-for-covid-victims-attracts-thousands/

Civic Heritage
Wrexham Gateway, Wrexham. Archaeological Desk-based Assessment. July 2025
https://spawforths.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Archaeological-Assessment-Compressed.pdf

Clwyd Powys Archaeological Trust / Heneb
Wrexham Churches Survey: Church of St Giles , Wrexham
https://heneb.org.uk/archive/cpat/Archive/churches/wrexham/106012.htm

Heneb
Clwyd Powys Archaeological Trust – Historic Settlement Survey – Wrexham County Borough
https://heneb.org.uk/archive/cpat/ycom/wrexham/wrexham.pdf
Wrexham Churches Survey – Church of St Giles, Wrexham
https://heneb.org.uk/archive/cpat/Archive/churches/wrexham/106012.htm

Historic England
Sundial, Approximately 2 Metres West of Tower of Church of St Giles
https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1116496

historypoints.org
St Giles’ Church, Wrexham – audio file recording the bells
https://historypoints.org/index.php?page=st-giles-church-wrexham

Howard Williams Blog – ArchaeoDeath
Where can you visit Wat’s Dyke in Wrexham?
https://howardwilliamsblog.wordpress.com/2019/01/03/where-can-you-visit-wats-dyke-in-wrexham/

National Archives Currency Converter
https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/currency-converter/

Public Statue and Sculpture Association
Louis-François Roubiliac (1702–1762)
https://pssauk.org/public-sculpture-of-britain/biography/roubiliac-louis-francois/

Stained Glass in Wales (University of Wales)
Church of St Giles, Wrexham / Wrecsam
https://catalogue.stainedglass.wales/site/103

Welsh Government
Wrexham Town Centre Conservation Area Character Assessment and Management Plan. 2009
https://www.wrexham.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2023-04/wrexham-town-centre-cons-area-assessment.pdf
Press release: Historic Church of St Giles nears end of essential conservation works. 8th August 2025
https://www.gov.wales/historic-church-st-giles-nears-end-essential-conservation-works

Wrexham’s Year of Wonder 1876 – 2026
https://wrecsam1876.co.uk/

Wrexham.com
Views of 1970s Wrexham From Top of St Giles Tower (most usefully including photos of the Wrexham-Ellesmere railway line that ran just under St Giles until sometime after the railway closed in the early 1980s)
https://wrexham.com/news/view-of-1970s-wrexham-from-top-of-st-giles-tower-100315.html

Wrexham Heritage Trail
Home Page
https://reesjeweller.co.uk/heritage/index.html
Map
https://reesjeweller.co.uk/heritage/mapsmall.html
Town Hill
https://reesjeweller.co.uk/heritage/town_hill.html
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One of the carved crosses in the north aisle

Reredos in the north aisle chapel showing the 12 apostles

An enjoyable visit to the Williamson Art Gallery and Museum, Birkenhead

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The Williamson Art Gallery in Birkenhead. Source: Wikimedia Commons

A traditional art gallery and museum in Birkenhead seems unexpected, but when the Williamson Art Gallery and Museum opened in 1928, Birkenhead had not yet fallen into the decline that eventually followed the 19th century economic industrial expansion created by the ship building industry. The gallery was funded by philanthropists John Williamson and his son Patrick Williamson. John Williamson was a shop owner and merchant who became a director of Cunard when it formed as a public company, serving until 1902. He was also on the board of Standard Marine Insurance and served on the Merseyside Docks and Harbours Board. His son does not appear to have had a career but co-operated with his father on philanthropic activities. The museum’s design is a simple brick-built square, with a prominent facade that references Classical features. The steps dominate in the above photo, but there is a ramp at the side for easy access. The gallery is all on one floor, so this too provides ease of access.

Nicholas Eames, The Dancer (1983) with two textile works by Anna Sutton behind it

I visited with my friend Julian in December 2025. We drove guided by the SatNav, which was needed as the Williamson is surrounded by something of a residential rabbit warren (with some very attractive Victorian terracing if you keep an eye open). There is a free car park on Mather Road that had plenty of spaces. Full visiting details, both for drivers and those using public transport, are at https://williamsonartgallery.org/visit/. Apologies for the quality of the photos inside the gallery, taken on my smartphone. As always in galleries there is reflection from protective glass in many of the photos, but hopefully they will give a good idea of the exhibits.

The gallery is all on a single storey, arranged in a square of linked galleries around what is now the café (with artworks on the walls) and a sculpture garden. A pre-visit inspection of the site plan indicated that around half of it is used for permanent collections, whilst the rest is home to temporary exhibitions. The twin focal points are, in the main, 19th and early 20th century and modern, including furnishings, ceramics, paintings, textiles, sculptures and, on this occasion, a modern video installation. The inclusion of temporary exhibitions is probably very attractive to local people who have reason to visit on repeat occasions.

The first of the galleries that we visited was a temporary exhibition showing the results of the 31st exhibition of the annual Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize (2025). The exhibition “celebrates the role and value of drawing with creative practice and provides a forum to test, evaluate and share current drawing practice.” There is a wide variety of styles and subjects along a continuum from representational to abstract. The skill on display was impressive, and some of the pieces were visually stunning. The mainly monochrome entries drew attention to different combinations of line and texture, with the analytical, humorous and occasionally alarming all demonstrating the versatility of the medium.

For me, the highlight of the permanent collection was the Maritime room, which is filled with models of ships built locally, as well as the actual fittings from some of the ships depicted by the models. A model of the Birkenhead Docks is really evocative of the size and scale of the operation (shown at the end of the post). The models of Mersey ferries are truly splendid, including a deliciously curvaceous Art Deco-flavoured example. It was a genuine delight to see a model of the S.S. Mauretania, as well as objects that furnished her, because my grandad was quartermaster and helmsman on the ship. It turns out that my friend Julian’s grandfather was a marine engineer, so there was a particular sense of connection for both of us with these beautifully crafted insights into Birkenhead and Mersey shipping. The whole room is redolent of local maritime history. Given that the Liverpool Maritime Museum is disappointingly closed indefinitely whilst funding is being sought, this gallery in the Williamson offers the best available local insight into Mersey shipbuilding and shipping.

Models of some of the Mersey ferries

The ship’s bell from the Mauretania

Side lever paddle steam engine, representing an engine of about 1840

Birkenhead Corporation Ferries poster

The C.S.S. Alabama, built Camell Laird’s shipyard, in theoretical violation of official Government neutrality in the American Civil War, is represented at the Williamson by both an oil painting and a model (the latter shown at the very end of this post).

Oil painting of the CSS Alabama by Samuel Walters (1811-1882), painted after 1862

Piece of furniture, a sideboard, from Arrowe park. None of the Arrowe Park furniture can be ascribed to a particular carver or workshop. Diana is at centre, possibly an earlier French panel. The cupid-like boys flanking her represent food and drink.

Entirely in step with this growth of maritime industry and the rise of commerce, was Arrowe Hall. The name is now associated with as a hospital, it was originally built in 1935 for John Ralph Nicholson Shaw, who inherited Arrowe Park from his uncle John Shaw, Liverpool Mayor and slave trader. A small gallery is devoted to reconstructing one of the Arrowe Hall rooms, with some truly astonishing, beautifully crafted, enormous and aesthetically rather appalling pieces of furniture and ornamentation, a mish-mash of medieval, Tudor and Jacobean styles executed with enthusiastic Victorian panache. The information board says that most of the pieces of furniture date to the 1880s, but were carved with earlier dates: “This deceit, and staining the oak very dark, was meant to give the owner a heritage and respectability that they didn’t really have.” The detail in the fireplace overmantel below shows considerable skill imitating earlier Renaissance style friezes. At the time of writing, the house is now a home for adults with learning difficulties.

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Pieces from the Della Robbia Pottery, Birkenhead

Similarly, the Della Robbia Pottery room is bound to split aesthetic opinion. Della Robbia Pottery, taking the name from Luca Della Robbia (1400-1481), and on whose style it is loosely based, was a remarkably successful Birkenhead enterprise for a short period of time between 1894 and 1906. It was established by Harold Rathbone (1858-1929), who worked with professional designers but also hired young people locally who he trained up. It is lavish, ornate, brightly coloured, glossy, often with multiple textures and sculptural components. Rathbone strained at the Slade School of Art and became a pupil of Ford Madox Brown, and the influence of the Pre-Raphaelites is clear in many of his pieces. Many of the themes of pieces produced by the pottery feature angels, cupids and mythological figures, as well as elaborate and complex patterns.

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Another small room focuses on ceramics that were either made and used in Merseyside or were imports, brought back to the Mersey docks from the far east to meet the demand of local consumers. Chinese ceramicists cottoned on very quickly to the types of decorative themes that were popular in the west, and produced specific types of design, including specific types of shape, for the European market. The mix is diverse, but there are one or two pieces that directly reference the maritime. The influence of Chinese ceramics is very clear, made either locally or imported, in some of the examples, but there are more localized themes as well. There were seven different sites in Liverpool that were making porcelain, all operating between the mid and late 1700s. Unfortunately, none of the factories used manufacturing marks so it is difficult to determine which factory produced which pieces.

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Maria Prymachenko – Autumn is Riding on Horeseback

Paintings by Ukrainian children, produced since the start of the war, from the Sunflower Dreams Project were on display during our visit, alongside paintings by Maria Prymachenko. The exhibitions produced by Sunflower Dreams are displayed in Britain, North America and Europe. Although the Sunflower Dreams Project exhibition at the Williamson ended in December 2025, at the time of writing you can still find full details about the project, with samples of the paintings produced by this admirable initiative on https://sunflowerdreamsproject.org/. Maria Prymachenko (1909-1977) specialized in Ukrainian folklore and was awarded a gold medal at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1937 for her wonderful, brightly imagined paintings. She was largely forgotten after the Second World War, but there was a resurgence of interest in her work in the 1960s and she is now featured in a number of international museums.

Philip Wilson Steer. A Girl at her Toilet, 1892-3

The painting collection on display during our visit strongly featured the landscape and seascape artist Philip Wilson Steer (1860-1942), who was born in Birkenhead, although grew up elsewhere. He had spent time in Paris and was strongly influenced by the Impressionists and other contemporary artists. In his A Girl at Her Toilet of 1992-3, the theme of women engaging in personal behind-the-doors activities, so popular with Impressionist painters, is given a more dramatic overlay of contrasting colours, clearly inspired by Éduard Manet. the label says that the “intimate or even voyeuristic” tone of his painting was “ridiculed by English critics partly for the perceived indecency of his choices of subject matter.” By complete contrast, his Seascape off Walmer of 1930 was painted as he began to lose his eyesight, retaining only peripheral vision by 1935 when he moved almost completely over to watercolour. The entire composition is made up of thin washes of pale blue that create a delicate, almost abstract seascape with a single small boat in the distance, creating the only sense of depth.

Seascale off Walmer, 1930 by Philip Wilson Steer, 1860-1942

There were a set of paintings by Albert Richards (1919-1945), who has the sad distinction of being the youngest official War Artist to be killed in action in the Second World War, just two months before VE Day when the jeep in which he was travelling ran over a landmine. He was born in Liverpool but moved to Wallasey when young, training at the Wallasey School of Art.

Albert Richards – Della, c.1938. Painted when the artist was attending Wallasey School of Art. Gouache on paper.

Many of the other paintings on display by other artists from the period, both watercolours and oils, are obviously influenced by more accomplished Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works, but are interesting as examples of how local artists were influenced by the latest trends.

Temporary installation – Di Mainstone’s “Subterranean Elevator,” which shows continually throughout the day. On until the end of January.

Because at least half of the Williamson is dedicated to temporary collections, a lot of the paintings are in storage. None of the better known examples from the permanent collection were on display when we visited, including the glorious watercolour of Brunel’s S.S. Great Eastern beached on the Mersey for repair work by William Gawin Herdman in 1863 and the Joseph Mallord William Turner’s dramatic watercolour Vesuvius Angry, both of which I was really hoping to see. I checked with the information desk after our visit, but the consensus was that they were both in storage. The comprehensive and very nicely presented online catalogue shows what the Williamson holds, but it does not indicate what is or is not on display.
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Charles Eyes 1767 Liverpool and Birkenhead

Liverpool and Birkenhead, attributed to Charles Eyes 1767, showing Birkenhead Manor and Priory. This photo is taken from the Williamson’s online catalogue at https://williamsonartgallery.org/item/1580053/

The café, with more paintings on the walls was producing some very good-looking meals and bakes, and the coffee was excellent. One of the paintings was a very evocative one of pre-industrial Birkenhead showing the manor and the ruined priory, the sister paining of one in Liverpool’s Walker Art Gallery. I couldn’t get to it without trampling some diners underfoot, so the picture to the right is taken from the online catalogue. There is also a small shop area with books against one wall, and a few postcards. The sculpture garden, which can be reached from the café, looks interesting, but it was pouring with rain, so we abstained.

The Williamson represents Birkenhead and the Mersey, both past and present. The policy of the gallery is to mix its core collection of 19th and early 20th century art and decorative arts, with temporary exhibitions, often featuring contemporary works, and it is well worth keeping an eye on what their temporary exhibitions offer, either by checking the Williamson website or signing up to the email newsletter.

Frozen Fabric: Spectrum by Anna Sutton 1983

Frozen Fabric: Spectrum 1983 by Anna Sutton OBE (b.1935), British textile artist and designer. In this example she transforms a simple weave into a sculptural object, “merging textile traditions with minimalist abstraction.”

17th century Japanese temple bell, in the Arrowe Hall room. If it ever goes missing, you will know where to look!

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St Winefride’s striking fan-vaulted pilgrim shrine at Holywell, c.1480

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Introduction

15th century fan vaulting in St Winefride's well

15th century fan vaulting in the under chapel at St Winefride’s well. late 15th – early 16th century

On Friday I took advantage of a sunny cold day to revisit St Winefride’s Well and its late Medieval chapels. During the Middle Ages it was a major draw for pilgrims to north Wales, with its shrine, beautiful bubbling spring and the Basingwerk Abbey a few minutes away. St Winefride’s (Welsh Gwenfrewi) shrine and the Holywell (Treffynnon) parish church were granted in 1093 to St Werburgh’s Abbey in Chester for them to manage and from which to derive an income. It was later consigned to Basingwerk Abbey.

Nothing is known about what sort of buildings preceded the late medieval building that we see today, but there are details about Saint Winefride, a list of some of the well’s most notable earlier medieval visitors and details about the measures that were taken to promote the interests of the shrine throughout its history following the Norman Conquest. The role of the abbey in the success of the well can also be seen.

