Maelor Saesneg

Topography

Maelor Saesneg forms part of the morainic lowlands in the northern borderlands, extending from north Shropshire to southern Cheshire, lying between about 10 and 100m above Ordnance Datum. Topographically, it can be subdivided into a number of distinct landscape types – the floodplain and lowlands bordering the River Dee to the north and north-west, the gently undulating central area dissected by minor stream valleys, the more deeply incised valley of the Wych Brook along the northern edge of the area, and finally the extensive raised bog of Fenn’s Moss on the border with Shropshire to the south-east.

Geology

The underlying solid geology is Triassic New Red Sandstone, composed of relatively soft red-stained sandstones and marls. Much of the area of overlain by glacial till derived from glacial sandy and clayey glacial till of northern or Irish Sea origin.

Soils

Soils and hydrology have both had a significant impact upon land-use potential of different parts of the historic landscape area. The flat floodplain of the Dee to the north of Worthenbury is subject to periodic flooding and waterlogging and has gleyed alluvial soils suited to permanent grassland. On the river terrace bordering the Dee to the north and south of Bangor and to the west of Overton are areas of well-drained silty brown alluvial soils and loamy brown earths suited to grassland and arable in areas where flood risk is low. A similar narrow band of deep brown earth is to be found just to the west of Horseman’s Green. Most of the rest of the area is covered with seasonally waterlogged and slow draining fine loamy soils and clayey soils, characteristic of glacial tills in the region, that are suited to short-term and permanent grassland and arable in drier areas.

Rivers, streams, meres and bogs

Most of the area of Maelor Saesneg is drained by streams running to the north and west which feed the River Dee which delimits the western side of the area. Towards the west is the Mill Brook which rises south of Lightwood Green, skirts the eastern side of Bangor Is-y-coed, and joins the Dee near Dongray Hall. Much of the central part of Maelor Saesneg is drained by a series of streams which rise along the southern boundary of the area near Penley and towards the eastern margins near Iscoyd Park which join near Halghton and run northwards as the Emral Brook. At Worthenbury the Emral Brook is joined by a the Wych Brook which rises as the Red Brook near Fenn’s Moss, at the south-eastern corner of Maelor Saeseng, the two streams mark the national boundary between England and Wales. The Emral Brook and Wych Brook run northwards from Worthenbury as the Worthenbury Brook, which join the River Dee just to the west of Shocklach Green, Cheshire. The south-western part of the area is drained by watercourses draining into the Shell Brook, again marking the national boundary, which joins the Dee just above Erbistock. The south-eastern corner of the area, to the south of Fenn’s Moss is drained by streams which feed into the River Roden in Shropshire.

Studies of river meanders in the Dee valley have shown that the River Dee occupied a position close to its present location shortly after the last glaciation, in the process cutting down into the underlying glacial till and creating various landforms and sediments including at least two river terraces and leaving a discontinuous complex of abandoned river channels, meander cut-offs and oxbow lakes. Archaeological and sedimentary evidence suggests that the course of the river has been relatively stable since later prehistoric or Roman times, with many of the meander cut-offs being infilled during the medieval period and with evidence of increasing management of flow regulation since about 1700.

Vegetation history

Something of the post-glacial vegetation history of Maelor Saesneg is known as a result of pollen studies undertaken on the peats of Fenn’s Moss in the south-eastern corner of the area, the late post-glacial site at Chelford in the Cheshire basin, and from studies of abandoned river meanders of the River Dee in the area between Worthenbury and Holt. As yet, there is little detailed evidence of the history of vegetation change and land-use history from pollen studies for later prehistoric and more recent periods, though study of old river meanders near Worthenbury suggests that the natural vegetation, possibly from the later prehistoric period, was of open oak and hazel woodland on the drier surrounding areas with areas of damper alder or willow carr woodland adjacent to the floodplain or in adjacent valleys, with sporadic occurrences of lime, elm and holly, with some localised areas of heathland close to the site suggested by heather and ling. Arable and pastoral agriculture became important in the land surrounding the Dee floodplain. Cereal cultivation included possibly wheat and barley but also oats, the latter being typical of Romano-British and later periods. Hemp pollen also identified, probably cultivated for fibre used in rope making, probably before the beginning of the 18th century.

Woodland

Today, residual natural broadleaved woodland or replanted ancient woodland is largely confined to more steeply-sloping ground along the banks and old river terraces of the Dee, along stream valleys south of Lightwood Green and Halghton, along the Red Brook near Iscoyd Park and Wych Brook to the east of Tallarn Green and in the area around Bettisfield Park, south of Hanmer. Small plantations occur here and there, with more extensive broadleaved and coniferous plantations on the heathland around the fringes of Fenn’s Moss in the south-east corner of the area.

As noted above, pollen evidence suggests that the earlier natural vegetation, possibly from the later prehistoric period, was of open oak and hazel woodland on the drier surrounding areas with areas of damper alder/willow carr woodland adjacent to the floodplain or in adjacent valley. Both Welsh and English place-names indicate the presence of more extensive natural woodland in the past, especially along the southern and north-eastern boundaries of the area. Many of the sources are relatively late, but some most probably date back to the early medieval period, in perhaps the 7th or 8th centuries. Anglo-Saxon place-names which probably indicate clearings in the woodland include that of Lightwood Green from Old English leoht ‘bright, light’, and the name Penley derived from the name Penda and Old English leah ‘wood or clearing’, which is also present locally in the Welsh form Llannerch Panna, ‘Penda’s clearing’. The place-name Musley, to the west of Lightwood, possibly also contains the element leah. The Domesday survey of 1086 records an extensive area of woodland at Bettisfield, three leagues by two leagues across wide, an area of almost 7 kilometres by 5 kilometres across (a league generally being reckoned to be about one and a half miles). Woodland is also signified in both elements of the Welsh name Bangor Is-y-coed, bangor meaning ‘wattle enclosure’ with the suffix is-coed , ‘below the wood’, to distinguish it from the occurrence of the place-name bangor elsewhere in Wales.

Woodland clearance no doubt continued apace during the medieval period from initial clearings as the ancient woodland resources were exploited for fuel and building materials as well as assarting to satisfy a need for more farmland. In a bid to encourage English settlers to occupy the new Edwardian borough of Overton, for example, would-be inhabitants in 1293 were offered free timber for building, timber continuing to be a the principal building material in the area until brick became more commonly available from the later 17th century onwards. Few records of felling have survived in Maelor Saesneg during this period, but there are records of extensive areas of native woodland being felled in the Northwood area of north Shropshire, just to the south of Penley, between the later 15th and early 17th centuries, leaving the patchwork of residual woodland that is still visible in this area today. The area of in the neighbourhood of Threapwood on the northern boundary Maelor Saesneg, had evidently been more heavily wooded in the past, its name significantly containing the Middle English element threpen, giving the meaning ‘disputed or debatable wood’, which significantly spanned the border between traditionally Welsh and English territories, which was to retain a reputation as a lawless, extra-parochial territory until well into the 18th century. Thomas Pennant in his Tour in Wales published in 1784 made particular mention of the ‘venerable oaks, the remains of the ancient forest’ near Threapwood. The presence of woodland in this area has left a notable legacy of farm names including the English ‘wood’ or the Welsh celli ‘grove’ including Wood Farm, Middle Wood Farm, Upper Wood Farm, The Gelli, Gelli Farm, and The Woodlands.

English or Welsh woodland names were given to farmsteads elsewhere, as in the case of Althrey Woodhouse, south of Bangor, Argoed (Welsh ‘forest edge’), north of Overton, both on the banks of the Dee, and Plas yn Coed (‘forest mansion’) to the north of Lightwood Green, establishments which were probably all in existence by the end of the 17th century, a time by which the ancient woodland had probably been more or less reduced to the remnants which survive at the present day.

A number of lanes of probable medieval origin have English names identifying particular tree of bush species, such at Holly Bush Lane and Birch Lane. A number of later farms and houses likewise have English names identifying particular wild or cultivated species, including Holly Bush Farm, Oak Farm, Broad Oak Farm, Yew Tree Farm, Cherrytree Farm, Peartree Farm, and The Elms, of which Oak Farm and Peartree farmhouses are an early 17th-century timber-framed buildings, Peartree Farm and Holly Bush Farm significantly superseding earlier moated manor house sites.

Historical perceptions of the Maelor Saesneg landscape

Descriptions and illustrations of the landscape of Maelor Saesneg first appear in the late 18th and early 19th centuries and though mostly concerned with the picturesque views along the Dee near Bangor Is-y-coed and Overton Bridge provide some indications of land-use which probably post-date the major change from arable to pastoral farming in many parts of the area which appears to have occurred during the late medieval and early post-medieval periods. Speaking of Bangor Is-y-coed, Samuel Lewis describes ‘The adjacent scenery in many places is beautiful and richly picturesque, the noble sweeps of the Dee being frequently overshadowed by thick hanging woods, which fringe its elevated bank’, whilst his description of Overton Bridge introduces contemporary perceptions of land-use and potential:

‘The surrounding scenery is beautifully picturesque, being composed of a great diversity of features in pleasing combination and agreeable contrast. From a ridge near the village is seen, on one side, an extensive plain of verdant meadows, enlivened by the windings of the River Dee, skirted in front by fertile and richly wooded slopes’.

Thomas Pennant, in the late 18th century, makes reference to the remnants of ancient woodland to be seen in the Threapwood area, and also provides the following description of the Hanmer area:

‘the part about the little town of Hanmer is extremely beautiful; varied with a lake of fifty acres, bounded on all sides with small cultivated eminences, embellished with woods’.

Pennant draws special attention to the area around Willington Cross, to the south of Tallarn Green, noting that the country ‘which hitherto had been uncommonly wet and dirty, now changes to a sandy soil; and becomes broken into small rising’. Lewis similarly draws attention to differences in land-use in the description of the area around Worthenbury:

‘The soil of the higher grounds is in general good loamy clay, producing superior crops of wheat and rich pasturage; that in the lower grounds, which is subject to partial floods from the river and some tributary brooks which intersect it, is formed of alluvial earth’.

Secular boundaries

Little is known of the early administrative framework of the area, though it is assumed that Maelor Saesneg fell within the Iron Age and subsequent tribal territory of the Cornovii. This is thought to have loosely corresponded with boundaries of the post-Roman kingdom of Powys, which as noted below may have extended into the Cheshire plain to a point perhaps midway between Whitchurch and Chester.

Though little is known of the early medieval history of Maelor Saesneg it must be assumed that the commote of Maelor and its religious focus on the banks of the Dee at Bangor Is-y-coed had become established as a thriving community by at least the late 6th century. Certainly, the leader of the religious community at Bangor, St Dunawd, had considerable status in the contemporary British church, and led a delegation of bishops and other learned men of the British Church to a meeting in 603 with St Augustine, in his ultimately unsuccessful mission to establish the authority of the Roman church over the native church in Britain.

The early boundaries of the kingdom of Powys are uncertain, but they had almost certainly once extended well into the Shropshire and Cheshire plains. From at least the early 7th century these attractive lowlands along the Dee and extending into the Cheshire Plain came under increasing pressure especially from the expanding Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia to the east and south-east. A degree of cooperation had evidently developed between the native British kingdoms and Mercia at this time, at least in the face of a common enemy, and indeed Bangor Is-y-coed was to figure in the earliest documented event of the 7th century in the West Midlands. At the battle of Chester, about 616, Aethelfrith, king of the Anglian kingdom of Northumbria defeated British forces said by Bede to include monks from the monastery of Bangor led by Brocmail (Brochfael), of the royal house of Powys, who some sources say was accompanied by Selyf, son of Cynan. Both leaders appear to have belonged to the Cadelling, a royal dynasty which appears to have ruled over territories in north-east Wales and Chester in the 9th century. The slaughter of a considerable number of British monks at this battle was justified according to Bede, by the recent rejection by the British Church of Augustine’s mission to establish the supremacy of the Roman Church.

