Exhibition Categories: Gallery Three

From the first shirt you owned as a child to the latest club or national team replica, football fans love football shirts.

Many are now considered design classics, some less so. But they all have a place in the game and a story to tell. Shirt Stories provides a glimpse into the history of the Welsh game…and a destination for football shirt lovers everywhere.

From the first shirt you owned as a child to the latest club or national team replica, football fans love football shirts. Many are now considered design classics, some less so. But they all have a place in the game and a story to tell. Shirt Stories provides a glimpse into the history of the Welsh game…and a destination for football shirt lovers everywhere.

Shirt Stories tells the history of Welsh football through selected shirts held in the Welsh Football Collection and loans from private individuals. The selection highlights the story of both men’s and women’s football, at national and club level. Timed to coincide with the build-up to the World Cup in Qatar, the exhibition includes:

• A shirt worn by Alan Harrington in the 1958 World Cup qualifiers.
• A shirt from Wales’s only previous appearance in a World Cup finals in 1958.
• Wales shirts from the 2022 qualifying campaign.
• A shirt worn in the first official Welsh women’s international played in 1993.
• and retro shirts from the top Welsh teams: Wrexham, Cardiff City, Swansea City & Newport County.

The exhibition is now open to the public and admission is free
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Wrexham Museum is open Mondays – Fridays 10am – 4.30pm and Saturdays 11am – 3.30pm.

Find out more about the Football Museum for Wales Project

Plans are now progressing to build a brand new Football Museum for Wales alongside a fully revamped Wrexham Museum on Regent Street.

The new ‘museum of two halves’ is going to be a major new national attraction for Wrexham City Centre, celebrating Welsh football, past and present, in all its diversity, alongside an enhanced, first-class venue for discovering the fascinating and eventful story of our region of north-east Wales.

Find out more here.

July 17th 2021 sees the opening of Hidden Holt: The Story of a Roman Site, the first new exhibition at Wrexham Museum since the end of lockdown.

The title, Hidden Holt, is a reference to the nationally important Roman site hidden beneath the surface of the fields to the north-west of the popular border village.

The village of Holt has long celebrated its links with the Roman Empire and the village was once referred to as ‘Castle Lyons’, which was thought to derive from an older name meaning castle or camp of the legions.

The exhibition reveals the story of how this once lost Roman site was re-discovered in the early 20th century and excavated in the years prior to the First World War. The exhibition showcases the many finds from these excavations, most of which have not been displayed in north-east Wales for over a century.

A great year for Roman heritage in Wrexham

Hidden Holt is a joint project between Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales, Holt Local History Society, Wrexham Glyndwr University and Wrexham Museum.

Dr Kath Davies, Director of Collections and Research, Amgueddfa Cymru, said, “We’re proud of our commitment to making the national collections as widely available as possible. The finds from the excavation were acquired by the national museum nearly a century ago and will now be forming the core of this important exhibition at Wrexham.”

Sue Payne, chair of Holt Local History Society said “Holt Local History Society was formed in 1992 and currently has 100 members. Ever since then we have been keen to find out more about Holt’s history – in particular the Roman Tile and Pottery works excavated in 1907-15. The society commissioned a Geophysical Survey and report by ASW (Archaeology Survey West) in 2018. We then visited the National Museum Wales, Cardiff and St Fagan’s to view that excavation’s finds, which were donated to Cardiff in 1925.

“We are delighted that this has led to Wrexham Museum’s plan to hold a major exhibition, which tells the story of the excavation, and displays some 80 objects which have not been seen in north Wales since 1925. We have been pleased to have been extensively involved in its preparation.”

Councillor Hugh Jones, Wrexham Council’s Lead Member for Communities, Partnerships, Public Protection and Community Safety, said: “2021 is turning out to be Wrexham’s Year of Roman Heritage: the Rossett Roman Lead Pig is on display at the British Museum in London, plans are afoot for an excavation this autumn into a villa site also found near Rossett, and the Hidden Holt exhibition has provided a chance for a local history group to work with their local museum, their local university and Amgueddfa Cymru-National Museum Wales to create a special exhibition on our most important Roman site bringing Holt’s Roman collections home for the first time in a hundred years.

“We are incredibly lucky to have seen so many exciting Roman discoveries unearthed right on our doorstep here in Wrexham. I would urge everyone to visit the exhibition and take advantage of the opportunity to see this remarkable collection in up close.”

Some highlights to look out for

The exhibition includes:

• The Esclusham Hoard – a treasure trove of amazing Roman coins found near Wrexham and on display in the town for the first time ever.
• A video presentation on Hidden Holt produced by students at Wrexham Glyndŵr University involving drone footage and colourized images of the 1907–15 excavation thanks to the skills and hard work of a small group of young graphic designers.
• Children’s trail and gallery activities
• Roman Holt selfie stand for those who would like to record their visit to Wrexham Museum
• Two forecourt events on July 24th and August 21st in collaboration with Roman Tours and Park In The Past.

Holt’s Roman site will also be the subject of one of the talks at the Festival of British Archaeology Wales on July 29th which is being organized by Amgueddfa Cymru-National Museum Wales and the four Welsh regional archaeological trusts.

Hidden Holt is on show from July 17th until January 29th 2022.

From February 17th 2020

Wrexham Museum’s latest exhibition, Back To School, chronicles how school locally has changed over the past two centuries through memories, mementos, archives and old photographs.

It’s a celebration of one of those life stages we all pass through – the best days of our lives, the prison from which we longed to escape, the start of lifelong friendships and the source of fond memories and funny stories – with larger than life teachers who inspired our imagination or drove us to prove them wrong.

The exhibition includes:

• Historic artefacts and archival material connected to local schools from the past two hundred years, both from the museum collection and loans from members of the community
• A series of oral history recordings about life as a teacher and as a pupil at St David’s, Cartrefle, Grove Park Boys, Grove Park Girls, the board schools and the first Welsh medium schools.
• A presentation made up of the many school photographs brought in during the museum’s photo appeal sessions in Wrexham, Chirk, Ruabon, Brynteg and Overton.
• Children’s activity trail including a Do-it-Yourself Board School ‘Drill’ exercise. Beat the flab! Suitable for adults too.

Over the next few months, visitors to the exhibition will be able to enjoy the many school memories that are being gathered and recorded by the volunteers at Calon FM’s oral history project, School Days: Stories from the Schoolyard. The recordings will form the basis of six programmes on Wrexham’s school history. Staff at the museum are still recruiting volunteers to help this project.

The exhibition opened on February 17th and runs until March 5th 2021.
For more information, call 01978 297 460 or follow the museum on facebook.