View of the chapel from the south. The chapel is over two floor. The fan-vaulted ground floor has three bays, with the central one containing the well itself. The upper chapel is fully enclosed and its entrance is on the same level as the entrance of the parish church.

An abbey with a pilgrim shrine had a range of opportunities for income generation, and St Winifred’s was famous for its powers of healing and provision of miraculous cures for centuries. In around 1480 a wealthy patron, possibly Henry VII’s mother Lady Margaret Beaufort, invested in the shrine, providing the miraculous spring with a gorgeous, lofty fan-vaulted open-fronted chapel, as well as an enclosed chapel overhead. Today both parts of the chapel are very well cared for, located on the edge of the Green Valley Park, which has a superb industrial heritage trail wending through it (see my earlier post here). There is plenty of parking at both the well and at the abbey, described at the end of this post.

Fan vaulting with roof bosses. From left to right, the rebus of Elizabeth Hopton, two monkeys, a fleur de lys.

Fan vaulting with roof bosses in the lower chapel. From left to right, the rebus of Elizabeth Hopton (showing a rebus of her name, with a hop plant emerging from a barrel or tun); two monkeys, which may have a number of interpretations; and a fleur de lys (representing chastity, often used for the Virgin Mary but also suitable for St Winefride).

There’s a real sense of this being a costly but personal project, particularly in the vaulted lower chapel, which in terms of elaborate ecclesiastical architecture is tiny, although its height gives a sense of heading heavenwards. Although no documentation survives to say who was responsible for funding the building, the Stanley family’s crests and symbols give an impression of a cherished project and the sheer amount of other imagery are reminiscent of cathedrals and large churches of the period. It manages to be both impressive and intimate, which is quite a trick. The chapel upstairs is more conventional in terms of both its size and its layout. What I missed on my first visit is that the wooden ceiling supports all have sculptural elements sitting on their corbels, as well as more easily visible stone ones lower down. In both upper and lower chapels, as well as the inherent beauty of the architecture, there is humour as well as religious, pagan, family and royal themes in the imagery.
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St Winefride’s well, in the star-shaped basin late 15th – early 16th century

St Winefride and St Beuno

There are a number of versions of the story of the miracle of St Winefride or Welsh Gwenfrewi (also spelled Winefred and Winifred), and her uncle and tutor St Beuno. The earliest that remain preserved date to the 12th century, and excerpts have been translated and published by T.W. Pritchard in his detailed 2009 book about the well.

Modern stained glass in the little prayer chapel next to the main chapels

Winefrede and Beuno in the modern stained glass in the little prayer chapel for worshippers today, next to the main chapels. The palm represents the spiritual victory of martyrdom, whilst the crozier (staff) symbolizes teaching, wisdom and guidance.

Winefride was born towards the beginning of the 7th century in the cantref of Tegeingl, in northeast Wales, the only child of Tyfid and his wife Gwenlo, or Wenlo, who were landholders in the area. One of the 12th century accounts says that Tyfid’s estate was made up of four manors.

Winefride had decided to renounce marriage and to dedicate herself to God and the teachings of Christ. Christianity was well established throughout Britain, partly due to missionaries who were often commemorated as saints for their work. One of these was St Beuno, who had moved to the area from mid Wales and was engaged by Tyfid to teach Winefride, in return for land on which to build a church. St Beuo built a church in a valley called Sychnant (dry valley), which is now Greenfield Valley, Holywell, where the well is located.

Sculpted figure, possibly St Beuno

One day, Winefride was at home alone whilst her parents were attending mass at the church, and a local prince, Caradog, knocked on the door. She suggested he return later, but he became determined to marry the girl (who was of course beautiful). Pretending to go and get changed, she ran to the church. Caradog, realizing that he had been deceived, set out in pursuit and when he caught up with her near the door to the church, decapitated her in a fit of rage. Beuno, hearing the noise, rushed out of the church and, finding a terrible scene, began to pray for help. His prayers were answered. Caradog melted into the ground, never to be seen again, and Beuno picked up her head and placed it back on her neck. She came back to life, with only a slender white scar showing where the injury had been. Instantly a spring erupted at the spot where her blood had been spilled. The stones in the spring were said to be permanently red, the moss that grew around it had an aroma of incense and the waters produced miraculous cures. The story continues, but the abbreviated version is that Winefride became a nun, moving from Holywell to Gwytherin to oversee 11 nuns as abbess, where she died and was buried.

Statue of St Winefride within the lower chapel, dating to 1886

Statue of St Winefride within the lower chapel. The niche with its elaborate and intricate canopy is original, but the medieval statue was lost, and this dates to 1886

The basics of the story, a pure and noble virgin who died rather than surrender her virtue, is a familiar one. The spring, too, erupting where pure blood was spilled, is not unique. When St Paul the Apostle was executed by decapitation his head is said to have bounced three times, and at each place where it touched the ground a spring erupted. The linkage of springs, wells and purity are long established, and the added connection with baptism gave water particular potency in Christian thought. Interestingly, Winefride combined the virtues of a martyr saint and a confessor saint, having first died for her beliefs and then having been resurrected to live for those beliefs and values.

Miraculous events and morality tales of this sort became a form of oral history, a mechanism by which the ideology, morality, values and essential beliefs of early Christianity, were spread and understood. The partly fictional “lives” of saints purporting to be biographies (hagiographies) were particularly popular when distributed after the innovation of printing in England in the 1470s. St Winefride’s story, written down and transmitted via word of mouth, the monasteries, and later by the printing press, became a popular saint and her miraculous healing well became a pilgrim destination.

The remains of the shrine to St Winefrede in Shrewsbury Abbey

The remains of the later 14th century shrine to St Winefride, Shrewsbury Abbey showing St John the Baptist at left, St Beuno at right and Winefride in the middle.

In the 1130s an account by one of the monks of Shrewsbury Abbey states that the monks had “lamented that they were very deficient in relics of saints and applied their minds to the problem of obtaining some.” One of the monks, during a spate of sickness, had a dream that St Winefride had appeared to him and said that the monk would be cured if a mission were to be sent to Holywell to say mass at her well. Convinced that Winefride was their patron, they decided to retrieve her bones and take them to Shrewsbury. In 1138, over 300 years after St Winefride’s death, a contingent of monks duly went to Gwytherin. They dug up and translated (transferred) Winefride’s remains from her grave and took them back to Shrewsbury, where a shrine had been built to receive her. Legend states that during the journey a spring appeared at Woolston near Oswestry, where her bier was briefly placed on the ground during the journey (a photo of this is shown further below). A new shrine was built to house her relics at Shrewsbury Abbey in the late 14th century, a fragment of which survives and is shown above. It was destroyed during one of the attacks on the monastery.
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The Shrewsbury Abbey church (the rest of the abbey was demolished, now replaced by a road and a car park)

The Spring that feeds St Winefride’s Well

St Winefride’s well is built over the point at which an ancient spring, an underground stream, erupted to the surface, producing a quite dramatic spectacle of fiercely rushing water, particularly after rainfall. That was not the same spring that is seen today.

St Winefride’s well

In 1917 mining activities at Halkyn cut through the stream, causing a change in flow direction so that the stream now emerges at Bagillt on the edge of the Dee estuary, causing both dramatic change to the industries along the valley and to the well itself, which dried up. The current spring water that enters the star-shaped basin beneath the vaulted roof now bubbles delightfully, but this comes from another spring that was diverted for the purpose, and has none of the vigour or volume of the original spring.
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The History of the Well

Hugh Lupus and the Abbey of St Werburgh

Romanesque elements surviving from the first Abbey of St Werburgh

Today Chester Cathedral is a largely Gothic vision, with pointed arches and vaulting with roof bosses, but when it was built as St Werburgh’s Benedictine Abbey in around 1093 it must have been a superb example of the Romanesque curves and rounded arches brought to England by the Normans. The abbey’s founder was Hugh d’Avranches (better known as Hugh Lupus, c.1047-1101), Earl of Chester, who had been appointed to Chester by William the Conqueror.

Holywell, including St Winefride’s Well and the parish church, were part of Hugh’s new territory. Earl Hugh gave Holywell to his wife, Adeliza, and she in turn awarded it to the abbots of St Werburgh’s Abbey. A religious attraction like Holywell, with its miracle-producing shrine and its attached church cold produce a good income for an abbey, which took control of the tithes (a sort of religious tax) owed to the church, and to the oblations (gifts from pilgrims and visitors) to the holy shrine.

Transfer of ownership: Basingwerk Abbey and subsequent transfers

The building that may have been part of the guest quarters at Basingwerk Abbey. Its burned timbers were dendro-dated, giving the roof a date of c.1385

Because it was located in a region that was a territorial bone of contention between the Welsh princes and the English kings during the 13th century, Holywell could be in either English or Welsh territory. When Basingwerk Abbey was founded in 1131 by Ranulf II Gernon, Earl of Chester, it must have been a source of some discontent to the new abbot that such a rich potential source of income was sitting on the doorstep and benefiting a rival monastic order in Chester.

Fortune smiled on Basingwerk Abbey. Holywell was granted to it in the 12th century. It was briefly back in the hands of St Werburgh but in 1196 it was once again assigned to the monks at Basingwerk by the Welsh prince of Gwynedd, Llywelyn the Great (ap Iorwerth, c.1173-1240), who had pushed his frontiers east. This gift was confirmed in 1240 by Llywelyn’s grandson Dafydd ap Gruffudd (and younger brother of Llywellyn ap Gruffudd known as Llywelyn the Last), who in a turncoat deal with Edward I had been given lands in northeast Wales following the Treaty of Aberconwy. Basingwerk then retained Holywell and its religious assets for nearly 300 years until Henry VIII suppressed the monasteries in the 1530s. Although they suffered under Edward I’s final conquest of Wales, Baswingwerk and Holywell survived, which is more than either Llywelyn or Dafydd managed to achieve, being killed in 1282 and 1283 respectively.

St Winefride Well at Woolston. Source: Shrewsbury Orthodox Church

It is not known what the Holywell pilgrim shrine looked like throughout the changes of ownership between the two abbeys, as no descriptions or images survive. The shrine and temple would have been built of wood in its earliest years. In one of its doubtless numerous iterations it is quite likely to have looked something like the small pilgrim shrine at Woolston near Oswestry, shown on the left, also dedicated to St Winefride. Wooden buildings were replaced by stone buildings when those buildings began to be well used. The first stone parish church at Holywell is thought to date to around the 14th century, and it is possible that the shrine was revamped at the same time.

Promoting the interests of the Holywell shrine

Statue of St Winefrede in a niche in the Henry VII Chapel, Westminster Abbey

Statue of St Winefride in a niche in Henry VII’s early 16th century Lady Chapel at Westminster Abbey. Source: Pritchard 2009, p.71

The task of ensuring the continuing success of St Winefride and the holy well, important both for monastic income and the economy of the Holywell, was occasionally given an official helping hand.

In 1253, for example, a request was made to the Cistercian General Chapter (the governing body of the Cistercian monastic order) to allow a “Feast of 12 Lessons” to be held annually on the saint’s Feast Day at Buildwas Abbey in Shropshire, and Basingwerk Abbeys, the two of which had become connected in a hierarchical relationship some time after Basingwerk was absorbed into the Cistercian order. The normal feast was of 9 lessons (prayers and readings), and the fact that this was of 12 indicates the respect in which Winefride was held. The request was authorized, meaning that St Winefride’s Feast was more likely to attract pilgrims to both of the abbeys as well as the Holywell shrine.

In 1398 the annual feast of St Winefride, which had been confined to north Wales and the Marches, was extended to the entire Canterbury area by Archbishop Roger Walden. In 1415 his successor Henry Chichele who had a particular interest in Welsh saints having been Bishop of St David’s, a centre for pilgrimage in south Wales, raised the profile of St Winefride’s cult still further.

Richard II established a chantry (payment to a member of the clergy in return for prayers and the saying of mass for the dead of a particular family) in 1377. This was renewed annually by each subsequent king until the Dissolution, after which chantries and the mass were no longer legal.

An example of an Indulgence, this one issued in London. Source and details: Essex Records Office.

An example of an Indulgence, this one dated 1480 and issued in London. Source and details: Essex Records Office.

In 1427 the shrine’s popularity was assured when Pope Martin V granted indulgences over a ten year period for those who made the pilgrimage to the shrine and gave oblations to the chapel. Indulgences were mechanisms for rewarding certain activities, mainly those that generated income for the Church, including pilgrimages, by reducing the time an individual spent in purgatory by a specific number of years and days. In this case the time reduced was a year and forty days. It was a way of trading off human fear of what followed death, but a ruthless way of raising funds, later famously condemned by Christian revisionist Martin Luther in his Ninety Five Theses.

The role of the well in the Middle Ages

North entrance to the under-chapel at St Winefrede’s Well. The barriers detract from the aesthetics but do prevent people falling in.

The well can be understood in a number of ways, all from different viewpoints.

From the point of view of Basingwerk Abbey, which had authority over the well and its shrine, it was both a source of prestige and income. The prestige of having the miracle directly connected with an Anglo-Saxon saint was considerable, giving it a historical validity with real time-depth, with roots in the distant past. Not only was Winefride a miracle-working virgin saint, but she had gone on to become a nun, and then an abbess. Her credit and sanctity were flawless. This status and prestige attracted pilgrims, and with them a source of potentially considerable income. The importance of miraculous places of pilgrimage grew in the medieval period, and pilgrims not only brought donations (alms) but those with money also contributed to the local economy, meaning that the abbey was a contributor to that economy. However, pilgrims could be a double-edged sword, as they also required some management to prevent them becoming a drain on the abbey’s obligation to provide shelter and food under the general heading of “hospitality,” to which the Cistercian order was committed and which included some form of accommodation and the supply of meals.

Rebus of Elizabeth Hopton’s last name (a hop plant emerging from a tun, a type of Barrel

From the point of view of pilgrims, miraculous venues offered a range of opportunities, depending on the motives for visiting. The natural spring was said to have miraculous healing properties, and many will have travelled to be cured, whether rich or poor. Others were engaged in a form of spiritual tourism, visiting all the most important shrines and relics either in a given area, throughout Britain and sometimes overseas. Within the Welsh and border areas, Holywell was part of a pilgrim circuit with Basingwerk (with the Holywell shrine), St Asaph (Llanelwy, the church of the 6th century miracle-performing saint), Chester (with the Holy Rood of St John’s and St Werburgh’s shrine in the Abbey), together with other churches and monuments, and this could also be extended to reach the sacred Bardsey Island.