The subsequent capture of the whole of the Cheshire plain by Aethelfrith’s successor, Edwin of Northumbria, was perhaps undertaken with the ambition of also annexing the kingdom of Powys. Though relatively short-lived, this action was to prefigure one of the most momentous events in the history of the native kingdoms of the Cymru. Supremacy over the Cheshire plain was to be disputed by Northumbria and Mercia for some years to come, Cadwallon of Gwynedd and Penda of Mercia joining forces at one stage to defeat Edwin. Yet, ultimately, the British kingdoms of Wales were to be cut off once and for all, from those of Cumbria. Political and military power over the region was to become consolidated by Mercia during the course of the second half of the 8th century during the reign of first of Aethelbald and then of Offa, the latter styled ‘king of the English’. The construction of Wat’s and Offa’s Dykes before the end of the 8th centuries was to wrest control of Maelor Saesneg from Powys and extend Anglo-Saxon power to an area well to the west of the Dee for several centuries to come. Place-name evidence indicates the establishment of a scattering of Mercian settlements throughout the area during the course of probably at least the 8th to early 11th centuries, if not earlier.

The impact on these settlements of the Danish wars of the 9th and 10th centuries is unknown, though the place-name of Croxton, to the east of Horseman’s Green, might betray Norse influence. The name of Worthenbury, containing the Old English element burh (‘stronghold’), may signify a defensive structure of some kind.

At the time of the Norman Conquest in 1066 much of the land to the east of Offa’s Dyke along in the northern borderland fell within the Cheshire hundreds of Exestan and Dudestan, the latter (later known as Broxton) including the area of Maelor Saesneg and assessed for tax (hidated). Manors listed in the Domesday survey of 1086 identifies lands at Worthenbury (Hurdingberie), Bettisfield (Bedesfeld) and Iscoyd (identified as Burwardestone), as being held by Edwin, the Saxon earl of Mercia at the time of the conquest in 1066. Domesday also records claims by the church of lost holdings in Bedesfeld and Burwardestone, some of which has been lost as long ago as the reign of King Cnut (1016-35), which has suggested that the existence of pre-Conquest multiple estates covering a significant proportion of Maelor Saesneg, divided between the church and earl Edwin.

Following the Norman conquest these lands formed part of the marcher lordship of Chester held by Earl Hugh of Avranches, one of King William’s principal lieutenants, probably with the intention of providing a base for campaigns against the neighbouring Welsh kingdoms, the new lordship said to have been settled by ‘a youthful band of warriors in search of adventure and fortunes’ at this period. The manors of Hurdingberie, Bedesfeld and Burwardestone, together with extensive lands in the adjacent area of Cheshire were made over to Robert FitzHugh, one of Earl Hugh’s principal tenants and probably of Norman origin. The pattern of these holdings, which formed a compact block in the southern half of the Domesday hundred of Dudestan, appears to reflect a multiple estate confiscated from Robert’s predecessor, the Saxon earl Edwin, possibly taken over with a minimum of administrative disruption.

Robert FitzHugh became a prominent baron in Earl Hugh’s wars against the Welsh, and despite the relatively small number of earth and timber castles that have been identified in the area, the military and strategic nature of Robert’s holdings in south-west Cheshire and Maelor Saesneg is emphasised by the presence of the significant number of unnamed knights (milites) which the Domesday survey suggests had been granted land in the area in return for military service. These include three in Bettisfield, two in Burwardestone, and one in Worthenbury, who undoubtedly formed the upper echelon of tenants in the district. Other newcomers to the area included three unnamed Frenchmen (francigenae) at Worthenbury, who probably occupied a higher social status than the local peasant population.

Little is known of the cultural or linguistic make-up Maelor Saesneg at the time of the Domesday survey, though later history suggests that, as perhaps in the pre-Conquest period, it may have continued to accommodate numerous Welsh landholders. Domesday lists various serfs, villains, bordars, oxmen and radmen, the only possible reference to a specifically Welsh underclass being the three ‘other men’ listed at Bettisfield.

Though annexed by the Anglo-Norman marcher lordship of Chester, the north-eastern boundaries of Wales were still to be a subject of dispute by the kingdom of Powys in the late 11th century. A period of relative tolerance developed between the kingdom of Powys and the English of the borderland developed during the reign of Henry I in the earlier 12th century, turmoil during the reign of Stephen in the years leading up to the middle of the 12th century providing the opportunity for Powys to extend its eastern boundaries into Cheshire and Shropshire into lands it had held before the Conquest, the commote of Maelor (to become known as the lordship of Bromfield, lying on both the western and eastern banks of the Dee) being reabsorbed into the Welsh kingdom at that period. Despite an occasional raid, such as that by the earl of Chester on Maelor in 1177, the territory was to remain in Welsh hands for over a century.

A number of factors were to curtail the freedom and independence of Powys during the 13th century. Its geographical position made it vulnerable to annexation at various times by the expansionist kingdoms of Gwynedd to the west and of England to the east. The sheer size of the kingdom – described by the court poet Gwalchmai as extending ‘from the summit of Pumlumon to the gates of Chester, from Bangor Is-coed to the forested fringes of Meirionydd’ – had tested the reins of native government during the 12th century, the Welsh custom of partible inheritance gave rise to a number of separate small and ineffectual native lordships during the course of the 13th century. Maelor Saesneg, with its relatively rich and productive farmlands bordering the Dee and few natural barriers to east or west, was clearly prized by both parties.

On the death of Madog ap Maredudd in 1160 the kingdom of Powys was split into two, the northern part of the kingdom, inherited by his son Gruffudd Maelor, becoming known as Powys Fadog after Gruffudd’s son, Madog. The territory known as Maelor Saesneg (‘English Maelor’), first recorded in a charter of 1202, became divorced from Maelor Gymraeg or (‘Welsh Maelor’) on the west bank of the Dee by separate lordship grants. Gruffudd Maelor, who inherited Maelor Saesneg on Madog’s death in 1236, entered fully into Anglo-Welsh society, marrying Emma Audley, the daughter of a prominent Shropshire family, and yet remained subject to the power of the kingdom of Gwynedd, especially under its new leader, Llywelyn ap Gruffudd. Something of the character of borderland society at this time is given by the provisions that Gruffudd Maelor was to make for his widow in a charter approved by Llywelyn. Emma would inherit Maelor Saesneg, contrary to the normal dower provisions of Welsh law, but the territory was to revert to Welsh lordship upon her death.

In the event, Llywelyn dispossessed Emma of these dower lands following Gruffudd’s death, because of her allegiance to the English Crown. Following campaigns against Llywelyn in 1276-77 Edward I endeavoured to extend his control over Maelor Saesneg, Welsh control of the territory being finally surrendered following the conquest of Wales by Edward in 1282-83, when Maelor Saesneg was seized by the English Crown. By the Statute of Wales of 1284 the various royal estates in north-east Wales – neighbouring Tegeingl (Englefield) and Hopedale, and the isolated territory of Maelor Saesneg – were amalgamated into the new county of Flint, placed under the wide-ranging military, administrative and judicial powers of the chief justice of Chester, remaining in the personal possession of the crown. In 1286 Edward I granted Maelor Saesneg to his queen, Eleanor.

The common Welsh place-name elements llan and tref are both almost entirely absent in Maelor Saesneg, suggesting that the area was more or less entirely administered according to the English manorial system, though the occurrence of Welsh field-names and land measures in early documents betrays a continuing Welsh-speaking element in the population. Manors known to have existed at one time or another within Maelor Saesneg include Worthenbury, Bettisfield, Iscoyd, and probably Gredington recorded in the Domesday survey, as noted above, and Hanmer and Overton recorded in later sources. The townships at the time of the tithe survey in the 19th century, in part deriving from the decay of the medieval manorial system comprised the single township parishes of Bangor Is-y-coed and Worthenbury, the three townships of Overton Villa, Overton Foreign and Knolton in the parish of Overton, Penley township in the parish of Ellesmere (Shropshire), Iscoyd township in the parish of Malpas (Shropshire), and Wallington, Halghton, Tybroughton, Bronington, Hanmer and Bettisfield townships in the parish of Hanmer. Despite the absence of township divisions within Worthenbury, the parish included the four hamlets of Mulsford, Broughton, Ywern and Willington, in addition to the parochial village.

In 1309 the lordship was granted to Queen Isabella, consort of Edward II, but when the king seized it in the late 1320s the commote was granted to Ebulo Lestrange. In 1397 Richard II added the county of Flint to his palatinate of Chester and form the new principality of Chester. The territory remained in the personal possession of the crown until the Acts of Union of 1536 and 1542-43, in the reign of Henry VIII, when it formally became absorbed within kingdom of England and Wales, generally sharing a single administrative and legal framework. The creation of Denbighshire from the abolished marcher lordships in north-east Wales cemented the isolation of Maelor Saesneg hundred from the rest of Flintshire, becoming known in the modern period as the rural ‘Flintshire Detached’, for which the medieval borough of Overton became the centre of administration.

As a result of local government reorganisation in 1974 the area became absorbed within the district of Wrexham Maelor in the newly-created county of Clwyd. In the course of further local government reorganisation in 1996 Maelor Saesneg became part of the new unitary authority of Wrexham County Borough Council. The lowest tier of civil administration at the present-day is represented by community councils, of which the following fall within Maelor Saesneg: Bangor Is-y-coed, Overton, Willington Worthenbury, Hanmer, Maelor South, and Bronington.

Ecclesiastical boundaries

The early monastic clas church at Bangor Is-y-coed, named Bancornaburg by Bede, appears to have been the focus of an extensive ecclesiastical district corresponding with the early Welsh commote of Maelor, comparable with the association between the minster churches and hundreds in the neighbouring Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, both probably being staffed by a body of secular priests entitled to various dues. The church had been in existence since at least the late 6th century, its leader Dunawd (anglicised to Dinoot, Dinoth) having sufficient status within the British church to lead the of bishops and other learned men to the conference with St Augustine in 603, noted above, which perhaps took place at Bangor itself. There are many indications of British Christianity in the area and it seems likely that British churches preceded some local Anglo-Saxon ones, particularly in west Cheshire, and that there was therefore a degree of continuity between in ecclesiastical organization and settlement between the late British and early Saxon periods

The extent of the early medieval ecclesiastical district belonging to Bangor in the pre-Conquest period is mirrored by the distribution of townships belonging to the parish as late as the early 19th century, comprising those of Bangor Is-y-coed and Is-coed in Flintshire (in Maelor Saesneg) to the east of the Dee, and by four Denbighshire townships of Eyton, Royton, Pickhill and Sesswick (in the former Maelor Gymraeg) to the west, having formerly also included the parishes of Overton and Worthenbury which had once been dependent chapelries of Bangor Is-y-coed. The eastern part of Maelor Saesneg appears to have formed part of a similarly extensive ecclesiastical district centred on the early church dedicated to St Oswald at Malpas, Cheshire, whose medieval parish included the township of Iscoyd to the north-east and whose deanery towards the end of the 13th century included the parish of Hanmer. Penley, on the south-west side of Maelor Saesneg, was a township and chapelry within the medieval parish of Ellesmere, Shropshire. The only priest in Maelor Saesneg mentioned in the Domesday survey, however, is one with an endowment of land in the manor of Bettisfield (Bedesfeld), one of the townships of the ancient parish of Hanmer and probably signifying the existence of St Chad’s church at Hanmer itself by that date.

