Bus Trip to Wrexham

We discovered that a half hourly bus service runs between Llangollen and Wrexham, very much the principal place in this part of Wales. As we have never been to the city before (it was designated a city only in 2022, by the way) we thought we would take a look - the weather forecast was not brilliant anyway.

We caught the 10:15 service from the bottom of the hill below the wharf which took us initially through several places associated with the canal although we only saw the canal for a short part early on. The bus route passes by the entrance to the main Pontcsycyllte visitor car park and then on through Trevor. Cefn-Mawr and Ruabon follow. We noticed that most of the main housing development as along the route was probably built in the 1960's or 70's, dense and not especially well laid out. 

After a short section of rural scenery around Pentre Bychan we started to see the outskirts of Wrexham. Although a lot of the housing was older - unremitting dark red brick - it seemed to have had the same lack of inspiration. The terrace houses along the main road had minimal front gardens, nowhere even to park a car, whilst the houses on the side streets competed for the modest amount of on street parking. Difficult to see how EV charging at home is going to be installed around here.

Eventually the bus arrived at the bus station, on the northern edge of the main shop)ping area. We meandered (well actually walked slowly along a straight street!) and were struck by the style and content of almost all of the shops. No high end fashion or valued goods on offer here. There were almost as many phone repair shops as ones selling new ones! Although there was a sprinkling of vacant premises, most were trading, if somewhat slowly even on a Saturday.

We hunted for some time for a place to have a good cup of coffee until we came across the cafe run by Hope Street Anglican church which was rather smarter than those we had let pass. The mainly young people serving here seemed very cheerful sorts.

From there is was a short walk to St Giles Church, a large Tudor building, the main church for the town/city.

Entering the church we were struck by how dark it seemed although it became easier as our eyes adjusted to the light level. Most of the windows have stained glass of various ages and qualities.

The North Aisle is a chapel dedicated to the former Royal Welsh Fusiliers who at one time had a large barracks in the Hightown area to the south of the centre. 

One of the windows here was originally installed in St John the baptist Church near the barracks but when that church was demolished in 1988, the window, said to be from he Burne Jones studio, was transferred here. Two windows further on is the most recent to be created.

The church is visible all along the approach from Hope Street but there only one place where it may be possible to get a better view of both nave and tower in one picture - but that involves standing in the middle of a dual carriageway (see Wikipedia . . .)

We then explored more of the shopping area - but found little to inspire. In the end we went back to Hope Street Church for a good sausage and cheese toastie - elsewhere everything seemed to be chips with something.

Wrexham developed considerable wealth through industrialisation, especially coal and heavy metal works but as all of this came to an end, the town was left bereft like many other places in the industrialised UK. Entering the 1970's, the area was especially depressed but then quite a bit of public money was allocated in an attempt to restore the local economy. As was popular at the time, much of the money went into rebuilding the retail area - alas the style is now  very dated and lacking kin any architectural merit. It did not even benefit from any over-riding planning concept, each individual retail development quite unrelated to its neighbours.

Almost the only building that caught the eye in a positive way is at the top of Hope Street.

The Co-Op next to the bus station was where we intended to pick up some larder refills but again it was a bit limited. We also found that we had just missed the 14:00 bus by one minute. At least this gaver Christine a chance to get herself a Magnum (chocolate ice cream).

Back in Llangollen we continued to the end of the route so that we could see if we could find a tempting cake or two in the specialist bakers shops before the steep climb back to the moorings.