Archway leading to the steps into the well

The medieval world was very concerned with the challenge of how to manage an afterlife that began with the terrors of Judgement Day and Purgatory. Visiting saints’ shrines, or just being in close proximity to them, was a way of gaining proximity, at a little distance, to the divine, with the hope that some of it might, in some mystical way, rub off. Just by touching a shrine, a little of the incredible divine energy could pass into a person; immersion in the spring that emerged from the spilling of a virgin saint’s blood must have seemed like being wrapped in the saint’s divinity. This did no harm to nearby residents, who must have had a sense of the power of the shrine.

Likewise, monasteries that were filled to the brim with those devoted to Christian worship, whose virtue made them next in godliness to saints, were considered to be invaluable assets to those who lived in their vicinity. The wealthy chose to be buried within monastic precincts, as close as possible to the most sacred areas. In churches people wanted to be at the interior east end of churches or, if they were not sufficiently influential to be buried inside, as close outside to the east end as possible. The presence of the abbey so close to the shrine gave Holywell a particular religious vigour.

As well as religious benefits to outsiders, there were economic benefits to the local population. Basingwerk Abbey had various agricultural (mainly livestock) and industrial (including silver mining) interests in the immediate area that would have employed many rural people, but as the medieval period shook off the manorial control that bound people to the land, the Holywell shrine offered potential for new opportunities, including hospitality and, if other pilgrim centres are anything to go by, the manufacture and sale of souvenirs.

Visitors and patrons in the Middle Ages

Pilgrim being carried to the healing waters of the spring. The 15th-early 16th century well shrine.

In the Middle Ages there was no clear dividing line between physical and spiritual health. The idea of illness was embedded into the belief that the body was composed of a series of complex components that required balancing what were understood to be the essential fluids (blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile) with the elements (air, water, fire and earth) and their key characteristics (hot, cold, wet and dry) as well as astrology. Deficiencies and excesses in any one component might put the entire complex equation for stability and harmony in jeopardy. When attempts to achieve balance these failed, and the person remained sick in body, mind or, for that matter, sin, pilgrimage was often seen as the most logical next step. Pilgrims understood that this was a two-way street and that they would have to make some sort of sacrifice, part of which might be the difficulty of undertaking the journey, but gifts and promises of reform were also part of the negotiation. Pilgrimages were undertaken for many other reasons too, but the healing properties of St Winefride’s shrine were probably the main attraction to most visitors.

Medieval ampulla for carrying liquids or earth from a pilgrim site

Example of a medieval ampulla used for carrying liquids or earth from a pilgrim site. Source: The Mobility of Objects across Boundaries

St Winefride’s recorded visitors and patrons are a roll-call of the celebrities of the era, the royal and the aristocratic, who were major marketing coups for Basingwerk. Although those few known by name are listed below, the everyday participants along the pilgrim routes were more often ordinary people. Reasons for their travels varied, including seeking to undertake a spiritual journey for personal improvement (perhaps one of many journeys); to offer thanks for prayers that were answered; or to seek divine assistance for problems and maladies by asking a specific saint to intercede for them with God. Some pilgrims also acted for those who were unable to attend themselves, offering prayers on their behalf, and returning home with garlands of the sacred moss or filling small flasks with the miraculous water. These ordinary pilgrims from a wide variety of backgrounds always get lost in documented history, the Middle Ages being just as concerned with celebrity endorsements as the west is today, but were nevertheless the most essential components, the bread and butter raison d’être of a living shrine and the institution that managed it.

Ranulph II, Earl of Chester. Source: Wikipedia

Between 1115 and 1119 the second earl of Chester, Richard d’Avranches, son of Hugh Lupus made pilgrimages to the well. With the shrine of St Werburgh within the Chester city walls, it might have been thought that he would look closer to home, but Richard is thought to have fallen out with the monks of the abbey. In addition, it is not really a pilgrimage if it is only a ten minute walk, and Richard may have felt the need to make more of a gesture. Ironically, a miracle took place during the pilgrimage, when Richard became cut off from his forces and his constable in Wirral prayed for assistance but as St Werburgh had been chosen rather than St Winefride, this was chalked up to a win for the Chester abbey.

In 1131 Ranulf II Gernons (1099-1153), fourth earl of Chester, founded the new Savignac (later Cistercian) Basingwerk Abbey somewhere in the area, presumably made of wood. It is thought that it was moved to its current location in around 1157 to be rebuilt in stone, and this new location was very probably influenced by the presence of the nearby holy well, even though it was at that time part of the landholding of St Werburgh’s Abbey.

It is said that in 1188 or 1189 Richard I, the Lionheart (ruled 1189-1199), made a pilgrimage to Holywell. Quite where he would have found the time is anyone’s guess.

Flint Castle on the Dee Estuary, construction having begun in 1277

There is no record of Edward I (reigned 1272 to 1307) making a pilgrimage, but he presumably had no need to put himself to any real effort to visit either the abbey or the shrine, as by the 1270s he was already in the area. In 1277 he began to build Flint Castle 6.9km/4.3 miles down the road from Basingwerk. Whilst the castle was under construction it seems reasonable to assume that Edward was a frequent guest at the nearby monastery, and that he took the opportunity to visit the shrine. In fact, Edward’s castle in Flint may have resulted in a busy time all round for the abbey, the church and the shrine, as the 100s of workers at the castle would have had at least some downtime and would doubtless have sought out a powerful religious shrine so close by.

In 1282 Edward’s armies returned to northeast Wales to engage with the Welsh princes once again, doing substantial damage to monastic lands in the process. It is recorded that part of Holywell was burned, but it is not stated whether this was the village, the shrine or nearby buildings. The abbey estates were certainly harmed, with the lost of crops and livestock, and Edward found himself compensating both Basingwerk and other Welsh abbeys that had come under fire during the fighting. Pilgrims were presumably rather short on the ground at this time, but Edward and his armies probably formed part of the narrative of the abbey told to future pilgrims.

Miniature of Henry V, c.1411. Source: Wikipedia

According to chronicler Adam of Usk, Henry V (reigned 1413-1422) visited in around 1416, following his success at Agincourt, to give thanks, walking on foot to Holywell from the Shrewsbury abbey to which Winefride’s remains had been translated (moved) in 1138 from where she was originally buried in Gwytherin. I have not found any reason why Henry would have singled her out to request support in battle, but apparently he prayed to her for assistance and his pilgrimage was an offering of thanks, which created a considerable stir. Perhaps he had encountered the shrine as Prince of Wales during the military campaigns against Owain Glyndŵr that began in his father’s reign and which he ultimately suppressed.

The Earl and Countess of Warwick made gifts to the shrine in the 1400s there is is not stated that they ever visited.

Henry IV Bolingbroke (reigned 1399-1413) took the throne from Richard II (reigned 1377-1399), with Richard surrendering to Henry at Flint Castle in 1399. It is possible that whilst he was in the area, Edward took the opportunity to visit St Winefride’s shrine, probably connecting with the monks at the same time.

In 1461 the Welsh bard Tudur Aled wrote that Edward IV (reigned twice in 1442-1483 and 1471-1483) had visited the shrine, but quite why is unclear. He was a member, by descent, of the Mortimer family who had extensive properties in the Welsh Marches, in Chirk and Denbigh. There was, in fact, considerable resistance to Edward IV in areas of north Wales, including the rebellion of Owain Glyndŵr. There is nothing in general events of that year that would seem to account for him being in Holywell, although Pritchard suggests that it might be connected with renewing the royal chantry, which seems like the most plausible reason.

St Winifrede's well by John Ingleby. Source: National Library of Wales via Zone47

St Winefrede’s well by John Ingleby (1749-1808) showing crutches slotted into the stonework above the spring. Note the gallery at the left, and the mill wheel through the doorway. Source: National Library of Wales via Zone47

Whether royal, aristocratic or of more humble origins, pilgrims continued to visit throughout the medieval period, and pilgrims continue to visit continue today. As well as the sculpture on the left in the well chapel, showing a pilgrim being carried to the spring on an other man’s back (one in need, the other showing compassion) the visitor centre has examples of later wooden crutches that were apparently discarded after miracle cures had been received. In 18th and 19th century engravings crutches are shown slotted into the stone structure of the pilgrim shrine presumably as a record of successes and gestures of thanks (see the John Ingleby coloured engraving towards the end of the page).

For visitors to Holywell and the shrine in the post-medieval periods, which are not covered here, see the Early Visitors in Wales page dedicated to Holywell.

The late Gothic chapels

The patrons of the new chapels

Ceiling boss showing Lady Margaret and the Earl of Derby

Ceiling boss in the lower chapel allegedly showing Lady Margaret with her husband Thomas Stanley, the Earl of Derby

It has passed into tradition that the founder of the chapel that we see today was Lady Margaret, née Beaufort. Lady Margaret was the mother, by her first husband, of the future King Henry VII who was the founder of the fan-vaulted Lady Chapel in Westminster Abbey, designed by Robert Vertue. Lady Margaret, born 1443 had married three times by the time she died in 1509, her last husband being Thomas Stanley, Earl of Derby, a member of an important and wealthy local family in the Wrexham area. She is thought to have patronized St Giles in Wrexham, St Mary the Virgin in Mold and St Chad’s in Farndon. She sponsored two publishers, both of whom (possibly at her suggestion) published lives of St Winefride. The involvement of the Stanley family, whether Lady Margaret was involved or not, is suggested quite strongly by the number of relevant carvings in the chapel, including:

A sculptural portrait thought to represent Lady Margaret and her husband Thomas Stanley (1435-1504), Earl of Derby (although with very little data, if any, to substantiate the identification)
Over the outside of the door to the gallery there is a the portcullis emblem that Henry VII (reigned 1485-1509) derived from Lady Margaret
The arms of Sir William Stanley (died 1495), brother of Thomas Stanley showing a wolf’s head enclosed in a garter (rewarded by Henry VII for his role in the Battle of Bodsworth of 1485 but executed in 1495 for conspiracy)
The arms of Sir William Stanley’s wife Elizabeth Hopton (died 1498) showing a barrel and a plant, forming a rebus – hop and tun – of her name
The 3-leg symbol of the Isle of Man reflects Sir John Stanley’s new title of Lord of Man, gifted to him in 1405 by Henry VII for his support during the War of the Roses
Other Stanley emblems including a stag’s head and eagle’s legs
Tudor emblems, including the dragon and greyhound in the spandrels of one of the doorways
The Royal arms of England and Wales at the end of the pendant ceiling boss over the spring
The coat of arms of Queen Katherine of Aragon (1485-1536), the wife of Henry VII’s son Arthur before Arthur’s death in 1502, featuring three pomegranates topped with a crown. Lady Margaret was her grandmother-in-law, dying in the same year as Katherine’s marriage to Arthur’s brother Henry VIII (reigned 1509-1547) in 1509

In addition, Henry VII chose to include a statue of St Winefride in a niche in the north apse of his own Lady Chapel in Westminster Abbey. She is shown with her head on her shoulders, but there is also a small head on its side at her feet, sitting on the top of the well.

Lower chapel roof bosses. Clockwise from top left: Arms of Katherine of Aragon; Wolf-head shield of Hugh I or Richard d’Avranches (probably the latter); Either St Winefride or the Virgin Mary, very battered but originally two angels placed a crown on her head; the base of the pendant boss shows the royal arms of England and Wales whilst the pendant itself shows scenes from the life of St Winefride (very worn); the legs of the Isle of Man, off centre; greyhound and to its left dragon, both symbols of the Tudors (on opposing doorway spandrels).

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St Winefride's Well. NLW 1129695. National Library of Wales.

St Winefride’s Well c.1790. NLW 1129695. National Library of Wales via Zone47 Zone47.

The construction of the two chapels, above and below, seems to have been overseen by Abbot Thomas Pennant of Basingwerk, who held the abbacy from 1480 – c.1522. T.W. Pritchard has argued that there is evidence form contemporary Welsh bardic-style poetry to assign the patronage and building to Abbot Thomas, but the weakness in this interpretation is that the bards connected with, and often living at, monastic properties were often effusive, fulsome and sycophantic, and not necessarily truthful. The poets were making no attempt to capture history, creating a highly partial view of the world as they experienced it in hyperbolic language as an art form. Nor is it at all clear whether Abbot Thomas would have known of the fan vaulting style, or where he would have found an architect to produce it. On the whole, given that I have seen no argument that the above family-related topics were added at a later date, the data seems to favour the Stanley family as the creators of the chapel, with Abbot Thomas managing the build locally, and perhaps investing in some of its creation. Without documentary data this remains uncertain.

The concept

Plan and elevation of St Winefrede's Well. Source: Journey to the Past

Plans and elevations of St Winefride’s Well, lower and upper chapels. Source: Journey to the Past (a collaboration between Bangor University, the University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies (CAWCS) and the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historic Monuments of Wales)

The late Gothic buildings that we see today came late in the well’s medieval history. The style, late Perpendicular, comes towards the end of the 15th and beginning of the 16th century, only a couple of decades before Basingwerk Monastery was suppressed in Henry VIII’s Dissolution, shortly after which Edward VI began a policy of suppressing Catholicism. It is not know what the chapel and well looked like before this time, because there are no images or descriptions, but the new architectural conceptualization design, consisted of two parts, the lower fan-vaulted well chapel, and over the top of this a more conventional church-like structure with a nave, side aisle, chancel and stained glass windows, with more sculptural elements. These are discussed further below.

The parish church on the right and the upper chapel of St Winifride’s Well on the left, showing their proximity

The design was governed by how pilgrims used both the well and the neighbouring church. Pilgrims would arrive in Holywell at the abbey. Some of them would take advantage of the abbey’s hospitality. In the late medieval period the abbot was responsible for new stone-built accommodation for visitors, but there must have been provision previously, perhaps built in wood. For those who wanted to stay elsewhere, the late medieval town would have offered alternatives.

The upper chapel, looking west

For pilgrims staying at the abbey, a walk to the holy well would have been guided by a monk who would lend monastic authority to the event. On arrival at the shrine, pilgrims would have been taken up to the chapel to pray and receive guidance before they could proceed to the shrine itself. The upper chapel was designed to hold large numbers of people in a church-like layout and environment. It was only a few steps away from the parish church where visitors could also attend services. The placing of the upper chapel over the top of the well was a clever way both of making the most of the steep hill, and of linking the well with the parish church. The design of the three bays of the shrine took pilgrims in a procession that entered through one entrance, proceeded around the shrine and lead either out the other side. There were steps down into the well itself.