By the Conquest period Maelor Saesneg lay within the diocese of Lichfield, a position it occupied apart from a the period between 1075-95 when it belonged to the short-lived diocese of Chester, until 1541 when it was transferred to the new diocese of Chester. Worthenbury, whose chapel is mentioned as early as 1388, was created a separate parish by act of parliament in the second half of the 17th century. Overton, whose church was probably in existence from the beginning of the 1280s, when the planted borough became established, only became a separate parish in 1867.

A number of new parishes were created due to an expanding rural population and the rise in Nonconformism during the course of the 19th century. The new parish of Bronington (sometimes referred to as New Fenns) was created out of the parish of Hanmer in 1836 and the new parish of Bettisfield was likewise created from the parish of Hanmer in 1879, though the new church built at Willington in 1873 remained a part of the parish of Hanmer.

In 1849 the parishes of Bangor Is-y-coed, Bettisfield, Bronington, Hanmer, Overton, and Worthenbury were transferred from the English diocese of Chester to the Welsh diocese of St Asaph.

During the course of the first half of the 19th century there was a notable growth in the number of nonconformist places of worship throughout Maelor Saesneg and particularly in the Denominations with dates of erection of chapels are as follows: Welsh Calvinistic Methodist chapels at Crabtree Green (1814); Independent or Congregationalist chapels at Bangor Is-y-coed (1838); Primitive Methodist chapels at Overton (1816), Cloy (1832); Penley Preaching House (not used exclusively for worship); Bettisfield Mill House (c. 1845); Bethel Chapel, Hanmer (1850); Willington (1845); Wesleyan Chapel, Overton (1816); Bronington Chequer Wesleyan Chapel (1822); Horseman’s Green Chapel (1841); Wesleyan Association meeting places without separate buildings in Bangor township (1850); Independent Dissenter meeting house in Bettisfield.

Prehistoric and Roman Settlement

Environmental evidence from Fenn’s Moss and elsewhere is lacking in specific detail about the precise dating and extent of forest clearance and cultivation in Maelor Saesneg and there is little other evidence of early settlement during the prehistoric and Roman periods. This may reflect a genuine absence of early settlement in the area, but might alternatively be a reflection of later land use. Intensive arable cultivation and the creation of ridge and furrow in certain areas during the medieval period will have tended to erode any earthwork evidence of early settlement. The subsequent conversion of much of the medieval ploughlands to grassland in the post-medieval period will have reduced the opportunities for the recovery of chance finds from field surfaces and will also have created unfavourable conditions for the recovery of cropmark evidence by aerial photography.

Late Neolithic or Bronze Age activity, perhaps in the period between about 2500-1200 BC is represented by a number of burial mounds, including a single mound at Bryn Rossett (Hanmer) to the east of Horseman’s Green, a pair of large mounds within about a hundred metres of each other just to the north of Whitewell (Bronington) and a loosely defined group of three mounds to the west of Iscoyd Park (Bronington) at Warren Tump, Crossfield, and Waenreef Farm. One of the two barrows at Whitewell was dug into in the late 19th century when a probably Bronze Age cinerary urn was found with fragments of human burial. It seems probable that the burial mounds were associated with local farming communities at this period, though no contemporary settlement sites have been found. It is perhaps significant that most of the known sites lie on land that may have been enclosed at a relatively late date, and may therefore have survived because they escaped intensive ploughing during the medieval period. The only prehistoric chance find from the area is a Middle Bronze Age bronze axe of a type known as a palstave found near Iscoyd Hall. A similar palstave was found in Whixall Moss, across the border in Shropshire, embedded in a pine stump, and perhaps significantly indicating early clearance.

Little certain evidence has been forthcoming of later prehistoric settlement or Roman settlement though possible rectangular and subrectangular enclosure sites of these periods may be represented by cropmark evidence recorded by aerial photography near Pigeon House (Hanmer), south-west of Horseman’s Green, and on Blackhurst Farm, Bettisfield (Maelor South). Iron Age settlement is perhaps indicated by the earthwork remains of a double bank and ditch defending a slight promontary of less than a hectare in Gwernheylod Wood (Overton) overlooking the banks of the Dee. Roman activity is represented by a single coin of early to mid 2nd-century date at Cloy House (Bangor Is-y-coed) and eight coins of late 3rd and early 4th century date from Eglwys Cross (Hanmer) but the nature or extent of settlements in the area at this date is speculative.

Early medieval settlement

Settlement in at least part of the area in the late 6th century is indicated by the early medieval clas at Bangor Is-y-coed, a major regional centre of learning, evangelising and education, sited on a river bluff next to one of the important strategic crossing points across the River Dee. The place-name has as its root the Welsh word bangor, meaning ‘wattled enclosure’, and though one of the few ancient British place-names surviving in Maelor Saesneg is first known from Bede’s History of the English Church and People written in the early 8th century referring to it as the monastery called in the ‘lingua Anglorum Bancornaburg’, and elsewhere as Bancor. Nothing is known about the form or extent of this important establishment though it appears to have been a complex institution, probably generously endowed with land, housing monks, bishops and learned men, perhaps forming the focus of a dispersed rural community in the surrounding countryside, characteristic of early Welsh settlement patterns. The size of the community is open to speculation, possibly numbering hundreds rather than the thousands mentioned by Bede, many of whom were slaughtered at the battle of Chester in about 616, as noted above. There is some uncertainty whether the institution recovered from this massacre, though it was evidently to retain some significance as an ecclesiastical centre until well into the Middle Ages even though it appears not to have formed significant centre of population until more recent centuries. The omission of Bangor’s name from the Domesday survey of 1086 does not necessarily mean that a settlement had ceased to exist by that date, but it perhaps implies that it had no significant administrative functions. The location of the early settlement at Bangor is uncertain though the local topography has been significantly altered by subsequent changes in the course of the Dee, recent studies of the river meanders suggesting that the river channel has only stabilised along its present course in about the last three centuries.

Maelor Saesneg together with the neighbouring border counties of Cheshire and Shropshire appears to have been fully integrated within the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia by the mid 8th century at the latest. By the later 8th century it fell well within the boundaries of the kingdom demarcated by Offa’s Dyke, up to 10km to the west of the Dee. Though many of Maelor Saesneg’s historic place-names are first recorded in relatively late sources between the 13th and late 17th centuries it appears that many of those with English place-name elements probably represent settlements of one form or another dating to the 8th to 10th centuries, providing important evidence of the settlement history of the area. The Old English place-name elements -tun or ingtun are found in Bronington, Broughton, Gredington, Halghton, Knolton, Overton, Tybroughton, Willington, Wallington. Some of the names appear to describe the local landscape: Halghton possibly includes the element healh (‘corner of land’), perhaps the angle between two local streams; Overton, possibly derived from ofer tun (‘bank’), probably describing the old river bank next to the present village; Knolton, perhaps from cnoll tun (‘knoll’); and Broughton, possibly including the element broc (‘brook’), though in each case the absence of early forms of the name makes more certain interpretation impossible. A number of names appear to be of mixed English and Welsh origin, as in the case of Brynhovah which is probably derived from the Welsh bryn (‘hill’) and the Old English ofer (‘bank’).

The nature of these early settlements is open to question. The place-name elements have a potentially broad range of meanings associated with settlement, such as ‘enclosure’, ‘farmstead’ and ‘estate, village’, though it is perhaps significant that none formed the focus of medieval ecclesiastical parishes and only two are associated with nucleated settlements of any size, neither of which probably owe their origin to the Saxon period. Overton was an Edwardian planted town of the 13th century which simply adopted the name of a pre-existing manor, and the present-day settlement at Bronington has the appearance of a relatively late ‘green’ settlement.

A number of other place-name elements in Maelor Saseneg probably have Saxon origins. As noted above, Penley and Musley include the Old English element -leah (‘wood, clearing in a wood’). The Old English element -feld (‘field’) appears in earlier forms of Bettisfield. Wolvesacre may derive from the personal name Wulf, which is known in Old English sources. Hanmer, though first documented in the 13th century, is thought to derive from the Old English personal name Hagena, meaning ‘Hagena’s pool’, in reference to the natural lake at here. Many other natural features such as streams (Wych Brook, Millbrook, Emral Brook, Cumbers Brook, Red Brook, Shell Brook), bogs (Cranberry Moss, Fenn’s Moss, Cadney Moss), and pools (Croxton Pool) are English in origin, though the name of Llyn Bedydd, east of Hanmer, derives from the Welsh llyn (‘lake’) and bedydd (‘christening, baptismal’), though the antiquity of the name is unclear.

Of the Saxon place-names noted above only Bettisfield and the lost manor of Burwardestone appear in the Domesday Book of 1086. A number came to form townships whilst others became small hamlets or became area names and it seems likely that as Saxon settlements they represented little more than individual holdings or small clusters of holdings within larger estates, though nothing is known of these settlements apart from this place-name evidence. These early settlements are quite widely dispersed throughout Maelor Saesneg with the exception of the area around Fenn’s Moss, spaced at distances of about 2.5km from each other. It appears to be significant that most of these settlements fall within areas of former arable agriculture, represented either by ridge and furrow or by strip fields (see also section on agriculture below).

Possible evidence of settlements of the 10th century is provided by two further place-names, noted above, the place-name Croxton, just to the east of Horseman’s Green, which may be derived from an Old Norse root meaning ‘crook, bend’, and Worthenbury whose name seems to be derived from a compound of wordig and burh, the former element with meanings encompassing ‘enclosure, yard, homestead’ and the latter element meaning ‘stronghold’. Again there is little evidence apart from the place-name evidence, although possible traces of defensive outworks have been identified to the east of Worthenbury which may form part of a defensive structure.

Medieval settlement

A more detailed picture of settlement in the 11th century emerges from the Domesday survey of 1086 which also provides in some instances details dating back to the years before the Norman conquest in 1066. The relatively small number of manors in Maelor Saesneg which are listed in the survey, indicating settlement of some form or another, are Bettisfield (Bedesfeld), Worthenbury (Hurdingberie), Burwardestone, specific reference also being made in Domesday to farmland at Bettisfield, presumably associated with settlement, earlier in the 11th century, held during the reign of King Cnut (1016-35). Each of these three manors were said to have been ‘waste’ at the time of the conquest, but there is no clear indication of whether this was a condition of long standing or whether or not it was the result of hostilities by possibly Welsh or Norman action. It seems improbable that the Domesday survey provides a reliable guide to the extent of settlement during the later 11th century, however, and there is every likelihood that numerous other contemporary settlements were omitted from the survey for one reason or another. The general picture which emerges from the Domesday survey, however, is that Maelor Saesneg, in common with the neighbouring areas of Cheshire and Shropshire, was relatively poor and sparsely populated at this period in comparison with other areas of southern and midland England at this date, possibly still with extensive areas of native woodland surviving.

