Gallery 2 - Wrexham Heritage

As part of the ‘Treasures on Tour’ programme, the British Library is lending three objects with particular relevance to Wrexham and north-east Wales.

Wrexham Museum’s latest exhibition, Putting Wrexham On The Map, is inspired by these highly important historic items from the British Library’s collections:

The earliest accurate map of the Wrexham area – a map of the counties of Denbighshire and Flintshire produced by Christopher Saxton in 1577 and bound in the personal atlas of William Cecil, the 1st Lord Burghley, secretary of state to Queen Elizabeth I.
The important survey by John Norden of the lands of the prince of Wales, written in 1620, and containing the earliest surviving detailed illustration of Holt Castle
A tax collector’s/ An antiquarian’s notebook, once the property of Sion Gruffydd (John Griffiths) of Ruabon, dated to the late 17th century.

All three manuscripts are examples of how Wrexham was surveyed in centuries past and how the town and the surrounding district was represented on maps.

With this in mind, the exhibition explores the other ways through which Wrexham has become wider known: its football club, Wrexham FC; its brewing tradition, symbolized most notably in Wrexham Lager; its heavy industry such as iron and coal, the inventions and the hardships; the women of Wrexham who have ensured Wrexham has played its part in national events; and how the arts and culture have in recent years helped to transform the town’s reputation.

The exhibition also includes:

Archival promotional film footage of Wrexham in the 1980s produced by Wrexham Community Video for Wrexham Maelor Borough Council
A specially commissioned mini-documentary by Ryan Saunders and Chloe Goodwin on how the arts and culture are changing attitudes to Wrexham
Two ‘Our Wrexham’ films, recorded during the pandemic about the importance of Wrexham FC and Women’s education in Wrexham.
and some activities for adults and children inspired by the maps theme: adults (and children) are challenged to create their own map of Wrexham, while younger visitors can also take on the ‘signs’ challenge.

Putting Wrexham On The Map opens on Saturday, May 28th and runs until Saturday, August 27th 2022. Admission is free.

From 8.11.2019

Wrexham marked Remembrance Sunday and Armistice Day 2019 with a new exhibition at Wrexham County Borough Museum & Archives: Forgotten Wars: The Royal Welch Fusiliers Around The World 1850 – 1970.

Over the past five years, the main focus of commemorations has been the First World War, but over the centuries the Royal Welch Fusiliers, who recruited heavily across north Wales and were based in Wrexham, were called on to fight in conflicts around the globe. Soldiers from north Wales served in Africa, the Americas, Asia and Europe.

Many of these wars have become footnotes in history books, their monuments on our streets and in our churches often overlooked, even forgotten. However, these wars are well-remembered in other countries and this exhibition highlights this global history that is part of Wrexham’s and Wales’s history.

Highlights of the exhibition include:

Campaign medals from the Crimean War, the Boer War and the 1900 International Expedition to Peking
A letter about Florence Nightingale
Traditional weapons from the North-West Frontier province of the Indian Empire
An Other Ranks’ British Army Uniform from the 19th century
A Chinese communist guerrilla cap from the Malaya Emergency.
A sketchbook from the deployment in Bosnia-Herzegovina

The exhibition opened on November 8th 2019 and will run until summer 2021. Admission is free.