Wrexham

Wrexham

Wrexham (pronounced 'recsam', and in Welsh spelt Wrecsam) is a town and county borough in Wales. It is in the border region with England, and was traditionally part of Denbighshire, although some of the area of the borough was formerly part of Flintshire.

The borough has a population of 130,000 inhabitants, and the town itself, some 40,000, making it the largest settlement in North Wales.

Wrexham's newspapers include The Wrexham Mail and The Wrexham Evening Leader, and radio stations MFM 103.4 and Classic Gold Marcher broadcast to the town.

It has a football team, Wrexham F.C which competes in the Football League. It also serves as the secondary home of the Llanelli Scarlets, one of the five Welsh professional rugby sides that compete in the Celtic League.

Wrexham was the also one of the most industrial areas in Wales, it had Brickworks, Steelworks, and many coal mines, all these are now however closed. The result of all these industries have left their mark, as the Wrexham area had a very large and complex network of railways, with the Main Branch being the Wrexham and Minera Branch, which supported the steel works, The largest village (Coedpoeth) and the Minera Limeworks. When the network was torn up in the 1960's (and the Minera Branch in the early 1970's) Wrexham began a period of Depression, first the many coal mines closed,then the Brickworks and other industries and finally the Steelworks (which had its own railway branch up until closure) in the 1980's. Wrexham was stuck, people wanted to move and sell their homes but no-one wanted a house where there was no work.

It was in the 1980's and 1990's that the WDA (Welsh Development Agency) stepped in to improve the situation; they funded a major dual carriageway bypassing Wrexham and connecting it with Chester and Shrewsbury, which had connections with other big cities, it funded shops and reclaimed lots of spoil left from the coal mines. One still exists today. McDonalds, Game, Burger King, KFC, BHS and other major shops came to Wrexham and people were employed again, but the biggest breakthrough was the Wrexham Industrial Estate which manufactures many products, Kellogs makes cereal there. The dual carriageway was expanded halfway to the Estate in 2003, and is expected to reach it by 2006.

Now Wrexham is the biggest settlement in North Wales and has been nominated for city status several times, so far unsuccessfully. The WDA can withdraw funds from supporting Wrexham but now it is now prosperous enough to support itself.

United Kingdom | Wales | Principal areas of Wales
Anglesey | Blaenau Gwent | Bridgend | Caerphilly | Cardiff | Carmarthenshire | Ceredigion | Conwy | Denbighshire | Flintshire | Gwynedd | Merthyr Tydfil | Newport | Monmouthshire | Neath Port Talbot | Pembrokeshire | Powys | Rhondda Cynon Taff | Swansea | Torfaen | Vale of Glamorgan | Wrexham