Many elements of the modern settlement pattern in Maelor Saesneg, appear to have their origin the Middle Ages, similar in many respects to neighbouring areas of Cheshire and Shropshire, which have shared a similar topography and farming economy. Distinctive elements in this diverse pattern, quite distinct from those to be found in many other areas of Wales, include large villages, moated halls, and parishes with only a few large farms, occasionally clustered in small hamlets.

Origins of towns and villages

Four medieval nucleated settlements are to be found in Maelor Saesneg, and though the history and origins of these settlements were probably quite distinct they each appear to have been ecclesiastical and in some instances manorial centres from an early date. Bangor, Worthenbury and Overton are lowland villages of ancient origin, bordering the lowlands of the Dee, with a similar location to a number of Cheshire villages further downstream, the siting of both Bangor and Overton owing something to the strategic crossing points across the river, as noted above. The siting of Hanmer, next to Hanmer Mere, has a similar location to Ellesmere and Colemere in north Shropshire, whose origin was probably related to the resources provided by this sizeable natural lake which extends to over 17 hectares.

Bangor Is-y-coed is a village of many names, being known variously as Bangor Dunawd (after St Dunawd), Bangor Monachorum (‘Bangor of the monks’), and Bangor-on-Dee, the suffixes in each case added to distinguish it from the cathedral city of Bangor, Caernarvonshire. The form Bangor Isycoed (‘Bangor below the wood’) is first recorded by Lhwyd in the late 17th century. As noted above, the settlement had become a flourishing monastic centre of the British church probably by at least the late 6th century with a self-sufficient community to be numbered perhaps in hundreds. The nature of the settlement which housed this community is quite unknown, and though it is likely to have suffered a severe setback at the battle of Chester in about 616 when numerous of its adherents were massacred. It has remained in existence as a parochial centre perhaps continuously ever since, though as a settlement it appears to have remained relatively small throughout the Middle Ages and failing to attract manorial or other civil administrative functions. Bangor Is-y-coed is omitted from the Domesday survey, but this should not be taken to imply that there was no settlement or church here in the 11th century. Something of the social structure of the church community in the early 14th century is indicated by two heraldic grave slabs of about 1300, both with swords and checky patterned shields, perhaps to be associated with the English family of the Warennes, earls of Surrey and lords of Bromfield and Iâl, though perhaps significantly there are no later, medieval, high-status slabs or effigies and none indicating the graves of prominent ecclesiastics.

Worthenbury (Welsh Gwrthymp) likewise appears to have its origins in the early medieval period, and may possibly have formed a small nucleated settlement from the early 10th century onwards when, as noted above, it may have formed a Mercian stronghold. In the 11th century it formed the focus of a non-parochial manor held by the Norman baron, Robert FitzHugh. Again the form of the settlement is unclear, though something of the nature its social structure is given by the Domesday survey, which lists one serf, three villeins, three Frenchmen, one radman, a new mill (presumably with a miller), a knight with an undefined number of men, of which it can perhaps be assumed that some if not all lived in a nucleated settlement in the area of the present village, on level ground on a low spur on the eastern edge of the Dee floodplain. Worthenbury was to remain a chapelry, first mentioned in 1388, within the parish of Bangor Is-y-coed until the late 17th century.

Overton has again been known by several names — Overton Madoc (after Madog ap Meredudd, to distinguish it from Overton in Cheshire) and by its Welsh forms, Awrtun, Owrtyn and Owrtyn Fadog. As noted above, place-name evidence that Overton originated as a Saxon settlement of some kind in perhaps the 8th or 9th century. The settlement lies on flat ground close to an old river scarp above the Dee, its name, first recorded in 1201, being derived from the Old English place-name elements ofer tun (‘tun on the bank’). The settlement is unmentioned in the Domesday survey of the later 11th century though by the earlier 12th century, following the reabsorption of Maelor Saesneg into the kingdom of Powys, it had evidently become an important Welsh manorial centre, a castle being built here by Madog ap Meredudd, ruler of Powys, in about 1138. The site of the castle is unknown but it possibly lay 2 kilometres away from the town, close to the Dee in the Asney area. Whether a reliable witness or not, Leland in the 1530s noted that ‘one part … yet remaineth the Residew is in the bottom of Dee’. The only surviving castle in Maelor Saesneg, Mount Cop, near Eglwys Cross (Hanmer) is just under 50 metres in diameter and with no certain traces of a bailey, is prominently sited near the point where the road from Whit church forks to either Bangor Is-y-coed and Overton. The castle appears to have no recorded historical associations, but probably belongs to the late 11th to early 13th century, and like the now missing Overton castle, would have been accompanied by a timber fortification.

Overton had become an important manorial centre forming part of the estate of Gruffudd Maelor, the Welsh ruler of northern Powys by the early 13th century, the Welsh form of the name, Awrtun, perhaps significantly being first recorded at about this period. A market was established within the manor at Overton in 1279, shortly after Edward I’s earlier campaigns against Llywelyn ap Gruffudd and from this time and perhaps especially following the Edwardian conquest in 1282-83 the present-day nucleated settlement with its grid-like pattern of streets expanded around the medieval marketplace occupying the broader part of High Street, to the north of the church. In 1286 Edward granted Maelor Saesneg to Queen Eleanor, who had commissioned glass windows for ‘the queen’s chapel at Overton’, perhaps the earliest reference made to the present church of St Mary. Overton’s future as an important regional administrative centre for centuries to come was assured by the borough status conferred upon it by royal charter in 1292, at which time the town’s population included fifty-six taxpayers, the boundaries of the borough probably being those of the former parish of Overton. Like many other planted boroughs created in Wales by Edward, English settlers were encouraged to settle, Reginald de Grey, the chief justice of Chester being ordered to go there in 1293 to arrange for the remaining plots to be disposed of, with offers of free timber and land, and exempt from the payment of rents for the first ten years of residence. During the uprising led by Madog ap Llywelyn in 1294, partly in protest at the loss of rights and increases of rents endured by the Welsh tenants of the manor, resentment was expressed by the burning down of the manor, the seat of royal bailiff, and the place where the manorial court was held, which may have either been within the town or at the site of the lost castle. Although a grant of murage was awarded to the town in 1300 it is perhaps unlikely that a start was ever made on the construction of town defences. By the early 14th century some relatively well-to-do Welsh families were occupying the town, however, as witnessed by the sepulchral slab of c. 1300 commemorating Angharad, wife of Einion, within St Mary’s Church. In 1331 it was granted with other lands in Maelor to Ebola Estrange of Knockin, Shropshire, brother-in-law of Llywelyn ap Madog, son of the last Welsh ruler of Maelor Saesneg and probable steward of the lordship at this date. The town was damaged to such an extent during the revolt of Owain Glyndŵr in 1403 that it was abandoned by its English inhabitants. The consequences of this devastation were evidently long lasting, its population level still evidently having failed to recover by the 16th century. Despite its borough status and the chantrey established by endowments at St Mary’s church, the borough church, Overton was to remain a dependent chapelry of Bangor Is-y-coed throughout the Middle Ages, only becoming a separate parish in 1867.

The medieval village of Hanmer is sited on a glacial moraine in a prominent position at the head of Hanmer Mere, a natural glacial lake which like Ellesmere and Colemere in Shropshire, has given its name to the adjacent settlement. A noted above, the place-name is of Saxon derivation and probably of 8th- to 9th-century origin, but was only first recorded in 1269. The settlement is not named in the Domesday survey of 1086 but is probably to be linked with the manor of Bettisfield (Bedesfeld) formerly held by Earl Edwin of Mercia and after the conquest by the Norman baron, Robert FitzHugh, to which a priest with a landed endowment was attached, probably to be associated with the present parish church of St Chad’s. As noted above, land in Bettisfield formerly held by the see of Lichfield had been unjustly lost ‘in King Cnut’s time’ (1016-35), possibly pushing back the origins of a nucleated settlement around the church to this period as the Ecclesia de Hameme. The church is first specifically recorded in 1110 when it was gifted with other lands to the Augustinian abbey at Haughmond, Shropshire, and is again recorded in the Lincoln Taxation of 1291. The church was substantially rebuilt in 1490 to replace one that had been ruined in 1463, during the Wars of the Roses. By the later medieval period, if not earlier, the church was the focus of an extensive ecclesiastical parish occupying most of the south-eastern portion of Maelor Saesneg, and which at one time included the townships of Bettisfield, Bronington, Halghton, Hanmer, Tybroughton, and Willington. By the Middle Ages the village had evidently become the focus of a substantial manor, the possible moated site to the east of the village, the only circular moated site in north-east Wales, possibly being of manorial or ecclesiastical origin. The Hanmers became closely associated with the village from the later 13th century onwards, being a family newly settled in Maelor Saesneg during the reign of Edward I which adopted the name of the village of Hanmer as a surname, the manor presumably forming one of their holdings. They were to become one of the prominent borderland families, Sir David Hanmer, father-in-law of Owain Glyndŵr, rising to be one of the chief justices of the King’s Bench by 1383. On the dissolution of the monasteries in the mid 16th century, the local property and rights of Haughmond Abbey were purchased by Sir Thomas Hanmer, leading to the growth of one of the important local family estates, initially focused on Hanmer and from the later 16th century on Bettisfield. The village of Hanmer remained relatively small. It comprised no more than twenty-five houses in the late 17th century, which as today were grouped around the church, though elevated to the status of a ‘little town’ by Thomas Pennant in his Tour in Wales published in the late 18th century.

Moated sites

Medieval settlement in the countryside of Maelor Saesneg is most clearly represented by a notable concentration of moated sites, of which at least ten and possibly up to twenty sites are known from surviving water-filled earthworks, aerial photography, and historical records. Moated sites were mostly constructed during the period between the 13th and early 14th centuries and less commonly up until the 16th century. With the exception of the possible circular moat near Hanmer, noted above, the other moated sites in the area were square or rectangular in shape and were often sited to ensure that their moats were filled with water, and seem to range in size from about 35-50 metres across internally, with continuous outer ditches between about 6-10 metres wide. None of the sites in Maelor Saesneg have been excavated and though few if any have any surviving documentary evidence relating to them it seems probable that each of them enclosed domestic structures and outbuildings. Most of the moated sites would probably have been accessed by a timber bridge, though traces of a stone bridge or stone bridge abutments are apparent at Penley.

About eleven fairly certain moated sites have been identified in Maelor Saesneg, including five in the community of Hanmer (Bryn, Peartree Lane, Halghton Hall, Halghton Lodge, and Haulton Ring), three in Willington Worthenbury (Emral Hall, Holly Bush Farm and Tallarn Green), one in Overton (Lightwood Farm), one in Bronington (Wolvescre Hall), and one in Maelor South (Penley Hall). About a further nine moated sites have been suggested, including two further examples in Hanmer (Horseman’s Green, Peartree Farmhouse), two in Willington Worthenbury (Mulsford Hall, Yew Tree Farm), three in Bronington (Fenn’s Old Hall, Maes-y-groes, and near Bronington itself), one in Maelor South (Hill Farm), and one in Bangor Is-y-coed (Althrey). A number of other less certain sites are suggested by place-name evidence which, combined with the fact that a number have only been discovered in recent years suggests that further sites still await discovery. Emral possibly had its origins in the 1280s, Sir Roger Puleston (d. 1294) being described in 1283 as ‘de Embers-hall’.