Lower Chapel

The well with the ceiling pendant boss overhead, which showed scenes from the life of St Winefrede around it, and the Royal arms of England and Wales at its base.

At the level of the spring is a tall, narrow open-fronted well chapel, with a lofty fan-vaulted ceiling on slender compound piers over three bays of which the middle, encompassing the well, is the largest. The chapel defines a processional area where people could enter at one side, circle the star-shaped basin where the spring emerges, and light candles before and leaving at the other side. One theory is that the almost star-shaped well represented the Pool of Bethesda. A staircase led to a gallery where people could look down into the well. A rectangular pool received the spring waters outside, in a similar way as it does today, but images from the 18th century suggest that the much greater volume also allowed it to run out of the other end of the pool as a strong stream flowing down the hill.

The fan vaulting had sculptural roof bosses wherever there were joints. The opportunity was taken with nearly all of them, big and small, to create sculptural elements, some of which are shown below. The main pendant roof boss, suspended over the centre of the spring well, has the royal coat of arms of England and Wales on the base, whilst the sides shown scenes from the life of St Winefride. The columns around the well are now broken, the remaining stumps at two levels shown in the photograph above, but once formed an intricate screen, with filigree-style details in the spandrels. The string-course of decorated stone along the top of the well was also decorated in the same way.

The entire effect must have been very like a tiny, sublime cathedral in rural northeast Wales.
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The themes on the ceiling bosses and other areas of the lower chapel show some interesting choices. As well as the heraldry relating to the Stanleys listed above, there are some ceiling bosses relating to Winefride, Beuno and other religious themes, other families, and plant and animal motifs.

Upper Chapel

The upper chapel

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The upper chapel, looking east to the chancel

Over the top of the lower well chapel was an enclosed chapel, designed with a conventional nave and chancel, with one truncated side aisle, to which pilgrims could proceed following their experience at the spring to worship and hear services. The design of window openings and arches is Perpendicular with wide, flattened arches and tall mullioned windows that allow plenty of light into the space. side aisle sits directly over the well, whilst the chancel at the east end extends beyond the space enclosed by the lower chapel.

The north aisle, over the top of the well and overlooking the pool. Only one aisle was built.

The camber-beam roof over the nave

Modern stained glass window in the chancel

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As with the lower chapel, the upper chapel has some rather wonderful sculptural elements, with much less emphasis on family symbolism, and much more on the sort of themes that are found in the margins of illuminated manuscripts, on misericords, and in the roof areas of churches. They include scenes of everyday life; pagan, mythological and religious motifs; and two humourous grotesques. The wood carvings, high in the chancel and the nave on stone corbels are difficult to see due to their height and the lack of light. The stone carvings, which are lower down, are quite easy to make out.

My photos of the wood carvings were frankly diabolical. I couldn’t actually see what I was photographing in the chancel, so just pointed the camera and hoped for the best. Even after applying Photoshop, in some cases I am still none the wiser. Apologies, therefore, that there are so few of them. A torch would be a handy accessory if you are thinking of visiting.

Sculptural elements from the upper chapel.

The chapel was considerably altered in the 1700s but has since been restored to something close to its previous appearance.
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The Dissolution of the Monasteries

The opening page of the Valor Ecclesiasticus, showing Henry VIII.

The opening page of the Valor Ecclesiasticus, which valued each of the main monasteries, showing Henry VIII. Source: Wikipedia

The suppression of the monastic houses from 1535 was Henry VIII’s multi-pronged strategy to gain a divorce from Katherine of Aragon, denied to him by the Pope (Katherine was fortunate enough to retain her head); to escape the authority of the Pope and the bishops and place himself as the head of the Church; to strip monasteries and priories of their valuables to raise funds for the Crown; and to release estates from formerly powerful monastic landholders, which enabled him to redistribute land, wealth and power, which he could use to generate money and to negotiate for long-term political support. In order to assess the value of the nation’s monastic holdings, his hench-man Thomas Cromwell ordered the Valor Ecclesiasticus (a an assessment of the income and assets of each monastic house) and assessors were duly sent out to all parts of the kingdom. All of those worth less than £200.00 were immediately suppressed, which included all the Welsh houses. The remaining monks and nuns were dispersed, willingly or unwillingly. They were often granted reasonably generous pensions if they left without a fight. Abbot Nicholas Pennant, the last abbot of Basingwerk, clearly gave no trouble to the administrators because he left with a pension. Monastic properties were sold, gifted or broken up and otherwise disposed of by Henry’s administrators.

All that remains of the monastic church at Basingwerk today

The impact on St Winefride’s Well was felt both immediately and incrementally thereafter. With the loss of the abbey, the shrine no longer had monastic support and oversight. Whatever funding, maintenance and care the shrine received were withdrawn. The shrine would now be the responsibility of the church and the village. Pilgrims were deprived of monastic hospitality. With no monastic guidance to the shrine when they arrived, a lot of the ceremony and sense of a special occasion were removed, perhaps making a pilgrimage less attractive and rewarding. Certainly the oblations (pilgrim donations) began to decline significantly. At the same time, political and religious instability may well have deterred pilgrims. The loss of the monks as managers of the abbey’s landholdings and industrial properties may not have been felt immediately, but whatever processes were in place may have required a new approach to estate management by those actually working the land and this may have had an impact on the local economy, particularly Holywell itself, undermining the economic stability and prosperity of the village at least for some time afterwards.
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After Henry VIII

The Devil selling Indulgences. Jenksy Kodex, c.1500. Source: Wikipedia

Splendidly evocative depiction of the Devil selling Indulgences, from a Czech illuminated manuscript called the Jenksy Kodex, c.1500. Source: Wikipedia

Quite what Henry VIII planned for the future of the new Church of England is not clear. He probably had very little strategic idea himself, but it is certain that the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer (1489-1556), an advisor to Henry, had plans, which included maximizing his influence has the clerical head of the Church of England. One of Henry VIII’s particular obsessions was the destruction of all traces of the veneration of St Thomas Becket. For Henry VIII, Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Becket (1119/20-1556) had been the ultimate Church challenge to “royal supremacy” in which the king rather than the Church held ultimate authority. Becket was murdered over the question. The horror with which Becket’s murder was received forced King Henry II to back down and make the peace with a powerful clergy who were backed by the papacy and who had ultimately won the day. In Henry’s similar battle with church supremacy, with the Pope refusing to condone the annulment of his marriage to Katherine of Aragon, Becket was the embodiment of Church interference with royal right to rule without challenge. There are only a few representations of Becket today in churches.

After Henry VIII died, Archbishop Cranmer had great influence over Henry’s young son, Edward VI (reigned 1547-1553) during Edward’s six-year reign. The result was a Tudor clamp-down on Papism, its rules and its traditions, including indulgences, the veneration of saints, and the worship of icons, a policy that went through phases of persecution and lapses of energy. Edward was not pulling his punches, as this excerpt from Edward VI’s Royal Injunctions of 1547, demonstrates, commanding

. . . that they shall take away, utterly extinct and destroy all shrines, covering of shrines, all tables, trundles or rolls of wax, pictures, paintings and all other monuments of feigned miracles, pilgrimages, idolatry and superstition, so that there remain no memory of the same in walls, glasses, windows or elsewhere within their churches or houses. And they shall exhort all their parishioners to do the like within their several houses. [See University of Michigan in Sources]

The instruction to erase all reminders of the recent religion, focusing specifically on objects, is an impressive measure of Edward VI’s understanding of the power of objects and how they mediate people’s ideologies, beliefs and sense of both security and identity. The enormous destruction of objects and art during the Reformation was a strategy to systematically erase the tangible links between people and their beliefs, suppressing in every sense the way in which people understood, expressed and experienced their sense of the connection between the physical and spiritual world in which they lived and which defined their existence. The result was often exactly what Edward VI would have wanted. It is astonishing that St Winefride’s chapels were able to escape.

St Winefride’s Well with Holywell in the background, 18th century. Watercolour by John Ingleby. Source: People’s Collection Wales

After the Dissolution the well began to become the focus of Catholic (specifically Jesuit) sedition. In Holywell, Basingwerk Abby had now been stripped of its roof lead, always the beginning of ruin, and although part of it is thought to have been occupied as a house for a while, it was ultimately abandoned. However, the well and the accompanying church continued to be an illicit focus of Catholic devotion, and St Winefride’s chapel continued to be maintained and visited, often at enormous risk to both residents and visitors, sometimes resulting in imprisonment or execution. Perhaps directly linked to this illicit expression of devotion, and a way of bonding with the shrine, are many, many carved pieces of graffiti, mostly alphabetic, some dates and a few unexplained pictograms. That’s all another story, and a really interesting one for another day, but it is really quite remarkable that the shrine survived centuries of religious intolerance to eventually experience a revival of pilgrim and tourist attention in 18th and 19th centuries, at which time the buildings underwent restoration.

Lead repair of stonework along the side of the well

Final Comments

Ceiling boss in the lower chapel

St Winefrede, a 7th century saint, is one of the best known saints in Wales. The miracle-working shrine with its gushing natural spring became so popular and important throughout the medieval period that in the late 15th or early 16th century it was provided with a brand new pair of chapels, upper and lower, that provided a building of late gothic splendour to frame the well and provide spaces for experiencing the spring and for worshipping in a church-like environment. It welcomed pilgrims, was an asset to its owners and contributed to the economy of Holywell itself.

The site was awarded the status of a National Shrine in 2023. It continues to be a significant draw for both pilgrims and tourists, and makes for a very attractive day out when combined with both Basingwerk Abbey and the industrial heritage park, continuing to make its presence felt.

Visiting

With parking nearby, a visit to St Winefride’s Well can take no longer than an hour or so to visit, but it can be combined with the Greenfield Valley Heritage Park to make a full day out, particularly when the small town at the top of the hill is included in the trip.

On the map of Greenfield Valley to the right, the Holywell spring and chapel are at the very top (the car park is just down the hill at the What3Words address ///scanning.smarting.brisk or a lay-by just up the hill at W3W ///fidgeting.grain.nail). Alternative parking is at Basingwerk Abbey at the very bottom of the park, bigger than that for the chapel, at W3W ///assess.origin.flicks). There is also plenty of parking in the town at the top of the hill.

The other sites on the map shown here are described on the post about Greenfield Valley’s industrial heritage. The church of St James has been closed on the three occasions when I have visited, but it lies behind the chapel, just uphill from it. There is a cafe next to the abbey, on the bottom right of the map, but check the website listed below, because at the time of writing it is under refurbishment.

The Visitor Centre, ticket office and souvenir shop are on the left as you enter the grounds, and it is from here that you collect the key for the upstairs chapel as well (they ask that you leave your keys as a deposit). The Visitor Centre is a single large room, with some excellent interpretation boards and some original objects on display (note that there is a sign saying that it is not permitted to take photographs in the Visitor Centre).

The spring and the fan-vaulted well chapel are on the same level as the Visitor Centre via a door to the left of the ticket office. The overhead chapel, which sits over the top of the well chapel, is a little way uphill, on the footpath along the road. To reach it you need to go back out of the Visitor Centre and turn left up the road. Turn left again along the path that leads from the road to the church. The door faces uphill.

There is a free leaflet with a map, which you can collect from the ticket office. I have scanned it and posted it here for download as a PDF, but note that the leaflet was longer than A4, so I’ve split it up and arranged it in portrait rather than landscape to fit it on two pages. My version is not a thing of beauty, so it would be much better to pick up the leaflet when you visit!

I strongly recommend that if you don’t have a telephoto lens or very good zoom function on your phone, you take binoculars so that you can get a much better view of the carvings on the ceilings in the lower shrine and on corbel tops in the upper chapel. A powerful torch would certainly help too, particularly in the upper chapel.

Finally, do note that this is still a place of pilgrimage and prayer, and you may run into people having a quiet moment in front of the statue of Winefride within the lower chapel, or even having a dip in the outer pool. A lady did so when I was last there on a freezing cold day, and after drying off she went pray in front of the statue just inside the entrance of the lower chapel. I carried on with what I was doing, but gave her space.
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Sources

Books and Papers

Joseph Mallord William Turner, Holywell: The Interior of the Cloisters, St Winifred’s Well 1799. Source: The Tate

Baker, Nigel 1998. Shrewsbury Abbey. A Medieval Monastery. Shropshire Books.

Barraclough, Geoffrey 1988. The Charters of the Anglo-Normal Earls of Chester c.1071-1237. The Record Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, vol. CXXVI

Bartlett, Robert 2013. Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things? Saints and Worshippers from the Martyrs to the Reformation. Princeton University Press.