The moated settlement is to be seen as very much an English cultural phenomenon, no doubt partly with a practical, defensive purpose as well as symbolising the status or social aspirations of its builder. The obvious historical context for the proliferation of moated sites in Maelor Saesneg is the evident expansion of farming which took place in the area in the wake of the Edwardian conquest, in the years shortly after 1284, when the confiscated lands of Welsh tenants being granted to free-holding settlers, and at a time when Edward and his queen were eager to optimise the rentals which could be charged on the Crown lands in Wales. Many of these settlers were perhaps of English origin, like the Hanmers of Hanmer, descended from Sir Thomas de Macclesfield, an officer of Edward I, and the Pulestons of Emral who derived their name from Puleston in Shropshire and trace their beginnings in Maelor Saesneg in the 1280s.

The distribution and associations of moated sites in Maelor Saesneg appears to confirm the suggestion that they represent a phase of farming expansion during the later 13th and 14th centuries. The distribution of moated sites generally appears to avoid the pre-existing settlements such as the small towns and villages of Bangor Is-y-coed, Worthenbury, Overton or Hanmer, or even the foci of dispersed farms of Saxon origin represented by -tun place-names, strongly suggesting that they represent a colonising phase of settlement involving the creation of new farmland by the clearance of woodland and scrub in the surrounding countryside. The landscape context of the moated sites is distinctly agricultural. Many are surrounded by ridge and furrow of probable medieval origin and some were converted into ploughland once they were abandoned.

The social context of the moated sites in Maelor Saesneg is reasonably clear from the buildings associated with them, the buildings they were replaced by, or from later historical associations which include a number of the smaller landed families in the area, such as the Pulestons of Emral, the Lloyds of Willington, the Dymocks of Penley and Halghton, and the Hanmers of Hanmer and Bronington. Horseman’s Green and Althrey Hall are associated with late medieval high-status aisle-truss halls of the later 15th and earlier 16th centuries, though perhaps replacing earlier mansions which were contemporary with the construction of the moats. Other moated sites were to be replaced by later gentry houses or substantial farms, particularly of the later 17th and earlier 18th centuries, which either overlay the partially infilled moat (as in the case of Emral, Holly Bush, Mulsford, Halghton, Peartree House and Wolvesacre), or were to be built alongside (as at Penley) or at a little distance (as in the case of the apparent replacement of Haulton Ring by Bettisfield Old Hall, just over 1 kilometre away). A similar pattern of moated sites being superseded by fine half-timbered houses is also found across the border in Cheshire and in Shropshire, as in the case of the 16th and 17th-century houses on the south-east side of Whixall Moss at Alkington Hall, Bostock Hall, Sandford Hall and Lowe Hall. Many of the medieval moated sites survived as stable economic units for many centuries, though some (such as Halghton Lodge, Peartree Lane, Bryn and Yew Tree Farm) have no obvious successor, perhaps due to the process of farm amalgamation and the creation of early estates in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Farms

Many of the existing dispersed farms, particularly in some of the outlying areas of Maelor Saesneg probably have their origin as the farms and smallholdings of freehold farmers and tenants from the 12th and 13th centuries onwards in a process which probably continued into the early post-medieval period. Many of these farms were probably created by individual effort by woodland clearance or by the reclamation of heathland, and worked by farmers who were not bound by medieval communal regulations and who were probably more dependent upon pastoral farming than upon arable for their subsistence. A number of farms, such as Caelica Farm and Arowry Farm, for example, fall within a landscape of either large or small irregular fields suggesting piecemeal enclosure in the later medieval and early post-medieval periods, beyond the boundaries of the medieval open fields. The context of other farms, such as Gelli Farm, suggests that they originated from continuing woodland clearance.

As we have seen above, English place-name elements in Maelor Saesneg are frequent in parish, hamlet, township and locality names. In the case of farm names, however, the situation is quite different, suggesting a much higher Welsh-speaking element in the population than might at first appear. Many of the farm names and field-names encountered in medieval and Tudor documentary sources are of Welsh derivation, whilst many of the English farm names are of relatively recent origin. Examples of modern Welsh farm names or those with Welsh elements to be found in Maelor Saesneg include the following, though not all are necessarily of early origin: Adre-felin, Althrey, Argoed, Arowry, Bron Haul, Bryn, Brynhovah (also containing the Old English element ofer), Bryn Rossett, Bryn-y-Pys, Cae-Drinions, Cae-Dyah, Caelica, Gelli, Dolennion, Gwalia, Maesllwyn, Maes-y-groes, and Trostree.

Some potentially early farms are surrounded by their own fields, such as Pen-y-bryn, Nant, Plas yn Coed and Wern, though others lie on or near the modern roadside, some of which probably originated as medieval highways, lanes and trackways.

In most cases all trace of medieval farmhouses and buildings will have been replaced and overlain by later structures and will only survive as buried archaeological evidence, though there appear to be a small number of early abandoned farmsteads represented by building platforms, banks and hollow-ways.

Specialized industrial settlements

Specialized industrial settlements which probably emerged during the early medieval and medieval periods were probably a number of hamlets or holdings along the Wych Brook associated with salt production. At least one of these centres was in production as in the early 11th century, but as yet no certain settlement evidence associated with them has been identified.

Post-medieval and modern settlement

With a predominantly agricultural economy and few natural resources Maelor Saesneg escaped the rapid industrial development that engulfed many of the adjacent areas of north-east Wales, and consequently the modern pattern of settlement of small villages and scattered farms shows many elements of direct continuity from the medieval period. A wide variety of different settlement types made their appearance in the landscape of Maelor Saesneg between the 16th century and the modern day, representing a broad and diverse social spectrum. New farms and smallholdings were created following the enclosure of former open arable and the drainage and enclosure of the mosses, as estate owners strove to maintain or increase their revenue. New small nucleated settlements resulted from encroachment onto the ‘greens’ or rapidly diminishing areas of common grazing. Country houses set in parkland sprang up in many areas of the landscape of Maelor Saesneg, in many cases in direct succession to medieval manorial centres. As communications improved, new wayside linear settlements sprang up at road junctions, along the turnpike roads, canal and railways, some with more ancient township or area names.

Post-medieval development of medieval towns, villages and farms By the early 19th century the larger villages of Maelor Saesneg had possibly changed relatively little in terms extent or size of population from those they had attained in the Middle Ages. Edward Lhwyd recorded 26 houses in the village of Bangor Is-y-coed in the late 1690s, a settlement dismissed by Daniel Defoe in the early 18th century as ‘a poor contemptible village’. By the end of the 19th century it consisted of houses spread along the High Street and beside the Whitchurch Road with a few close to the church on the Overton Road and apart from its medieval church included a cottages, coaching inn, rectory, nonconformist chapel, shop, free school, and brewery, with a station on the Wrexham-Ellesmere line just to the east. During the course of the 20th century the eastern side of the settlement underwent a substantial expansion in new housing.

Overton had become the administrative centre for Maelor Saesneg during the Middle Ages. By the 18th century had become relatively prosperous and in architectural terms at least developed something of an urban and picturesque air, evident from the following description from Lewis’s Topographical Dictionary published in the 1830s:

The village is pleasing and prepossessing in its appearance, and, with its venerable church, as seem from almost every point of view, forms a picturesque and highly interesting feature in the landscape . . . . There is neither trade nor manufacture of any kind carried on . . . . The market has long been discontinued.

By the end of the 19th century the village remained unindustrialised but had acquired a wide range of buildings including workers’ cottages, substantial middle-class houses, police station, church school, coaching inn, shops, almshouses, cocoa rooms, estate office for the Bryn-y-Pys estate, Methodist chapel, malthouse, rectory, and cemetery chapel, and was served by the Wrexham-Ellesmere railway with a station at Lightwood Green. During the course of the 20th century housing development expanded over much of the former medieval open field to the east of the settlement. Notable 20th-century buildings include the mock half-timbered public house, Roman Catholic church and council offices.

Edward Lhwyd’s description of Hanmer, noted above, suggests that the village has changed relatively little since the end of the 17th century, with the exception of the recent housing development to the east of the main street, and by the end of the 19th century buildings included cottages, inn, vicarage, smithy, Methodist chapel and free school.

Little is known of the early development of Worthenbury, considered by Lewis as being ‘entirely agricultural’. Existing buildings in the village suggest that it underwent a spurt of growth during the 18th century, and by the mid 19th century the modern plan is already clearly recognizable, with a number of dwellings grouped around the road junction to the south-east of the village, along the lane past the church towards the Wych Brook, and with several buildings to the south-east. By the end of the 19th century the settlement included estate workers’ cottages, one or two larger houses, rectory, church school, malthouse, shop, farmhouse, and a smithy.

New farms from the common and waste

Many of the new farms and smallholdings that appeared in the late medieval and post-medieval periods seem to have resulted from continuing piecemeal enclosure of former open fields and heathland and from the drainage and enclosure of the margins of the mosses.

Many of the later farms and smallholdings of late medieval and post-medieval origin have English names, a high proportion of which fall into a number of distinct patterns, such as those named after greens (eg Big Green Farm, Lightwood Green Farm), those named after trees (eg Yew Tree Farm, Cherrytree Farm), those named after the lanes they lie upon (eg Chapel Lane Farm, Sandy Lane Farm, Drury Lane Farm), and those named after woodland (eg Blackwood Farm, Middle Wood Farm). Some are named from their topographical siting (eg Bank Farm, Brook Farm, Top Farm, Hillside Farm) and some from association with non-agricultural uses (eg Crab Mill Farm, Smithy Farm), but relatively few were given the name of the original owner or tenant.

A high proportion of the later farms and smallholdings lie on public roads, and are often either grouped in small clusters or form diffuse linear patterns, spaced out along a road, as for example along Halghton Lane (Hanmer) and Green Lane (Bangor Is-y-coed).

The origins of many of these farms is poorly documented, though in some instances a general indication is given by the context in which the farm is found or by the dating of the associated farmhouses. A number of farms, for example, such as Dolennion Farm, Higher Lanes Farm, and Old Post Office Farm, appear to overlie earlier strip fields, suggesting that they were created from the enclosure of medieval open fields. In other cases, such as Yew Tree Farm and Smithy Farm, the adjacent field patterns suggest that they were created from the drainage and enclosure of heathland and mosses. Associated farmhouses, which include both timber-framed and brick-built structures, suggest a date range for this phase of settlement activity of between the early 17th and 18th centuries, continuing into the early 19th century in the case of some of the newly-drained land on the edge of the mosses.

Piecemeal clearance and the enclosure of the once more extensive areas of common grazing during the later medieval and early post-medieval periods gradually gave rise to a number of small pockets of unenclosed land from which a number of ‘green’ settlements emerged, perhaps largely of later 17th- and 18th-century origin, which are considered in the next section.

‘Green’ settlements

A significant element in the settlement history of Maelor Saesneg is the widespread occurrence of the place-name element ‘green’ indicating an area of common grassy land which appears, for example, in Tallarn Green (Willington Worthenbury), Lightwood Green (Overton), Horseman’s Green (Willington Worthenbury), Crabtree Green (Bangor Is-y-coed), Little Green (Bronington), Chapel Green, Far Green, Little Green, Big Green (Maelor South), Kil or Kiln Green, and Mannings Green, Painters Green, Hall Green (Bronington). This English place-name element, perhaps without a direct Welsh equivalent, indicates an area of common grassland and makes its first appearance throughout the English-speaking areas of Britain from the 15th century onwards and which in settlement terms invariably appears to indicate relatively late encroachments of former grassy commons. Lightwood Green, for instance, was not finally enclosed until 1877.