Burne, R.V.H. 1962. The Monks of Chester. The History of St Werburgh’s Abbey. SPCK

David, Christopher 1969, 2002 (2nd edition). St Winefride’s Well. A History and Guide

Farmer, David 2011 (5th edition). The Oxford Dictionary of Saints. Oxford University Press

Given-Wilson, C. (ed.) 1977. The Chronicle of Adam Usk 1377-1421. Clarendon Press
https://archive.org/details/chronicleofadamu0000adam/page/n5/mode/2up

Garland, Lisa M. 2005. Aspects of Welsh Saints’ Cults and Pilgrimage c.1066-1532. Unpublished PhD, King’s College London
https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/ws/files/2935809/420753.pdf

Gray, Madeleine 2007. Welsh Saints in Westminster Abbey. Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion 2006, New Series, 13 (2007), p.5-30
https://www.cymmrodorion.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/2_Welsh-Saints-in-Westminster-Abbey.pdf

Hubbard, Edward 1986. The Buildings of Wales: Clwyd (Denbighshire and Flintshire). Penguin

Pritchard, T.W. 2009. St Winefride, Her Holy Well and the Jesuit Mission, c.650-1930. Bridge Books

Tait, James 1920. The Chartulary or Register of the Abbey of St Werburgh. Chartulary of Chester, part 1. Chetham Society

Turner, Rick 2019. The Architecture, Patronage and Date of St Winefride’s Well, Holywell. Archaeologia Cambrensis 168, p.245-275
https://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archiveDS/archiveDownload?t=arch-3493-1/dissemination/168-2019/10-Arch_Camb_168_Turner_245-275.pdf

Webb, Diana 2000. Pilgrimage in Medieval England. Hambledon and London

Williams, David H. 2001. The Welsh Cistercians. Gracewing

Websites

Based In Churton
Basingwerk Abbey
https://wp.me/pcZwQK-2Ju
Greenfield Valley (industrial heritage)
https://wp.me/pcZwQK-3eL
St Werburgh’s Abbey (multiple posts)
https://basedinchurton.co.uk/category/chester-cathedral/
A roof boss of Thomas Becket in the Abbey of St Werbergh (Chester Cathedral)
https://basedinchurton.co.uk/2023/07/14/a-ceiling-boss-in-chester-cathedral-the-murder-of-thomas-becket/

Early Tourists in Wales
Holywell and St Winifred’s well
https://sublimewales.wordpress.com/attractions/2231-2/

Essex Record Office
Salvation for sale
https://www.essexrecordofficeblog.co.uk/document-of-the-month-august-2017-salvation-for-sale/

Greenfield Valley Heritage Park
https://greenfieldvalley.com/

Greenfield Valley Café
At time of writing closed for refurbishment – check link below
https://greenfieldvalley.com/visit/greenfield-valley-cafe/

Heneb
Holywell
https://heneb.org.uk/archive/cpat/ycom/flints/holywell.pdf

Landmark Trust
St Winifred’s Well (Woolston)
https://cms.landmarktrust.org.uk/globalassets/3.-images-and-documents-to-keep/history-albums/st-winifreds-well-2025.pdf

Shrewsbury Orthodox Church
Saint Winefride (Gwenffrewi) (with a photograph of the St Winefrede chapel and spring at Woolston)
https://shrewsburyorthodox.com/local-saints/saint-winefride-gwenffrewi/

streetsofsalem
Monarchs and Monkeys
https://streetsofsalem.com/2014/03/26/monarchs-and-monkeys/

St Winefride’s Shrine and Visitor Centre
https://www.stwinefridesshrine.org/blank-1

University of Michigan – Digital collections
A collection of articles injunctions, canons, orders, ordinances, and constitutions ecclesiastical: with other publick records of the Church of England; chiefly in the times of K. Edward. VIth. Q. Elizabeth. and K. James. Published to vindicate the Church of England and to promote uniformity and peace in the same. And humbly presented to the Convocation.
https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo2/A79649.0001.001/1:7?rgn=div1;view=fulltext

Statue of St Winefride outside the shrine

Cheshire Proverbs 9: “A face like a Buckley Panmug”

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“A face like a Buckley panmug”

Bridge, J.S., no.6, p.2

I love this proverb, although Bridge, in irritatingly understated mode, comments simply “Buckley in Flintshire, a few miles from Chester, produces a good deal of coarse red earthenware.”

Buckley wares in the Grosvenor Museum collection

This is the sixth of Bridge’s proverbs, on only the second page of his collection, and although it clearly failed to impress Bridge with any sense of historical depth and interest, the Buckley ceramic potteries near Mold in north Wales were major producers of a number of different types of pottery, nearly all coarseware, produced in great volume. There is not a field or garden in the area that does not produce at least a few sherds of Buckley ware, and many of them produce a great deal. I have unearthed tons of it in the form of sherds from my garden.

The earliest potteries were established in the Middle Ages and continued to produce coarsewares well into the 20th century. Nearly all of the potteries have been lost, as the Buckley area has been expanded via large housing developments, although archaeological excavations have been carried out in recent decades that have helped to supplement documentary information.

Different examples of Buckley pottery. Source: CPAT Report no.1246.

The Buckley potteries were established to take advantage of the underlying on Westphalian (Coal Measure) clays where crops of Ruabon Marl appear on the surface, comprising mudstones, siltstones and sandstones that formed from waterlogged alluvial floodplain silts and provided the fireclays used in the potteries.

First, what on earth is a “panmug” when it escapes from domestic captivity? I could not find a picture of one but thankfully, amongst other sources, here’s a description from Egerton-Leigh’s 1877 glossary of Cheshire dialect, which makes it quite clear that it was indeed made of the Buckley coarse red pottery, that it was used primarily for dairy products, and goes on to explain the “face like a panmug” reference:

Panmug, s. – (pronounced paanmoog) . . . The coarse red crockery used in family operations for cheese milk, butter, &c., and any rough use. A girl who was taken to see Capesthorne Hall, which contains (or contained before the fire), amongst many curiosities, a valuable collection of Etruscan vases, described to her mother on her return how beautiful everything was, but that she had been surprised to see “the paanmoogs kept in the house place” i.e. the best sitting room). Our Cheshire panmugs are manufactured mostly at Buckley, in the neighbouring county of Flint. A man with a red, coarse, blotchy countenance (not unfrequently the result of hard drinking) is said to have “a feace like a Buckley paanmug.” [Leigh 1877]

The base of the beehive kiln at Lewis’s Pottery during excavations in 2000. Source: Earthworks Archaeology, via CPAT Report 1246.

Although established in the Middle Ages, the Buckley industry began to expand significantly in the 18th century, becoming a major producer in the 19th century. Well-known travel writer Thomas Pennant visited in 1786 and described 14 potteries that produced coarse earthenware “such as pans, jugs, great pots for butter, plates, dishes, ovens, flower pots, etc,” with a significant export trade to Ireland and the Welsh coast. Research since then has identified at least 31 potential potteries, all small family industries. The range of items produced was considerable. As well as household and garden items, specialized products were also manufactured, like door handles, as well as items for the tourist industry, such as teapots and novelty items specific to particular resorts showing placenames and phrases in Welsh. Industrial output included heat-resistant refractory bricks which could be used in kilns, crucibles and blast furnace linings.

Other areas made very similar coarse wares, including Stoke-on- Trent, South Lancashire (including Liverpool), Whitehaven, and the Glasgow. Each of these produced black-glazed, red-bodied earthenwares using very similar clays and techniques to those at Buckley. Although when found locally it can be confidently assigned to Buckley, when found further afield it may be difficult to distinguish from pottery made by these other centres. A classic example is the richly glazed dark coarseware decorated with curving lines of yellow slip, often referred to as “Staffordshire ware” but, in this area, much more likely to be Buckley ware.

Although Buckley ware was commonplace, many types are now collected, and it may be found in museum collections and can reach fairly high prices in antique shops and at auction.

For more about J.C. Bridge and this Cheshire Proverbs series,
see Cheshire Proverbs 1.

For the other proverbs in the series, click on the Cheshire Proverbs label
in the right hand margin, or see the end of the Archaeology, Heritage and Art page, where they are listed.

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Sources:

Books and papers

Bridge, J.C. 1917. Cheshire Proverbs and Other Sayings and Rhymes Connected with the City an County Palatine of Chester. Phillipson and Golder (Chester)

Jones, Nigel, W. 2019. The Buckley Potteries Recent Research and Excavation. Archaeopress

Leigh, Lt-Col Egerton M.P 1877. A glossary of words used in the dialect of Cheshire founded on a similar attempt by Roger Wilbraham F.R.S. and F.S.A. Contributed to the Society of Antiquaries. Minshull and Hughes
ia801204.us.archive.org/0/items/glossaryofwordsu00leigrich/glossaryofwordsu00leigrich.pdf

Websites

Clwyd-Powys Archaeological Trust (CPAT)
CPAT report No. 1246 The Buckley Potteries: an assessment of survival and potential
https://coflein.gov.uk/media/263/618/652220.pdf
CPAT Report No. 1476 Brookhill Pottery, Buckley
https://coflein.gov.uk/media/291/13/652259.pdf

People’s Collection Wales
Buckley Pottery
https://www.peoplescollection.wales/collections/376938

Pilgrims and Posies blog
The Cheshire Prophet
https://pilgrimsandposies.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-cheshire-prophet.html

St Chad’s Church, Farndon, originally medieval but largely rebuilt in 1658 due to war damage

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Not for the first time I am writing about somewhere that I really ought to have talked about a long time ago because it is so near to me, in this case the Grade II* listed St Chad’s Church just down the road in Farndon. It is a lovely church, with a rather unexpected history, surrounded by a churchyard and enclosed by an irregularly shaped curving wall. Apart from the tower, there is very little of the medieval church remaining, having been almost completely rebuilt in 1658 following the damage inflicted during the Civil War, but it followed a broadly gothic template and is charming in its own right with a number of nice features, some influenced by the gothic, and others departing in interesting directions. It is particularly well known for the Civil War window installed by William Barnston.

St Chad’s Farndon

The congregation traditionally included those who were on the English side of the river, with burials from Churton-by-Farndon and Churton-by-Aldford, Crewe-by-Farndon, Barton, Leche, and Caldecott, and other nearby villages and farms. After 1866 residents of Churton-by-Aldford were often buried in at the Church of St John in Aldford.

During the summer I posted an account of St Chad’s Church in Holt, opposite Farndon on the other side of the river Dee, with its medieval links to Holt Castle and the Lordship of Bromfield and Yale. It is larger and more elaborate than St Chad’s in Farndon, and the two churches each has its own distinctive character with a lot to offer the visitor. Both churches were involved in the Civil War, due to the importance of the crossing here, and both bear musket ball damage as a result, but Farndon’s St Chad’s came off much worse than St Chad’s in Holt.
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Saint Chad, 1st Bishop of Lichfield

Early Medieval Mercia. Source: medievalists.net

According to Bede (writing in the 8th century) St Chad was one of four brothers who entered the church in the 7th century, and started his training at Lindisfarne Monastery under St Aiden. He was ordained in Ireland and became a leading light in the Anglo-Saxon church, rising through the ecclesiastical ranks on the kingdoms of Northumbria and Mercia and under King Wulfhere, one of the earliest Christian kings. He was appointed Bishop of Northumbria, including York, and became the first Bishop of Lichfield in the new diocese of Lichfield, at the heart of Mercia. Mercia was one of seven British kingdoms of 7th century Britain and occupied most of central England. Chad died in AD c.672 and was buried in Lichfield Monastery, now Lichfield Cathedral. Regarded as a pioneer who helped to spread Christian teaching in and beyond Mercia, he became a popular icon during the Middle Ages in the Midlands and its borders.
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The Medieval Church

It is remarkable to think that the Civil War obliterated so much of the medieval church in 1643 that most of it had to be rebuilt in the 17th century. The Domesday book records a village priest, as well as two other priests locally, strongly suggesting the presence here of an earlier church, probably wood-built.

Today’s church has a nave and tower that are thought to have followed the original medieval footprint dating to the14th century building. All that obviously remains of the 14th century is the tower, of which three storeys date to around 1343. Everything else appended to this basic structure on north, east and south sides are later in date. Although you enter the church through an 18th century yellow sandstone porch, the thick wooden door itself is actually medieval, a quite astonishing survival.

Lines of the old roof of St Chad's in Farndon marked in white

Lines of the old roof of St Chad’s in Farndon marked on this photograph in white.

Inside, looking towards the tower from the nave, you can see the converging lines at which the old church roof met the tower, considerably lower down than the current roof, and terminating further down than the current arch. This suggests that the medieval church was both shorter and darker. Within the tower there are three chambers with one each for bell-ringers, another for the clock-works and the belfry itself, containing the bells, originally three, at the top.

In the north aisle in the interior of the church is a 14th century funerary effigy showing a knight in armour holding a shield carved with a Latin inscription reading “Here lies Patrick of Barton. Pray for Him.” Sir Patrick holds a sword in his other hand, and has some form of animal at his feet, now too badly worn to be identified with any certainty. This effigy is one of three that was found, but the other two were ground down to make white sand. Although Sir Patrick survived this particular indignity, he was used as a step into the belfry in in the 1900s, which accounts for the wear and tear to his face and the animal. Latham says that one of the other effigies was inscribed with the word “Madocusdaur” and a third was inscribed with a wolf.

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John Speed, Tailor and Mapmaker

John Speed’s 1610 map of Cheshire. Source: Wikimedia Commons

John speed was the Farndon tailor’s son and was baptised in St Chad’s in 1552. There’s a good biography of him on the New World Cartographic website explaining how Speed followed his father into tailoring at a time when fashion was of growing importance, doing very well in the business, whilst at the same time pursuing his interests in history, geography, cartography, antiquities and genealogies. It was not until he moved to London that he gained a patron and was able to abandon tailoring and launch a new career. His map of the County of the Palatine of Chester was completed in 1610-11, and was used by both sides during the Civil War. He died in 1629 and is buried in London.
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The Civil War

Musket ball and cannon ball marks in the walls of the medieval tower.

The tower in Farndon’s church shows musket-ball and cannon shot damage to the exterior, to the right of the main porch, but the fact that the rest of the church had to be rebuilt in 1658 makes it clear that it experienced a much worse time of it than its counterpart in Holt. In 1643 the commander of the Cheshire and Lancashire Parliamentarian troops used Farndon and its church as a headquarters and barracks, assembling a force of around 2000 to force their way across the bridge, through Royalist defences. The subsequent fighting entered the churchyards at both Holt and Farndon. During the fighting in Farndon churchyard the roof was somehow set alight. In spite of the damage to the roof, the Parliamentarians reoccupied the church until they were ousted in winter 1645.
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The 17th Century Rebuild

Apart from the tower at the west end, the current red sandstone church with its slate-tiled roof is largely the result of the post-Civil War rebuild in 1658, presumably re-using some of the original medieval stonework. The main body of the church consists of a nave with clerestories (a run of windows above the nave below roof level to allow in light) and two aisles, terminating in the chancel at the east end. The 5-bay arcade separating the nave from the aisles consists of round piers (columns) with simple capitals and pointed arches. Over 40 different mason marks are dotted throughout the church, each one identifying a separate mason, giving a hint of the scale of the workforce required to rebuild St Chad’s. There used to be a musician’s gallery at the tower end, but this was removed in the 19th century.

Mason’s mark on the arch between the nave and the tower

The nave, looking towards the chancel, of the 1658 nave

The nave of the 1658 nave, arcade and overhead clerestory. The entrance to the Barnston chapel is shown at lower far right.

The new church was taller than the old one, with the clerestory and the large Gothic-style lancet windows letting in much more light. The tower was provided with a new top section at this time.

Adding to the footprint of the old church, the Barnston family, major landowners in the area, built a small chapel off the chancel end of the south aisle, for their private use and to bury and commemorate family members. According to the church’s history booklet, there are records mentioning Barnstons in Churton during the reign of Henry VI in the 15th century. In the 17th century William Barnston was a major contributor to the rebuild of the church, and requested that he be buried under a gravestone in the south aisle of the church that has already been placed ready. His 1663 will left a substantial bequest to the church for its upkeep. He died in 1664.

The Civil War window, St Chad’s, Farndon

An adviser to Charles I at the Siege of Chester, William Barnston was responsible for the famous Civil War window in the chapel. What surprises most people who see it for the first time is how small it is, but it is full of details that show Royalist participants, including Barnston himself, and a variety of items of contemporary clothing and equipment used in the Siege of Chester. Pevsner and Hubbard say that the technique is “decidedly Dutch” and Latham adds that “Its artist took his design for the armour from a military work by Thomas Cookson (1591-1636) and for the bottom border from prints by Abraham Bosse (1632).” My photo, left, is very poor due to the lack of light, but have a look at the Visit Stained Glass website for a much better image and a close-up of the depiction of William Barnston.

There are many features of interest to look out for in the 17th century church. In the south aisle there is a rather fine sculpted wooden beam support. The church’s booklet questions whether it is a human or an animal but it looks very like the lions with curly manes that are familiar from Tudor and Jacobean carvings. It is surprising that it is on its own. The damaged medieval font was repaired by Samuel Woolley of Churton but the current octagonal font is thought to date to 1662, replacing the repaired one.
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18th, 19th and early 20th century alterations

Georgian style porch, St Chad’s

According to Frank Latham, by 1735 “St. Chad was surrounded by green fields and the houses were few and far between,” and the Massie family seems to have been important to the congregation at this time, with six pews allocated to Richard Massie Esq., and his family. He adds that the east wall was demolished in the 18th century and shifted 10ft (c.3m) further to the east, providing a much larger chancel. Towards the end of the century repairs to the roof were made between 1793 and 1798. Today the red sandstone church is entered via a Georgian-style porch built in yellow sandstone, although I have seen no mention of a precise date for this, and inside there is a large 18th century oak chest that housed the church plate and the parish records.

Memorial to Francis Fletcher 1782

The eastern end of the church was remodelled to include today’s chancel in 1853, not by the Barnstons this time but by the Marquess of Westminster. The carved reredos behind the altar shows the Last Supper and was installed in 1910, with the carvings on the pulpit were added in 1911, showing St Chad accompanied by the usual pulpit team of Saints Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, represented by their emblems. In 1927 the original three bells were joined by another five. The church booklet says that they were rung to mark nationally important occasions, including the defeat of Napoleon in Egypt in 1799, and his defeat at Trafalgar in 1805.

Of the various memorials, one that may be of interest to those familiar with the Barnston obelisk just outside Farndon, is the marble memorial to the Major Roger Barnston (died 1847) in the Barnston chapel. The obelisk in the field on Churton Road, now a natural burial ground, is also a memorial to Major Barnston (died 1847) discussed on the blog here,

The north aisle, like nearly all churches in this area, used to have a clear run to the end of the nave, but the presence of an organ since the 19th century regrettably meant that a gallery just in front of the tower’s arch, where musicians located, became redundant and was removed. The present organ dates to 1949.

St Werburgh and St Chad stained glass in the chancel

The windows are often round-topped, set within rectangular frames that give the exterior an unusual appearance. Exceptions are the large east window behind the altar, installed in 1858 and showing the Sermon on the Mount, installed in memory of church benefactors William and Anne Plumpton, and the south window in the Barnston chapel, both gothic-style.

Most of the stained glass is interesting for the contrasting styles. Following the Trena Cox: Relections 100 exhibition in Chester last year I have become quite interested in 19th century stained glass. On the north side of the chancel, to the left as you face the altar, is a window showing St Chad and St Werburgh (to whom Chester Cathedral was dedicated when it was a Benedictine monastery), by Trena Cox. A look at Aleta Doran’s website devoted to Trena Cox confirmed that this was one of hers, from the 1950s (1953 to be exact). Those windows immediately opposite are similar in style but were clearly crafted by a different artist and show St David (patron saint of Wales) and St Cecilia. Most of the other stained glass was added in the 19th century, with many of the larger window openings being decorated with romantic takes on the gothic, whilst smaller ones are more minimalist. It was a little sad not to be able to learn something about the makers of the glass either at the church or after a hunt through my books and around the Internet.

Window dedicated to the memory of Harry Barnston installed by his sisters after he died in 1929, in somewhat Pre-Raphaelite style

Stained glass in the Barnston chapel, emulating gothic tracery and themes

At the rear (south side) of the building you can see a substantial addition at the west end (near the tower) and I assume that this was a 20th or 21st century add-on, presumably acting as a vestry and storage.
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The Churchyard

The churchyard includes a mixture of different types of grave, including chest, table and ledger tombs and vertical headstones, some accompanied by kerbs, mainly of good quality yellow sandstone. A particularly fine example is a Grade II listed double-chest grave made of yellow sandstone and dating to the early 18th century :

West ends of tombs have recessed round-headed panels; that to north contains an hourglass, that to south a skull and crossbones above an inscription Mors S… Omnium [i.e. Mors Sola Omnia,” meaning Death Conquers All]. North side of north tomb has a square central panel containing an encircled quatrefoil in a lozenge with a vertical panel right and a decayed panel left. The east end of each tomb has a fielded panel; south side of south tomb has 3 fielded panels in bolection moulded borders (Historic England – list entry number 1228746)

It was sobering to notice just how many of the chest grave inscriptions commemorate infants and children. I always spend an hour or so reading grave inscriptions and don’t remember seeing so many very young children commemorated, often from the same family in the same generation. As you would expect, the earlier graves are nearest to the church, although unusually many of these are on the north side, which is normally the last to be filled.

Red sandstone gravestone covered in yew berries

Moving away from the immediate area surrounding church building, to its south, the traditional upright gravestones of the later 19th century begin to dominate, with many examples of 19th century funerary symbolism on the headstones. Although many of the headstones are lancet-shaped and much of a muchness in terms of size, there was clearly a lot of choice available in terms of the symbolic motifs that decorated the tops of the graves.

Art deco style headstone

Through a small gate beyond the headstones, the churchyard has been extended for modern use. The 1922 War Memorial in the form of a stone cross commemorates eighteen men killed in the First World War and four in the Second World War.
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Final Comments

This medieval church, almost completely rebuilt in the 17th century, has a character of its own, reflecting various periods of restoration and intended improvement, with a strong gothic influence throughout. There are many more features than those described above, including benefaction boards, a list of incumbents, and memorials, and the church booklet produced by Cheshire County Council in 1989 is a good guide.

The church website contains no information about visiting, and the Facebook page hasn’t been updated since 2019, but at the moment the church has an open door policy. On my two recent visits (October 2025) I was able to walk in. There is a contact page on the site, so if you are coming from any distance it might be worth double-checking.

It is splendid to have two really impressive churches, one either side of the river connected by a splendid 14th century bridge, with very different personalities and features, and both very well cared for and open to visit.

Sources:

Books and papers

Cheshire County Council 1989. The Parish church of St Chad, Farndon. (10-page booklet available for purchase at the church)

Latham, Frank 1981. Farndon. Local History Group

Pevsner, Nikolaus and Edward Hubbard 1971. The Buildings of England: Cheshire. Penguin Books

Websites

Based In Churton
Medieval ambition and Civil War musket ball holes at the Church of St Chad’s in Holt (Grade 1 listed)
https://basedinchurton.co.uk/2025/05/31/medieval-ambition-and-musket-ball-holes-at-the-church-of-st-chads-in-holt-grade-1-listed/
Exhibition in Chester Cathedral: “Trena Cox: Reflections 100”
https://basedinchurton.co.uk/2024/10/19/exhibition-in-chester-cathedral-trena-cox-reflections-100/

Historic England
Pair of Adjacent Table Tombs in Churchyard
https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1228746?section=official-list-entry

New World Cartographic
Map Maker Biography: John Speed (1552 – 1629)
https://nwcartographic.com/blogs/essays-articles/map-maker-biography-john-speed-1542-1629

St Chad’s Farndon
https://www.stchadschurchfarndon.org.uk/index.php

The Trena Cox Project
https://www.aletadoran.co.uk/

Visit Stained Glass
St Chad’s Farndon (just the Civil War window)
https://www.visitstainedglass.uk/location/church-of-st-chad-farndon-cheshire

Ancient Churchyards of Cheshire – St Chad’s Church Farndon
Tvpresenter4history (James Balme)

A material connection between Plas Newydd (Llangollen) and Brynkinalt (Chirk)? (Plas Newydd #5)

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Introduction

Brynkinalt, just outside Chirk

I went with a friend on a guided tour of the house, partly because it looked stunning, but also because I have been exploring the places with which Lady Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby might have had connections that either influenced or directly contributed to Plas Newydd. By “influence” I mean the decorative styles that could have had an impact on the way in which the decorative vision of Plas Newydd in Llangollen was born and developed. By “direct contribution” I mean the acquisition of the pieces of wood, glass, tiling, etc that make up the fabulous pastiche of decorative arts at Plas Newydd. Photographs were permitted outside, but banned in the interior (which is still a family home) so I have been unable to include anything much to supplement the descriptions below. xxx

Plas Newydd in Llangollen

Brynkinalt was of particular interest not only because, thanks to the excerpts from diaries and letters of Lady Eleanor and Miss Ponsonby, I knew that the ladies had been visitors to the house, but because reading up on the house informed me that it had been a Jacobean creation that had been radically altered in 1808 whilst the ladies were resident at Plas Newydd. If I understand Lady Eleanor correctly, she would not have been shy about asking for unwanted decorative features if they became available. My introductory piece about Plas Newydd is here, and the full series of five posts can be found here (including this one).
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Brynkinalt

The Coflein description of Brynkinalt, is as follows:

Brynkinalt, with the new wing added in 1808

[T]his 1612 building now forms the central portion of the present brick built hall. The additions of 1808 include the single-storey wings on either side of the south front, which were further lengthened to include a billiard room and conservatory on either side. Two conservatories, now gone, were inserted into the south front between the cross wings. The west front was extended northwards to include an extensive service wing. All the extensions were castellated and the entire building was stuccoed. Work began in 1928 and stopped during the war to be taken up again in the 1950’s to reduce or remove the nineteenth century additions: the stucco was removed, except at the end of the east wing, and the large service wing which housed the kitchen at the rear was demolished except for the outer range which remains.

Brynkinallt consists of two principal floors with recessed bays, forward wings and a central porch. The doorway is has a Gothic pointed arch with a studded oak door and crest over, set below a label mould which rises to a string which extends between floors completely around the front elevation. The windows are ogee-moulded behind a chamfered surround, mullioned and transomed: 5-light to the porch chamber, 4-light to the ground floor of the wings, 3-light above and 3-light without transoms to the attics.

The interior is largely in a heavy Classical style. Of specific interest is a fine marble seventeenth century chimneypiece with a heraldic over-mantel with carvings. There is a great stair hall of 1808, with a gallery, Tuscan columns

The description gives something of a sense of how much Brynkinalt has changed since it was built in 1612. The Great Hall, for example, replaced a courtyard surrounded by some 50 rooms, so as large as it is, the house is now much more modest than it was originally.

Brynkinalt from the rear, showing some of the gothic-style lancet windows installed in around 1808

The exterior retains much of its Jacobean appearance, albeit with the addition of some Gothic-inspired elaborations. Removal of most of the 19th century external rendering has restored the splendid brickwork to view on the most visible parts of the house, although there is still much to be done at the rear, which gives a very good sense of the task that has already been undertaken. The interior has been radically remodelled, with only the oak-panelled hall providing a sense of the Jacobean house. Nearly all of the other Jacobean decorative arts and furnishings vanished due to Lady Charlotte’s re-imagining of Brynkinalt, and although the current interior is attractive and imaginative, it retains only pockets of its Jacobean heritage and it is not known what was done with the stripped-out Jacobean interior when those rooms were replaced.
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Links between the owners of the two houses

Anne Wellesley, Countess of Mornington, mother of Arthur Wellesley,who became the Duke of Wellington. Source: Wikipedia

The connections that tie these two houses together were very confusing at first. Family histories make my head spin, and not in an enjoyable way, but it was necessary to get to grips with the essentials. This was firstly because if the ladies were actively collecting when the house was being refurbished they might have benefitted from the unwanted decorative features and furnishings, and secondly because when Arthur Wellesely, the first Duke of Wellington, visited his grandmother Anne Hill-Trevor at Brynkinalt he also visited Eleanor and Sarah and, on at least one occasion, is said to have brought them decorative gifts.

The Viscountess Dungannon Anne Hill-Trevor (1715-1799), née Anne Stafford, wife of Arthur Hill-Trevor, the First Viscount of Dungannon (second creation, the first title having expired) lived at Brynkinalt and was partially responsible for introducing Lady Eleanor and Miss Ponsonby into local society, sharing both family and friends in Ireland with the two ladies. Anne’s daughter, also Anne (1742-1831), married the first Earl of Mornington, Garrett Welsley (1735-1781) with whom she had nine children, one of whom was Arthur Wellesley (1769-1852) who became the first Duke of Wellington. As mentioned above, Wellesley, before he was awarded his title, visited the ladies when on visits to his grandmother at Brynkinalt.

Dungannon (Brynkinalt) visits to Plas Newydd. Source: Early Tourists in Wales.

Dungannon (Brynkinalt) visits to Plas Newydd. Source: Copied from the Early Tourists in Wales website.

When the first Viscount died, Anne remained at Brynkinalt. Their only son having died, the title passed to one of their grandsons, who became the the second Viscount of Dungannon, another Arthur Hill-Trevor (1763-1837). It was his wife Charlotte (1763-1823) who initiated transformations of Brynkinalt, beginning in 1808, which removed much of the Jacobean architecture and interiors and added new kings featuring spacious rooms, large windows, tall ceilings, a plethora of ornamental columns and lightly coloured walls to replace dark panelling. Anne and Charlotte, between the date of Charlotte’s marriage (1795) and the first Viscountess Anne’s death (1799), were briefly contemporaries at Brynkinalt.

The diaries of Lady Eleanor report that even after Anne’s death in 1799 (the year that they received a gift of a cow from the estate, as well as venison and partridges sent with a messenger), visits to Brynkinalt continued. Elizabeth Mavor says that in 1805 “there were jaunts to Porkington, Brynkinalt [and] Aston,” and an earlier reference in the journal to playing cards at Brynkinalt suggest that they were still welcome visitors. Certainly in January 1805 they were at Brynkinalt when the journal provides a short account of meeting someone who had arrived in St Petersburg the day after the assassination of “Emperor Paul.” Other visits may well have coincided with the period in which Charlotte, the second Lady Dungannon (died 1823), was beginning to make her transformations in 1808. Mary Carryll, who had accompanied Lady Eleanor and Miss Ponsonby from Ireland as their servant and good friend, was on visiting terms with Lady Dungannon’s upper servants. The visits were probably less frequent, but there are clear indications that they continued, and Michael Freeman’s EArly Tourists in Wales website records that Lord and Lady Dungannon continued to visit the ladies at Plas Newydd.
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Direct contributions?