A range of different land-use histories are evidently indicated by the ‘green’ settlements in Maelor Saesneg and the immediately surrounding area. Lightwood (in an open position on a low plateau) and Penley (in flat, open countryside), both of which are associated with ‘green’ names, appear to indicate woodland clearings which may have originated in the early medieval or medieval periods. Horseman’s Green, first appearing in the form ‘Horse Math’s Green’ (again lying in flat, open countryside), is perhaps to be derived from the obsolete English dialect word math meaning ‘a mowing’, suggesting meadow land. Tallarn Green, lying on a narrow spur between the Wych Brook and_talwrn ‘place, field’. None of the ‘green’ names in Maelor Saesneg are to be found in medieval documents. Both Horseman’s Green (in its earlier form) and Tallarn Green, for example, only being first recorded at the very end of the 17th century, other names first appearing in 18th-century enclosure awards or in the tithe survey of the 1830s and 1840s. Similar names are also to be found in neighbouring parts of Cheshire include Threapwood Green and Shocklach Green. In this context it is significant that Threapwood remained extra-parochial until the early years of the 19th century, as we have seen above contains a place-name element indicating ‘debateable land’ along the Wych Brook, which forms the boundary between the counties of Cheshire and Flintshire. Shocklach Green occupies another marginal area for settlement, near the floodplain of the Dee, at its confluence with the Wych Brook.

One of the earliest surviving buildings within one of the ‘green’ settlements of Maelor Saesneg is a timber-framed cottage of perhaps the late 16th or early 17th century at Horseman’s Green. Elsewhere most of the surviving buildings are of 19th- or 20th-century date, though it is possible that some of the earliest buildings associated with these settlements were relatively low status, timber structures, of a kind which would be less likely to survive, and possibly as at Lightwood Green, represented by now-abandoned building platforms. Typical of the larger surviving buildings in the ‘green’ settlements are the earlier 19th-century nonconformist chapels at Horseman’s Green and Crabtree Green, the later 19th-century church and vicarage at Tallarn Green, and the Temperance Hall and the Kenyon Cottages for widows also at Tallarn Green.

A number of other settlements in the region appear to be ‘green’ settlements in all but name. Bronington, for example, being shown on an enclosure map of the 1770s as a group of buildings set around a long central green or common, now occupied by modern dwellings, to the south of the present School Lane, perhaps having simply adopted the township name dating back to the Saxon period.

In terms of the chronology of settlement and the evident expansion of settlement in Maelor Saesneg during the medieval period it seems significant that a number of the ‘greens’ are associated geographically with moated settlements, including those at Lightwood Green, Horseman’s Green, Tallarn Green and possibly Little Green (Bronington), which as we have seen appear to be associated with a period of colonising settlement in probably the late 13th and early 14th centuries, and seeming to confirm the suggestion that some of the ‘greens’ lay in areas that were marginal to earlier settlement. The date at which the ‘greens’ were first established is uncertain, though it is probably significant that none are associated with an early church or chapel of ease. Many of the ‘green’ settlements were clearly well established by the late 18th century when the first enclosure maps were being drawn up, which in the case of Tallarn Green and Lightwood Green show a significant number of dwellings set out around the edge of an open area marking the final residue of what had presumably once been a much more extensive common

Country houses

A distinctive phase in the settlement history of Maelor Saesneg was the emergence of the country houses which sprang up particularly in the period between the mid 18th and 19th centuries, matching similar developments in the neighbouring counties of Cheshire and Shropshire. In many instances these country houses developed in direct succession to medieval manorial centres, though in other cases they were new creations of the late 18th to early 20th century, and often forming the centres of a number of the larger estates that were growing to prominence during this period.

The combination of the country house and ancillary service buildings, set in landscape parks or extensive gardens, and often associated with gate lodges and drives, and estate cottages, has had a significant visual impact upon the landscape in certain areas. Iscoyd Park (Bronington) has survived relatively intact within its landscape park, though in many other instances, old and established family seats at Emral (Bangor Is-y-coed), Broughton (Willington Worthenbury), Gwernheylod, Knolton, and Bryn-y-Pys (Overton), Gredington and Bettisfield Park (Bronington) the original country houses were entirely demolished or substantially reduced in size during the 20th century, leaving only elements of the original parkland, stable blocks or gate lodges. So effective has the transformation been in some instances, as in the case of Bryn-y-Pys, that the name of this once important estate is no longer to be found on modern maps. A number of later country houses have survived, including Llannerch Panna (Penley), renamed Tudor Court, built in the later 19th century, and a series of small country houses on the edge of existing settlements, such as The Brow in Overton, and The Manor and Quinton in Worthenbury.

Wayside linear settlements

Bettisfield (Hanmer) is in many ways typical of some of the later wayside linear settlements in Maelor Saesneg, which emerged in the later 18th century. The stimulus to the expansion of Bettisfield was the construction of the Whitchurch branch of the Shropshire Union Canal in the 1790s which resulted in a cluster of houses next to the canal, just to the south of Bettisfield Bridge, together with ribbon development along the minor roads leading to Cadney Moss and Northwood, further stimulated by the construction of the Oswestry, Ellesmere and Whitchurch Railway in the 1860s, and with some modern residential development. The Chequer (Bronington) began to become established along the Bangor Is-y-coed to Whitchurch turnpike (now the A525), beginning as a scatter of houses and Methodist chapel in the early 19th century. Similar smaller hamlets became established at a number of road junctions, as at Holly Bush (Bangor Is-y-coed) which already consisted as a small cluster of farms and a number of small dwellings in the late 18th and early 19th century.

A different pattern of development is evident at Penley (Overton) which grew up along the Overton to Hanmer road. Until the 1940s the settlement remained relatively dispersed, with little more than a scatter of houses, smithy, and 19th-century school, vicarage, and chapel (now the parish church) and nonconformist chapel serving the surrounding rural community. The settlement was transformed during the course of the Second World War when the US Army hospital (and subsequent Polish Hospital) was built, parts of which still dominates the village.

Modern patterns of settlement

A number of distinct changes in the patterns of settlement have occurred within Maelor Saesneg during the last thirty to forty years which has resulted in some impact upon the historic landscape. Many of these changes, though as yet less acute than in many other areas, are typical of the pressures which affect rural areas on the fringes of larger towns and cities throughout Britain, which have arisen from various diverse factors including a decline in the number of people working on the land, the growth in privately-owned vehicles, and the perceived desirability of living in the countryside.

As noted above, the larger nucleated settlements of medieval origin at Bangor Is-y-coed, Overton and Worthenbury have undergone significant expansion during the last few decades, often at the expense of areas of former medieval open fields representing the agricultural basis upon which the settlements were founded. A number of the ‘green’ and wayside settlements of post-medieval origin, including those at Bronington, Bettisfield, and Tallarn Green, have also undergone expansion in recent year. The boom in post-war agriculture was the spur behind a number of small rural local authority housing schemes such as those at Highfields, Higher Lanes Bank, (Bronington), Welsh View, New Hall Lane (Bronington), and near Top House Farm, south of Hanmer. Increased mechanisation and farm amalgamations has led to the demise of many of the smaller farms and smallholdings in the area, liberating numerous 18th and 19th-century brick-built farmhouses and outbuildings for conversion into dwellings especially in the eastern part of the area for families who no longer have an economic dependence upon agriculture. A emergence of modern roadside bungalows thoughout Maeor Saesneg has also led to a nett increase in the number of houses in the countryside, often continuing a pattern of encroachment onto the medieval open fields that began in the early post-medieval period.

For the enjoyment of visitors and those living in the area it important to limit the impact of modern housing upon the historic environment in terms of the sypathetic expansion of existing nucleated settlements and the sensitive conversion of historic farm buildings. Significant measures include those of limiting the physical and visual impact upon important elements of the historic environment including fieldscapes, deposits relating to the early history of nucleated settlements of medieval and post-medieval origin, and aspects of the agricultural history of the area represented by ridge and furrow and marl pits for example.

Agriculture and landuse

The predominant land use of Maelor Saesneg at the present day is largely pastoral, though in recent years there has been a greater emphasis on arable farming in the eastern part of the area, resulting in some loss of boundaries to create larger fields. The sources of evidence for the past history of agriculture and land use history of Maelor Saesneg are many and varied and include settlement history, field shapes and sizes, the incidence of ridge and furrow and marl pits (two particularly distinctive features of the Maelor Saesneg landscape), the presence of drainage ditches and dykes, and the distribution of woodland. These are further supplemented by pollen evidence, the evidence from documentary sources, place-names and field-names, and the different types of agricultural building which are present.

The topography and soils of many areas has enabled them to be adaptable to either arable or pastoral agriculture, and it is clear that in the past there have been a number of distinct changes from one regime to the other, and that arable farming was once much more extensive. In other areas the land-use potential has always been much more restricted, such as the mosses in the south-eastern part of the area, the steeply wooded river and stream slopes particularly along the northern and south-western boundaries, and the wet meadow lands bordering the Dee.

The present-day field patterns are very much a palimpsest representing a complex pattern of development over many centuries, with different types of fields clearly indicating a number of distinct processes. Patterns of large and small irregular fields, frequently associated with dispersed farms, are characteristic of pioneering settlements or piecemeal clearance and enclosure of woodland and heath, from early medieval times. Groups of strip fields, some forming quite extensive systems and others relatively small and isolated, represent former open fields once associated with medieval manorial systems. The large and often irregular fields bounding the Dee in many instances represent probably represent enclosure of former areas of former common meadow. Areas of large or small straight-sided fields may represent relatively late enclosure of former heathland commons or mosses, land improvement schemes, or in some cases the conversion of former parkland.

Early agriculture

Little direct evidence has yet been found for early land use in the area, though as might be expected, pollen evidence provides some evidence for a general sequence involving woodland clearance possibly in the later prehistoric and Roman periods and the subsequent creation of grassland and woodland environments, but lacks chronological precision. The general scarcity of early settlement evidence perhaps suggests that agriculture was restricted to relatively discrete areas cleared of woodland, though it is possible that the intensive exploitation of the landscape in the medieval and later periods has blanketed out the evidence of early settlement and land use.

Early medieval land use

The earliest reference to land use in Maelor Saesneg is given by Bede, who observed that the monks belonging to the early 7th-century British monastic community at Bangor Is-y-coed ‘used to live by the labour of their own hands’. Although the size of this self-sufficient community is open to question, it may possibly have run into hundreds, who presumably worked the lands with which it was endowed, though no further evidence of the nature or extent of this agricultural activity is forthcoming.

As noted above, Anglo-Saxon place-name evidence of perhaps the 8th to 10th century, the Domesday survey of the late 11th century, and other documentary evidence of the late 13th century, all appear to indicate the survival of perhaps relatively extensive areas of woodland in the area up until at least the early Middle Ages. No evidence non-ecclesiastical British settlements contemporary with the monastery at Bangor Is-y-coed has yet been revealed, though it is probable that a number of small, scattered agricultural settlements had already emerged by the early medieval period though the virtual absence of demonstrably early Welsh place-names in the area other than Bangor itself is unhelpful.

A more certain picture of the nature and extent of early medieval settlement emerges from the study of place-names with Anglo-Saxon elements, probably dating to the 8th to 10th centuries, which as we have seen above include Bronington, Broughton, Gredington, Halghton, Knolton, Overton, Tybroughton, Willington, Wallington and Worthenbury, each of which probably formed the focus of an farming community. Of these settlements, however, only Overton and possibly Worthenbury were to develop into any size during the Middle Ages, and it seems probable that at this early period each of them represented no more than a cluster of farmsteads with their associated fields with wooded areas of varying extent between. Indeed, it is probable that by this date that complex patterns of land use were already emerging between those lands more suited to ploughing, those more suited to summer or winter grazing, and the more intractable land that would remain as woodland, heath or mire.