The removal of Jacobean features by Lady Charlotte probably included panelling, overmantels, doors, and furnishings that would not have fitted into her hybridized Neoclassical vision. Unwanted carvings and furnishings could have been snapped up by local dealers and salvage companies, and some of it may have been purchased by private collectors. As I have already mentioned above, if there were items going spare, it seems entirely likely that Lady Eleanor would not have been at all shy about asking for any unwanted decorative items.

Library window in Plas Newydd, with wyvern closely resembling that of Brynkinalt in the landing window at Brynkinalt at bottom left.

Sadly, in spite of the strong suggestion of the timings of Brynkinalt being remodelled as a fashionable country house over the period when Plas Newydd was becoming a showcase for earlier decorative arts, it is impossible, from the very few remaining pieces of Jacobean carving left at Brynkinalt to do anything more than speculate that some stripped-out pieces of Brynkinalt carving may now adorn the walls of Plas Newydd.

The stained glass, however, may be another story. Plas Newydd is stuffed with stained glass fragments that are patchworked together to fit particular spaces (I have written about the stained glass here, based on the survey by Mostyn Lewis). There is one tiny corner of Plas Newydd, a single quarry/tiny pane of glass that suggests that a piece of Brynkinalt stained glass has found its way to Plas Newydd (see photo above). In the Plas Newydd library there is a black wyvern (dragon with two legs) with a gold crown around its neck, standing on a red cushion, which had formerly been framed in a gold lozenge. This is such a good match for one at the top of the Great Hall staircase at Brynkinalt that it seems likely that the Plas Newydd fragment does derive, however it was acquired, from Brynkinalt. It would be interesting to see if there are other connections of this sort between the stained glass fragments at Plas Newydd and the surviving stained glass panes at Brynkinalt.
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Influence?

Strawberry Hill House, Twickenham. Source: Wikipedia

The absence of any formal research into any possible relationship between the two houses means that the evidence for direct influence is minimal at the moment, but the indirect influence in the form of the communication of ideas, could well be detected in Plas Newydd, and this lies in both the shape of the lancet windows and the stained glass.

When Plan Newydd is discussed, it is often in the same breath as Strawberry Hill in Twickenham, where Sir Hugh Walpole created an imaginative extravaganza to celebrate past styles, reinventing the Gothic to produce something that emulated architectural features but took a far more light-hearted, frivolous tone. The same comment was made on the Brynkinalt guided tour concerning the changes made by Charlotte, Viscountess of Dungannon. Lady Charlotte introduced Gothic-style window tracery in some rooms, arcading in the conservatory, castle-style turrets and crenellations, lending Gothic flourishes to a dominantly Neoclassical vision. Whether or not the Ladies ever saw images from Strawberry Hill is not clear at the moment. They had an a voracious appetite for experiencing the world vicariously via books and newspapers, so it is entirely possible. It is extremely likely, however, that they could have had first hand experience of the new Gothic windows and the other modifications at Brynkinalt.

Library side of the prismatic arch, Plas Newydd

The most obvious potential influence on the stained glass is the large window on a landing at the top of the stairs leading from the Great Hall to the gallery, in which the glass is arranged in a similar way to that in the bedrooms at Plas Newydd. There are also over-door panels of stained glass that would have been good models for the “prismatic arch” between the dining room and library at Plas Newydd.
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General Yorke and George Hunter Robertson

Although General Yorke owned Plas Newydd between 1876 and 1890 and George Robertson owned it between 1890 and 1910, and both contributed to the decorative features of the house, it seems unlikely that either were linked in any material way with Brynkinalt. Any connections are likely to have been purely sociable. General Yorke was a member of the Yorke’s of Erddig, another aristocratic family on the Wales-England borders, so there may have been polite connections. George Robertson was a wealthy cotton trader from Liverpool, an outsider to the area with no previous links to Llangollen or Chirk. Although he was an important resident in Llangollen, there is no sign of any synergy between the two houses. In short, there is no indication that Brynkinalt or its owners had contributed anything to Plas Newydd after the deaths of Anne Hill-Trevor and Charlotte Hill-Trevor.
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Final Comments

Closer view of the wyvern at Plas Newydd. Apologies for the poor quality of the image, which is partly behind a curtain and on the wrong side of a rope barrier.

It will require a far more detailed investigation than my quick visit to attempt to unravel whether the connections between the owners of the two houses resulted in the transfer of any of the decorative arts from Brynkinalt to Plas Newydd. At the moment the presence of any direct and indirect influences are purely speculative. It probably occurs to anyone reading this that the most obvious thing to do would be to contact the Brynkinalt office to see if they have any additional input on the subject. I did try, but received no reply, so if anyone else has anything to contribute on the subject, please do get in touch.

The visit to Brynkinalt was interesting in its own right, with a lovely exterior including a small formal garden that was meticulously manicured, and was showing splendid late summer colour. There are many treats in store for the visitor in the interior, but the feature that completely stole my heart was the tiny first floor stone-built conservatory overlooking the valley below, an extravaganza of floral bliss with arcades and pillars. The bougainvillea alone was wonderfully exotic. For movie enthusiasts, the house was the the setting for Lady Chatterley’s Lover, and the stories about how this happened and the steps required to make the house ready for filming are a real eye-opener. It was more than somewhat daunting to hear about the sheer amount of work and the corresponding costs associated with renovating and maintaining the building, and there is still much to be done, particularly to the exterior. It was a good couple of hours well spent, and I recommend one of their open days.
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Panel commemorating the 1808 alterations at Brynkinalt

Panel on the rear of the house commemorating the 1808 alterations at Brynkinalt

Sources

Books and papers

Mavor, Elizabeth 1971, 2011 (2nd edition). The Ladies of Llangollen. A Study in Romantic Friendship. Moonrise Press.

Mavor, Elizabeth 1984. Life with the Ladies of Llangollen. Viking (hardback).

Websites

Age of Revolution – Making the World Over 1775-1848
Wellington’s Places: Brynkinalt Hall. Some Welsh and Irish connections. By Dr. Mick Crumplin
ageofrevolution.org/themes/society/wellingtons-places/

Based In Churton
Splendid stained glass patchworks at Plas Newydd, Llangollen (Plas Newydd #2)
https://basedinchurton.co.uk/2025/05/16/spendid-stained-glass-patchworks-at-plas-newydd-llangollen/
Introduction to Plas Newydd in Llangollen: A packed extravaganza of the decorative arts (#1)
https://basedinchurton.co.uk/category/llangollen/plas-newydd-llangollen/

Brynkinalt
Home page
https://www.brynkinalt.co.uk/
(Brief details are also included in Brynkinalt advertising leaflets)

Coflein
Brynkinalt; Brynkinallt Hall; Bryncunallt, Chirk
https://coflein.gov.uk/en/site/26866

Early Tourists in Wales
The Ladies of Llangollen
https://sublimewales.wordpress.com/attractions/mansions-and-grounds/ladies-of-llangollen/
Descriptions of Plas Newydd and the Ladies of Llangollen
https://sublimewales.wordpress.com/attractions/mansions-and-grounds/ladies-of-llangollen/descriptions-of-plas-newydd-and-the-ladies-of-llangollen/
Visitors to Plas Newydd
https://sublimewales.wordpress.com/attractions/mansions-and-grounds/ladies-of-llangollen/visitors-to-plas-newydd/
Plas Newydd: List of Visitors, Alphabetical Order
https://sublimewales.wordpress.com/attractions/mansions-and-grounds/ladies-of-llangollen/visitors-to-plas-newydd/plas-newydd-list-of-visitors-alphabetical-order/

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A guided walk to learn about the distinctive architectural creativity of John Douglas in Chester

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John Douglas. A photograph that apparently first appeared in “Building News” in 1890. Source: Wikipedia

For those who are interested in local heritage, it is probably not possible to live in or near Chester without knowing the name of the architect John Douglas. John Douglas (1830-1911) was a prolific architect, working right at the end of the Victorian era but demonstrating a fundamental affiliation with Victorian architectural ideals. According to Chantal’s research, between the buildings he built and those that he renovated and adapted, he contributed to over 500 buildings in Britain. Not much is known about him, but he trained in Lancashire where a new middle class, rising in both wealth and influence, was creating an unprecedented demand for domestic, commercial and civic architecture. His are some of the most imaginative and and engaging of Chester’s Victorian buildings, providing the city with an important additional layer of interest and texture. He was also responsible for other local buildings at Eaton Hall (including Eccleston), Aldford and Port Sunlight, as well as many other UK locations. Although never bowing to the past in his architectural inventions, Douglas incorporated elements of Chester’s earlier architectural styles into his unique creations, remaining sensitive to the original city whilst leaving a highly distinctive and creative legacy of his own.

Grosvenor Park Street

Our guide on the Heritage Open Day walk was Chantal Bradburn, art historian and head of Outreach at the University of Chester, who had done such a splendid job several days previously, introducing a large group of us to the Western Command at the Churchill Building. Called “John Douglas in Chester,” this was a brand new walk, and a great idea to add it to the many events offered last week. Instead of taking us on a route-march of every building that Douglas built in Chester, Chantal selected a representative few, which both captured different aspects of his work and at the same time demonstrated an underlying thread between them all. By choosing a careful sample of Douglas’s total Chester output, she was able to impart far more knowledge about both Douglas and the individual buildings than if she had tried to include more, although she did finish up the tour with recommendations for other buildings to inspect nearby. As with her Churchill Building talk, and perhaps even more so, it is impossible to do any sort of justice to all the facts that she imparted, and particularly to do any justice at all to her ability to contextualise the architecture within its social and economic environment, as well as discussing it in art-historical terms, so this is just a short taster of a really great guided walk.

We started at the lodge in the Grosvenor Park, an obviously Victorian take on the Tudor half-timbered buildings that partly define Chester’s heritage, commissioned by the Grosvenor estate to provide a touch of additional elegance to the second Marquess of Westminster’s 1867 philanthropic donation of the land to create a park.

Grosvenor Park Lodge

The Grosvenor Park Lodge by John Douglas

Grosvenor Park Lodge from the rear

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Detail of carved woodwork on the Grosvenor Park Lodge: “Nobilitatis virtus non stemma character”

With Ruabon brick at its base and half-timbering at first floor level, it features sculptural elements and carvings that provide it with real charm. Douglas apparently thought it entirely appropriate to add a medieval-style sandstone extension to his building, which as Chantal pointed out, reflects the multi-period character of many of Chester’s buildings.

It became clear as we proceeded on the walk that this willingness to go with the flow of Chester architecture by echoing some of its variety and diversity, without ever trying to replicate it, was a key characteristic of Douglas’s approach. He always preferred local materials, and this too indicates a real wish to connect with Chester’s earlier architectural heritage. It’s great to see it being used as a café, providing a useful service on the edge of the park.

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Our next stop was just over the road, on Grosvenor Park Street. The 1872 Grade II* listed houses, numbers 6-11 on Grosvenor Park Street make up of a row of terraced houses and a Zion Chapel have long been a favourite of mine. Together they are a fabulous, wildly imaginative mixture of different elements all of Ruabon red brick, including gothic style features, turrets, and a dozen other twiddly bits. It is always wonderful to see how brick can be used to create elements that are more conventionally associated with stonework in this country. Whether the mullioned windows, some with original leading, let in a lot of light I doubt, but they are wonderfully ornamental. It was particularly interesting that Douglas built these houses on land that he owned, renting them out afterwards. He did not skimp on materials or architectural design in order to make a bigger profit. This set of buildings argues that he really cared about not only the quality of his own work, but about what he as an individual could contribute to Chester.FULL RUN HERE

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Perhaps one of his best known buildings in this part of extramural Chester is quite unlike either his lodge or his fantastic domestic extravaganza. However, as Chantal pointed out, the Chester Public Baths are still in proportion, a good fit with the domestic buildings in this part of Chester in spite of its being a public leisure facility. Chantal positioned the idea of swimming and the provision of a public baths in the social context of Victorian values and ideals, but made it clear that Douglas had put his own particular spin on the resulting building. Both practical and decorative, it is a very fine example of a building that is at once distinctively Victorian but also takes admired aspects from Chester’s past.

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Further down Bath Street, I would not have guessed at first sight that the Grade II listed buildings on the right were another Douglas innovation, but the signs are there when you pause to look more closely, and particularly when you have Chantal’s expertise to provide detailed knowledge and insights. Except for the building at the far south, nearest to the Baths, which is more typical of other Douglas buildings nearby, the main run of houses is built of buff sandstone, quite different in material, colour, and texture from other Douglas buildings and, for that matter, from anything else that I recall seeing in Chester. It dates to 1903, quite late in Douglas’s life, and perhaps this accounts for some of the distinctive features discussed by Chantal. There is an echo of the buildings on Grosvenor Park Street, but this has a much more monumental feeling to it and even with the decorative features and the short spires, seems less light-hearted and, in spite of the ornamental features, a little more monumental in feel.

If you follow the building all the way round the corner you will see that the houses link to a building built by Douglas to house Prudential Assurance. It’s name today, Lombard House, reflects a later use by the eponymous bank. To the left of the entrance, just around the corner, there is a charming female statue inset into a niche holding a snake and book. This is Prudence, one of the four cardinal virtues (the others being Justice, Fortitude and Temperance), adopted by Prudential Assurance as their emblem in 1848 for her qualities of foresight, intelligence, thoughtfulness and knowledge. Although more traditionally shown with a mirror representing self-awareness, a book is also part of her iconography, representing knowledge, wisdom and and good judgement.
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Our final stop for the day took in two architectural features, bringing us into the city within the walls – the wrought iron extravaganza that sits on top of the Georgian East Gate, with its splendid clock, and the former Grosvenor Club building immediately to its west. These both speak of late Victorian Chester’s ambition and its delight in ornament and display, giving an unmistakeably Victorian sparkle to this part of the city. Chantal gave us details about the clock that I hadn’t heard before concerning its construction, as well as an entertaining factoid about the date of construction, reminding me that it is very easy to become complacent about even such a dominant landmark. I had known nothing about the Grosvenor Club (including its name and purpose) so this too was a learning curve.

The Grosvenor Club

The Grosvenor Club on the right with the rest of Eastgate Street taken from the top of the East Gate bridge, under the clock.