Agriculture at the time of the Norman Conquest

A clearer picture of the agricultural exploitation of the area emerges from the Domesday survey of 1086, compiled by the Norman king, William I. The survey clearly points to the existence of multiple agricultural estates covering a compact block of Maelor Saesneg well before the Norman conquest of 1066, divided between the church and Edwin, the Saxon earl of Mercia, comprising manors at Worthenbury, Bettisfield, and Iscoyd, and possibly taken over with a minimum of disruption by their Norman successors, presumably alongside other extensive pre-existing holdings not recorded in Domesday. The three manors at Bettisfield (Bedesfeld), Iscoyd (Burwardestone) and Worthenbury (Hurdingberie) which had land for 8, 14 and 10 plough-teams respectively, each plough-team (caruca) representing up to perhaps about (40 hectares) 100 acres of plough land, which in the case of the Worthenbury, for example, suggests that between 30–50 per cent of the extent of the manor was cultivated at that time. It is surprising that so little meadow land is mentioned in Maelor Saesneg at this time — only half an acre at Bettisfield and a single acre at Worthenbury — which seems likely to be a gross under-representation. Each of the three recorded manors in Maelor Saesneg is said to have been ‘wasted’ at the time of the Norman Conquest, possibly as a consequence of the kind of punitive devastation known to have been meted out Cheshire and the northern borderland during the conquest period. The effect was probably fairly short-lived, however, since the manors were evidently being brought back into good heart by the latter years of the 11th century, when the Domesday survey was compiled.

The lack of reference in the Domesday survey to estates in other remaining areas of Maelor Saesneg does not necessarily imply that they were all composed of forest or waste at this time, since in some instances these lands may have been included in other estates, though the absence of named estates in the central part of the area, suggests that the extensively cultivated areas, characterized by ridge and furrow field systems dating from the Middle Ages onwards, were a later development, and that cultivation in these areas were perhaps limited to the small foci of settlement suggested by Anglo-Saxon place-name evidence.

Agricultural expansion following the Edwardian conquest

Little or no archaeological or documentary evidence for medieval agriculture in the Maelor Saesneg is yet apparent for the period of two hundred years between the Domesday survey of the later 11th century and later 13th century. A new and distinct landscape had evidently emerged in many parts of the area by this date, however, dominated, as we have seen above, by moated sites and extensive open fields, and possibly representing an expansion of farming in the area in the wake of the Edwardian conquest, shortly after 1284.

Lands confiscated from supporters of the deposed Welsh princes were granted to incoming English settlers, who appear to have replaced pre-existing forms of land tenure and management with a system of open field manors based on a familiar English model. Other opportunities were taken for agricultural expansion following the conquest are documented which involved the local Welsh population being deprived of their customary rights to pasture and forest, directly following the Edwardian settlement, sometimes quite illegally. The granting of permission by Edward for felling possibly a substantial swathe of woodland from the pass at Redbrook for strategic purposes in the 1280s is mentioned above, and there are other instances where it was alleged that when king had ordered the widening of roads, Queen Eleanor’s bailiff had gone to excessive lengths clearing large tracts of land, turning it into arable, even where the queen had no rights to the area.

As noted above, the distribution of moated sites in Maelor Saesneg appears to confirm the suggestion that they represent a pioneering phase of expansion during the later 13th and 14th centuries — seemingly being intimately associated with ridge and furrow systems of probable medieval origin as well as avoiding pre-existing nucleated settlements suggested by place-name evidence — possibly created from former areas of pasture and forest. Part of the incentive for this expansion initially came from a desire to enhancing the revenues from the crown lands in Wales, assisted by the opening up of new markets such as that established at Overton.

Open arable fields and ridge and furrow

Though little early documentary evidence has survived relating to manorial systems of agriculture and land use in Maelor Saesneg, some evidence of medieval open fields associated with moated manorial centres is provided by the widespread survivial of ridge and furrow as well as by distinctive patterns of strip fields visible in the modern landscape and on earlier maps, much of which has yet to be studied in detail. Some ridge and furrow, including some of the narrower ridging, is undoubtedly late and perhaps unrelated to open field cultivation, though it seems a reasonable assumption from documentary sources, context and form that the broad pattern of ridge and furrow originated during the medieval period representing open field arable associated with medieval manors, perhaps in a different form to the classic form that developed in the English Midlands.

Though probably not all of medieval date distribution of ridge and furrow in Maelor Saesneg is an indicator of the extent of arable cultivation that had evolved by the later medieval period, generally avoiding less fertile ground, the steeper stream and river slopes and land liable to flooding. About 1,995 hectares (4,929 acres) of ridge and furrow have so far been identified in Maelor Saesneg by aerial photography and field survey, particularly in the western part of the area, representing just under 17 per cent of the total area. A much higher proportion is evident in communities such as Willington Worthenbury and the western part of Maelor South where it where it reaches 40 per cent of the area, though in other communities such as the northern part of Bronington it occurs in smaller discrete systems.

This compares with certain classic areas of ridge and furrow in the Midlands where up to 90 per cent of some township areas was down to arable, though in parts of western Cheshire figures of 75 per cent are considered to be more typical. As in the extensive field systems of the Midlands, the ridges in Maelor Saesneg primarily represent a tenurial arrangement whereby intermixed holdings of small strips were dispersed in an open field. Here, as elsewhere, the ridges were generally aligned downhill, running across the contours, the furrows between the ridges acting as drains as well as providing boundaries between the strips, the ridges being created over the course of time by soil being consistently turned inwards by the plough. In the open field system characteristic of the Midlands the ridges, also known as ‘lands’, were grouped into furlongs which were themselves grouped into fields, of which there would typically be three which formed the basis of a rotational system designed to ensure continuing fertility, one of the fields in sequence being left fallow for a year.

It has been suggested, for example, that there were three or possibly more medieval open fields in Bangor Is-y-coed, Overton and Hanmer, but perhaps no evidence for more than one in Worthenbury, and there is also documentary evidence for open common fields in the townships of Gredington, Bettisfield and probably in Tybroughton and Broughton. References also appear to open strips in the 13th and 14th in Althrey, Knolton, and Penley but it is possible that these, like some others elsewhere, may have formed small groups of ploughing strips rather than forming well organised arable fields.

A proportion of former ridge and furrow has undoubtedly been lost to later ploughing and levelling. There is evidently a reasonably close relationship between some field shapes and surviving ridge and furrow, particularly notable in the case of strip fields and former strip fields shown on earlier maps, as well as some other regular field types, which appears to help to locate a number of open field systems in areas where there is no recorded evidence of ridge and furrow. In some instances these correspond with field-name evidence suggesting the former existence of open fields, as in the case of the ‘Maes mawr’ and ‘Maes y groes’, first recorded in late16th- and early 17th-century sources, which correspond to remnant strip fields to the north-east and south of Bangor Is-y-coed respectively.

The local topography and natural drainage were clearly important in determined the furlong pattern: thus on gentle slopes there are often long furlongs, made up of many parallel lands, but on undulating ground complex patterns of small furlongs with lands in many directions. The system in operation in Maelor Saesneg perhaps owed more to that in Cheshire where the common arable fields appear to have been made up of a number of small units or furlongs, but where there is little evidence that the furlongs were grouped into large open fields of the Midland type, the furlongs in some instances perhaps to be regarded, as in other areas of north-west England as units of reclamation of woodland and heath perhaps continuing on a communal basis in some instances perhaps as late as the 15th and 16th centuries.

Elements of this pattern may reflect an intensive system of cultivation which is thought to have been in operation from an early date in parts of north-west England involving a short period of fallow between harvest and the sowing of cereals in the following spring. A further feature which may have distinguished the open fields of the Maelor Saesneg and adjacent areas of north-west England from the Midland system was possibly that of individual holdings forming a consolidated group of strips in parts of the common fields rather than a wide dispersal of parcels, possibly resulting from the exchange and consolidation of a once more dispersed pattern at a relatively early date in the medieval period, perhaps as a consequence of an area in which settlement within the core area of Maelor Saesneg appears to have been within dispersed in hamlets rather than focused within nucleated villages of a kind more characteristic of Midland England.

The most common crops grown during the medieval period would undoubtedly have been cereals, though peas and beans are known to have been cultivated in the open fields in adjacent areas of England. Hemp and flax was also introduced at an early date, though these may have been mostly grown on enclosed fields. There is also evidence that some parts of the common arable fields were regarded as more suitable for meadow, being cut for hay rather than being ploughed.

As elsewhere, the open fields of Maelor Saesneg formed a part of a more extensive land use system in support of a mixed farming economy, involving meadow land traditionally cut for hay for winter feed and grazed by stock in the autumn, common pasture for summer grazing, as well as the open fields themselves which were also probably important for summer and autumn grazing on a rotational basis while they were fallow. Documentary references appear, for example to Althrey meadow, evidently a dole field or common meadow, in the township of Bangor Is-y-coed in the early 16th century, in the area now occupied by Bangor Racecourse. As in the neighbouring townships in Cheshire, the extensive seasonally wet meadows along the lower Dee became important in the development of stock farming in the region during the Middle Ages. Owned in strips, traditionally marked with stakes or stone markers, they were cut for hay before being used for common grazing, the strips generally no longer being visible on the ground since they were left unploughed. A difference with field systems of the Midlands may be the incidence of ridge and furrow on land liable to flood bordering the River Dee to the north of Worthenbury. This reflects a pattern also to be found in adjacent areas of the lower Dee valley in western Cheshire and in the Severn valley below Newtown in Montgomeryshire, which rather than representing irrigated meadows has been thought to represent a system of ‘convertible husbandry’, whereby land more suited to meadow in a wet season might form plough land in a long dry spell.

Ridge and furrow forms a distinct and important element in the historic landscape of Maelor Saesneg which urgently calls for further recording, analysis, interpretation and conservation. These traces of medieval arable agriculture are continuing to succumb to modern mechanised agriculture in some areas as a result of pasture improvement and reseeding and to be lost to housing developments on the margins of a number of settlements such as Worthenbury, Bronington, and Horseman’s Green.

Growth of freehold farming in the medieval and early post-medieval periods

As in the neighbouring areas of the Midlands, the land around the margins of the open fields, representing the greater part of farmland in many townships, was probably cleared by individual effort and farmed by farmers not bound by manorial regulations. In adjacent areas of Shropshire, for example, forest clearance or assarting and heathland reclamation were evidently proceeding on a regular basis from the 12th century until perhaps the 16th century, no doubt partly at the expense of areas of former common grazing, leading to the creation of individually owned farms, probably with a greater dependence on pastoralism. As noted above, this process of piecemeal clearance and enclosure resulted in patterns of large and small irregular fields, frequently associated with dispersed farms, which today characterize just under 50 per cent of the Maelor Saesneg landscape.