When the tour was over, and Chantal had pointed us at other Douglas buildings in the vicinity so that we could investigate further on our own, she was still surrounded by a group of people asking many questions, and this had been the trend of the entire walk, with tons of information being imparted and lots of questions following. Keep an eye open for this walk being offered in the future. It’s a good one!

The nearby Parker’s Buildings

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Grosvenor Park Lodge detail

Thinking about John Douglas and his work over the following few days, and looking up other examples of his work, his buildings generally aim to provide an attractive environment of well-being, based on the idea that past and present reinforce one another in a very comfortable and attractive way. Although many of the John Douglas buildings were impressive, and some of them were intended to be imposing, others were homes along streets that made use of vernacular features both from Chester, with inspiration taken from European cities, and from the medieval period onwards. His preference for local materials is clearly demonstrated, and his love of decorative features is a real celebration of life. He took a modern approach to architecture, incorporating traditional styles into his new interpretive schemes, as well as Germanic and French ideas that gave his work a rather more cosmopolitan edge than other architecture in the city, and in doing so added real value to Chester. The best of the Victorian architecture of Chester simply oozes a sense of excitement and self-confidence about their lived present and their anticipated future, and John Douglas reflects this unfurling era with real exuberance. His contributions to places like wealthy Eccleston and Aldford are also attractive, but perhaps Douglas is at his most appealing when contributing to Port Sunlight, the village built in the late 1880s by Lord Lever for his factory workers, contributing his skills with around 30 other architects, to create a very different type of community. It must have been a real pleasure to live in one of his remarkable houses. It is very nice to see that the ones that I have found to date seem to be very well maintained. It is only a shame that subsequent architectural projects in Chester have only occasionally managed to live up to both his high standards and his creativity.

“Cheshire’s Archives: A Story Shared.” Great to learn about the new Cheshire Archives, opening next year

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The Cheshire Archives building in Chester. Source: Cheshire Archives: A Story Shared

On Wednesday 17th September, as part of Heritage Open Day, Paul Newman from the Cheshire Archives and Tim Brown from the architectural firm Ellis Williams, explained to a well-attended audience at the Grosvenor Museum how the new archive project had been rolled out and what we can expect next year when the new Chester building opens. I am dying to get my hands on the Cheshire Lunatic Asylum records that they hold, having already written a long screed about the asylum between 1854 and 1870 (across four posts here), so I was attending the event with a real sense of anticipation.

The Cheshire Archives, which since 1986 have been located in Duke St in Chester, closed in 2022, having won a Lottery grant to build two brand new buildings. The former Duke Street premises of the Archives were in a set of lovely Victorian buildings, which were once warehouses of the legendary Browns Department Store, but the Archives were beginning to outgrow them. The archive collections go back to the mid 12th century, and continue to be added today, representing different aspects of community life, working and domestic, at different periods. As its role became more important, the Archive outgrew the building, with boxes that would reach 8km if laid end to end, and it had a number of environmental issues as well as providing less than ideal facilities for both staff and researchers. Targets to reach a larger and more diverse audience were difficult, and it became clear that a move was the only realistic solution.

The new Crewe Cheshire Archives building. Source: Cheshire’s Archive: A Story Shared

An initial investment of National Lottery money to explore the project in 2020 was successful, and a full National Lottery Fund grant was subsequently allocated, with work began in earnest in 2022. The locations in Crewe and Chester will spread the collection between east and west sides of Cheshire to provide accessible storage for the archive collections in conditions that are much more favourable. Outreach programmes will be more viable, reaching a much wider audience of different ages and backgrounds. Digital access will be much improved, with new ways to access local collections and historical data, including a postcode search and community-selected highlights referred to as “Gems.” At the same time, the salt mines in Winsford will continue to store other records, which are available to order to either location with a one-week turnaround. A permanent exhibition will be set up, and exhibition spaces will eventually be available for those using the archives. The new offices will open in 2026, and the project will continue as a measuring and monitoring exercise into 2027.

Location of the site on Lightfoot Street. Source: Cheshire West and Chester

The architectural firm Ellis Williams, who had undertaken the ambitious and successful conversion of Chester’s Story House, was appointed to develop both of the new buildings. Interestingly, although they have many of the same internal features, their appearance is very dissimilar. Both have very modern appearances, but each has been adapted to its own immediate neighbourhood. Initial design ideas were more radical, but certainly in the Chester case the emphasis soon shifted towards meeting planning requirements for some degree of continuity between the proposed new building and the surrounding architectural context and local character. Documents detailing some of the plans can be found here: https://www.cheshirestoryshared.org/home/the-plan

The new archive building in Chester will be located on the mainly residential Lightfoot Street, which runs along the railway line behind the Chester railway station. This has created some challenges in terms of accessibility, and the Council were unwilling to sell the entire site, so parking is confined to 35 spaces.

A low wall with indented panels on Chester Lightfoot Street, which separates the archive site from the road. Source: Google Maps.

The site is divided from the road by a low wall with indented sections, and it was a planning requirement that this should be preserved. The idea here is to knock through some of the indented panels, whilst leaving others in tact, replacing those that are to be knocked through with wrought iron artwork, so that the Archive site is visible through the panels, creating a linkage between both sides of the wall. There is a slight slope of around 2.5m downhill from the road level, which requires stairs and slopes to enable ease of access. Parking will include spaces for school coaches and there will be a loading bay at the rear. The shape of the building itself will echo the twin-gabled shape of railway sheds and platform roofs, but is super-modern in design, and it will feature an “active frontage,” a term that refers to the integration of the building with the street onto which it faces. Work began in 2017.

Inside, the two-storey Chester building will be split between a public-facing space on the ground floor and a more staff-orientated space on the first floor. It will total 3000 sq ft (c.270 sq m). The ground floor foyer, which although north-facing should be light-filled, will be an exhibition space, and will include a theatre area with movable walls, lighting and seating, to ensure maximum flexibility. A help desk will be located at the rear. The research rooms will have desks for research, with a total of six computers available at any one time (most people apparently bring their own kit) and there will also be a chill-out area. The first floor will include, with archive storage in rolling racks, offices and meeting rooms. Energy considerations have been factored in, making best possible use of the available technologies, and various levels of security and fire-safety measures are part of the overall plans.

The foundations have been established and work is underway on the lower level brickwork, whilst a steel frame and roof have also been erected. Archaeologists from Oxford Archaeology had been given time to carry out an assessment, but found very little of interest beyond sundry 19th century railway features. The resulting report can be found here.

The archives will probably be open for a 5-day week. I should have asked whether this was Monday to Friday, or whether a weekend day would also be included, but it did not occur to me at the time. I am really looking forward to visiting the new Cheshire Archives building when it opens in late summer 2026, and experimenting with some of their upcoming digital services. In the meantime there is a website showcasing some of the Archive’s activities at Cheshire’s Archives: A Story Shared.

Thanks very much to Paul Newman and Tim Brown for not only delivering a terrifically informative presentation but for answering the numerous audience questions.

A revealing talk and guided tour: The Churchill Building and the Western Command 1937 – Today

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The Churchill Building portico dates from 1997, but the original Neo-Georgian military Western Command building can be seen behind it.

The portico dates from 1997, but the original Neo-Georgian military Western Command building can be seen behind it.

With many thanks to Chantal Bradburn for an excellent lecture in the Churchill Building in the University of Chester’s Queen’s Campus. Chantal is the University’s Outreach representative, with a strong background in art history and a particular interest in architecture in its social context. Her talk, entitled “Western Command (Churchill Building),” covered the design and original purpose of the building as the headquarters of the Western Command, including the fascinating underground bunkers, and the building’s subsequent phases of use. The presentation and the subsequent walk around the building’s exterior brought the Western Command to life. Chantal’s ability to convey an impression of the building as it was in military times, based partly on her research and partly on feedback from people who have attended the talk or contacted her over the years, was of critical importance, because the interior had been completely re-envisioned in grandiose style by the subsequent bank, and converted once again in more pragmatic terms into the University of Chester’s Business School. Only the exterior retains the essential character of the Western Command building.

The eastern wing of the Western Command (Churchill Building) gives a good impression of how the building appeared when it was first built

The building, then known as Capital House, was completed in around 1938, almost certainly in response to the threat of war. Neo-Georgian is not my favourite of the various architectural experiments in Chester. I have grumbled on and off about the Wheeler Building on the blog for years, and there are a number of more modest buildings dotting the streets of the historic city whose architects seem to believe that slapping some symmetrical rectangular windows into plain blocks of undifferentiated brickwork will do the trick nicely, completely missing the point of refined elegance and delicate embellishments that characterized Georgian harmonies. On the other hand, as Chantal pointed out, at least in the case of the Churchill Building there are good reasons for this style, which is better than most of its siblings, relating not merely to the practicalities of budget constraints for such a large building.

The eastern entrance to the Churchill Building with subtle nods to Art Deco

The importance of establishing a dignified military presence referenced the power and prestige of the city’s Georgian predecessors, which were themselves influenced by Classical architecture, whilst some low-key features nod to both the medieval military past and, in an even more subtle way, other contemporary styles. I would not have noticed these had Chantal not pointed them out. Although the subsequent Northwest Securities bank slapped a gigantic Classical-style portico on the front, the original building consisted of flat-roofed blocks that provided an impressive frontage, which relies for its impact on the size of its footprint rather than the height of its two-storey walls. Chantal pointed out that the position of the building was strategically very fine, with its views over the river and the city beyond, only matched in its vantage points by the site chosen for the castle.

As the northwest HQ for intelligence on what was quite literally Britain’s western front during the war, the personnel serving in the Western Command building had a critical role not only leading up to and during the war, but for a surprising amount of time after it. Chantal told us a great many stories about the role of the building and the people who worked there, highlighting the complexities that different levels of security caused for both employees and contractors, and emphasizing the degree of secrecy that was associated with the activities that took place within the Churchill Building.

Bunkers excavated into the sandstone at the Churchill Building. Source: 28DaysLater

To the east of the building, up-river, the remarkable and extensive underground bunkers were built to provide shelter and a command centre should it become necessary, both during and after the Second World War. They extend from the level of the building down towards the river. It is reputed that Churchill, who is known to have visited the building, may have met there with President Dwight D. Eisenhower and General Charles de Gaulle. No documentation supports this view, but there are apparently anecdotal accounts that support the possibility. The bunkers are now too dangerous to visit (see a photograph of a point of collapse on the 28DaysLater website). The sandstone through which former miners in the army excavated to create the bunkers is sponge-like, attracting damp that is not helping with the stability of the underground structures. Chantal showed photographs and explained past survey work and future plans (dependent as always on funding).

The building passed to the Royal Army Pay Corps in 1972, and from 1972 it was taken over as offices for a banking corporation. The presentation took place in a huge room with an enormous table, all very glossy and highly polished, and heavily influence by Art Deco designs. This was part of the bank’s improbable legacy. It is quite staggering how the bank took over a military building and turned it into an extrovert and financially corrosive expression of self-indulgent excess. Where these details have survived, the legacy is huge fun, but quite mad. The bank’s vast portico, converting the Neo-Georgian blocks into a pseudo Classical temple, is equally pretentious. I am very fond of the University, having had a great time doing some post-graduate research there a couple of years back, but it really does seem to have saddled itself with buildings that for all their scale and practicality are amongst the least aesthetically charming of the various Cestrian styles. In their favour, the University does make the most of them.

The opening of the Churchill Building by John Spencer Churchill (centre in grey suit), when it became part of the University of Chester in October 2015. Source: Cheshire Live

It is interesting to note that in the case of both military base and commercial bank, the building was off-limits to the public, not only physically but visually. The arrangement of buildings at the time meant that the view through the gates, then in a different position, blocked any view of the heart of the complex. It has been particularly interesting for local people who have lived in the area for a number of decades to have access to the building at last, and to be able to see what was so long hidden from view, perhaps particularly when family members and friends worked there.

The building had been out of use for a decade when the University took it over in 2015 to make it the centre for their Business School, with most of the building adapted to this task with the usual collection of teaching, research and computer rooms, areas for socializing and a café. Wisely, the decision was made to preserve some of the more elaborate flourishes of the bank’s idea of good taste, and there are some distinctly New York style decorative features in the foyer. More to the point, the building’s foundation stone and its frame, appropriately made of carved stone rather than the less expensive brick, has been preserved and is now installed above the reception desk as a very welcome piece of the building’s material heritage. The exterior, now sporting a leaded dormer roof, still retains the essence of its stern and uncompromising military purpose, but its survival first as a bank and then as a major component of a university campus is a testimony to its durability.

It is impossible to do justice to Chantal’s talk, which was stuffed full of information. Chantal does these talks quite frequently, and I do recommend that you keep an eye open for her next ones, because she provides a vivid insight into a world that is not normally associated with Chester, and which was clearly a very important part of the city’s social and economic profile from the 1930s onwards. More than any other talk that I have attended since moving to the area, this is the one that surprised me most, and left me with a new set of insights into Chester’s less publicized wartime and post-war history. Splendid.

On this page:

Introduction

Who was St Giles?

Medieval Wrexham

A brief history

The Gothic church

The 17th century and Civil War

The 18th Century

The 19th and 20th-21st Centuries – restoration and adaptation

Highlights of a visit to the church

Final Comments

Visiting Details

Sources:

Leaflets available at the church

Books, booklets and papers

Websites

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Introduction

St Winefride and St Beuno

The Spring that feeds St Winefride’s Well

The History of the Well

Hugh Lupus and the Abbey of St Werburgh

Transfer of ownership: Basingwerk Abbey and subsequent transfers

Promoting the interests of the Holywell shrine

The role of the well in the Middle Ages

Visitors and patrons in the Middle Ages

The late Gothic chapels

The patrons of the new chapels

The concept

Lower Chapel

Upper Chapel

The Dissolution of the Monasteries

After Henry VIII

Final Comments

Visiting

Sources

Books and Papers

Websites

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“A face like a Buckley panmug”

Bridge, J.S., no.6, p.2

Sources:

Books and papers

Websites

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Saint Chad, 1st Bishop of Lichfield

The Medieval Church

John Speed, Tailor and Mapmaker

The Civil War

The 17th Century Rebuild

18th, 19th and early 20th century alterations

The Churchyard

Final Comments

Sources:

Books and papers

Websites

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Introduction

Brynkinalt

Links between the owners of the two houses

Direct contributions?

Influence?

General Yorke and George Hunter Robertson

Final Comments

Sources

Books and papers

Websites

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