Cultivation of the common open fields appears to have come under pressure both from the loss of labour due to the Black Death, which led to a recession of cultivated lands in some areas, and due to the growth of the wool trade, and from about the middle of the 14th century it appears that the open fields of Maelor Saesneg, together with those in adjacent areas of Cheshire and Shropshire were gradually reduced in size by a process of piecemeal enclosure by private agreement. As in Cheshire, the relative lack of Parliamentary enclosure in Maelor Saesneg was evidently a consequence of the process of enclosure proceeding steadily between the 14th and 18th centuries, resulting in the fossilisation of former open fields represented by ridge and furrow and strip-like field shapes in the rural landscape. By the 15th and 16th centuries a number of early estates were absorbing parts of the former open fields, such as the open strips acquired by Llannerch Panna, a former estate in the township of Penley township (Maelor South), mentioned in the 1470s. Ridge and furrow representing part of open fields became emparked at Emral (Willington Worthenbury) and Gredington (Hanmer) at about this date.

One of the essential benefits of the medieval open field system of cultivation had been that of maintaining soil fertility by means of crop rotation and leaving land in fallow. To what extent these traditional methods may have been disrupted by the enclosure movement is unknown, but concerns about declining fertility were evidently being documented by the 17th century in adjacent areas of north-west England. The practice of marling, involving the digging up subsoil and adding it to the topsoil to improve fertility is documented from the 12th and 13th century onwards in Shropshire and Cheshire, a number of early sources emphasising the value of marling the land especially before wheat was sown. It is perhaps to the early enclosure period, however, between the 16th and 18th centuries, that the majority of the marl pits in the north Shropshire, Maelor Saesneg and west Cheshire belong. Though a continuous process of infilling has evidently been in operation for a century or more, the old marl pits, often one or more to a field, still form a significant and distinctive landscape element in the region, often reaching densities up to 60 per square kilometre, and also represent a distinct horizon in the landscape history of the area.

A wide range of glacial tills and Triassic sands, clays and marls were exploited for marl in the region from early times in order to improve the composition, texture and structure of the soil, one writer in the first decade of the 19th-century remarking, for example, that marl was considered ‘unquestionably one of the most important of the Cheshire manures . . . found in many parts of England, but in particular abundance in Cheshire’. Both calcareous and non-calcareous marls were to be found in the area. When calcareous marl is added to clay soil, the lime content (with locally up to 15 per cent calcium carbonate) improved the soil structure, and enhancing its drainage and workability. When it was added to sandy soils the clay content improved water retention and counteracted the natural acidity of the soil, conserving the organic and mineral components of the soil which would otherwise tend to be washed out, and thus enhancing soil fertility. Non-calcareous marls acted in a similar way except that their effect was limited to textural changes.

The old marl pits are frequently water-filled and are typically steep-sided and generally between about 5–15 metres across and frequently fringed with trees or shrubs. They were normally dug with a ramp on one side to improve access for carts and often lie in middle of fields, evidently to save on cartage, though in many cases they fall on field boundaries (or former field boundaries that have now disappeared) or at the junction of three of four fields, perhaps in order to giving access to a number of different fields. The pits are often elongated or appear in groups of two or more in the same area, suggesting digging on a number of occasions, avoiding already flooded pits. A number of larger flooded pits lie next to farms or on the roadside in the southern part of Maelor Saesneg, suggests that marl may have been carted to fields further away, perhaps on a commercial basis. Flooded pits have often considered to be hazardous, and cases of drowning in marl pits have been recorded in the region from the medieval period onwards.

Many of the marl pits can be seen to cut through early ridge and furrow field systems and therefore in most cases appear to post-date the ending of the medieval open field system within the region. The overall distribution of marl pits, however, closely corresponds with that of ridge and furrow and strip fields in many area, both of which are generally indicative of former medieval open fields, which suggests that in many instances the marl pits represent improvement of former open fields in the early enclosure period, perhaps from the 16th century onwards. The distribution of marl pits extends beyond the known extent of ridge and furrow and strip fields, however, and since marling is generally to be associated with arable land, although it was sometimes evidently undertaken to improve pasture, the overall distribution of marl pits in Maelor Saesneg may gives an indication of the maximum extent of ploughland between about the 16th and 18th centuries in a landscape which today characterized by extensive areas of pasture.

The practice of marling appears to have been rapidly superseded by liming in the early years of the 19th century, especially once canal transport became available to transport it into the region from quarries in the hills to the west of the Dee. Kilns employed for converting limestone into lime were built alongside the Ellesmere Canal at Bettisfield at this period, no doubt supplying local farms with their produce. Agricultural lime was in turn to be replaced by chemical fertilizers when these became more readily available towards the end of the 19th-century.

Over 2,200 marl pits have been recorded in Maelor Saesneg, of which a proportion have now been filled in and are only visible on earlier Ordnance Survey maps. The pits represent a distinctive phase of past agricultural practice and land-use, perhaps beginning in the Middle Ages, but particularly characteristic of the post-enclosure period between the 16th and 18th centuries and regrettably many are continuing to be filled with rubbish though some are being converted into ornamental garden features. As well as providing an important visual historical element in the modern landscape, both flooded and infilled pits also represent an important ecological and palaeoenvironmental resource.

Drainage and enclosure of the mosses

References to drainage and reclamation of wetlands by landowners becomes more common in adjacent areas of Shropshire during the period 1550–1650, and though there area fewer records surviving relating to the Welsh areas of the moss there are a number of references like one of 1582 relating to peat cutting and drainage ditch digging. The main period of land reclamation appears to have taken place from the early years of the 18th century, however, when powers to enclose parts of the mosses were first being granted. Once drained, the heathlands bordering the mosses often became quite productive, the process of drainage and enclosure resulting in a distinctive landscape of both large and small rectilinear pasture fields bordered by ditches, with mixed farms and smallholdings, with some arable on the better-drained sands and gravels. Some of these areas were subsequently to be subsequently converted to coniferous planations, such as Fenn’s Wood, planted in the 1960s.

Agricultural improvements in the 18th and 19th centuries

The 18th and 19th centuries saw the introduction of a number of agricultural improvements, particularly as the larger landowners sought to improve the revenue of their estates. The Bryn-y-Pys estate, for example, was considerably developed from the mid 19th century after its purchase by Edmund Peel. Despite these changes, much of the medieval and early post-medieval landscape of fields was to remain virtually intact though there is some evidence for the consolidation and enlargement of fields and reorganisation of field boundaries in some areas.

Widespread improvements were also made to agricultural buildings, particularly on the tenanted farms. Characteristic of the period is the complex of farm buildings at Buck Farm, Halghton (Willington Worthenbury), with a late 18th to early 19th-century timber-framed stable wing with blocked cart entrances, a 19th-century granary with belt-driven machinery, and red brick 19th-century milking parlour.

The 18th and 19th centuries also witnessed the expansion of a number of perhaps short-lived agricultural enterprises on more marginal land, such as the rabbit farming by place-name evidence including The Conery and Conery Lane near Fenn’s Wood and The Warren near Iscoyd Park (both in Bronington).

Present-day fieldscapes

A variety of field patterns are evident in the present-day fieldscapes which, some of which are mentioned above, which it may be possible to place within a broad historical framework. Areas of both large irregular fields and small irregular fields (those classed for the purpose of this study as being above and below 3 hectares in size respectively) seem likely to have been created as a result of piecemeal woodland clearance and heaththland enclosure, perhaps largely from medieval time, and perhaps often involving the enclosure of former areas of common woodland and grazing and suggesting freehold tenure. Many of the fields of this type are associated with evidence of ridge and furrow cultivation, however, suggesting that many of the fields of these shapes derive from the enclosure of former medieval open field. Fields classed as floodplain fields, generally bordering the Dee and often now or formerly subject to flooding and sometimes with ox-bow lakes or river cut-offs, in many instances probably represent the enclosure of former common meadow land already in use during the Middle Ages and probably enclosed during the later medieval and early post-medieval periods. As noted above, these are sometimes found in association with ridge and furrow cultivation, indicating periodic use as arable open field in the medieval period. Distinctive strip fields, generally classed as being groups of relatively long, thin fields (with a length : breadth ratio of >3:1) have a close relationship with areas of surviving ridge and furrow cultivation and appear to derive from the amalgamation and enclosure of medieval open field strips. They occur as an element of what appear to have been both large and small medieval open fields, and are often found in combination with other field patterns which probably (as in the case of fields classed as reorganised strip fields) or possibly (as in the case of those classed as regular fields) have also derived from medieval strip fields. Field patterns classed as large straight-sided fields and small straight-sided fields (those again classed as being above and below 3 hectares in size respectively) often have the appearance of post-medieval or early modern enclosure, often either representing the relatively recent enclosure of areas of heathland or relatively recent landscape reorganisation, as in the case of the partitioning of former parkland, for example. Finally, there are distinct small fields classed as paddocks/closes which are generally small and straight-sided and associated either with small-holdings or farmsteads.

Most of the modern field boundaries in the area are marked by simple hedges, many of which are now accompanied by post and wire fences to keep them stock-proof. Hedge-laying was clearly widely practiced in the past and is still being undertaken on a periodic basis in some areas. Many of the hedges are of mixed deciduous species and holly are frequently accompanied by mature oak trees. Hedges associated with the enclosure of former open fields are generally fairly straight, though irregular boundaries are to be seen in some areas which have probably resulted from piecemeal woodland clearance and enclosure. In some areas, such as the Eglwys Cross character area, field boundaries are accompanied by lynchets denoting former arable agriculture. Hedgerow removal and the amalgamation of fields in some areas has given rise to lines of mature oaks within areas of grassland. Single-species hedges and free-standing post and wire fences are more characteristic of some areas such as Stimmy Heath and Bettisfield character areas that have been reclaimed and enclosed more recently.

Buildings in the landscape
Buildings form an important part of the historic landscape fabric of Maelor Saesneg. Relatively little survives from the medieval period, though notable structural remains include parts of St Mary’s Church, Overton and St Dunawd’s Church, Bangor Is-y-coed, parts of which date from the 14th century and are perhaps the only medieval stonework to have survived in the historic landscape area.

Timber rather than stone was evidently the most commonly-used material for secular buildings in the medieval period of which a number of relatively high-status structures have survived, most notably in the case of the 15th- to 16th-century halls at Horseman’s Green (Hanmer) and Althrey (Bangor Is-y-coed) and Penley Old Hall which in many respects appear to be the successors of earlier manorial moated sites, accompanied by an earlier horizon of timber buildings of which no trace survives. Horseman’s Green farmhouse had an aisled truss as a central open truss over the hall, with some ornately moulded timberwork. Althrey Hall was likewise built as an aisled hall involving the use of cruck construction and the spere-truss, originally with a central open hearth, with archaeological evidence suggesting that it was built on the site of an earlier building. The present house is probably of early 16th-century origin, being described by John Leland as ‘a fair house’ in the 1530s, probably built for Richard ap Howel. A portrait in the form of a wallpainting of mid 16th-century date inside the house is thought to be of Richard’s son, Elis ap Richard (d. 1558) with his bride Jane Hanmer. Penley Old Hall again appears to have been a hall house, probably of two bays, open to the roof with timber mullioned windows, possibly with a lateral chimney. The interior of the hall was extravagantly decorated, with swirls and various other trompe l’oeil motifs, including what appears to be a wall torch set in a bracket. Other traces of relatively high-status cruck-built halls survive elsewhere, as in the case of Llan-y-cefn (Overton). The nature of these buildings clearly expresses the wealth being generated from farming in the region during this period.

Box-framed timber construction continued as the dominant technique during the 16th and 17th centuries for both higher status buildings such as Knolton Hall (Overton) and Willington Cross (Willington Worthenbury) as well as a range of buildings of lesser status. These include a number of farmhouses scattered across the area which originated as a timber-framed structures, such as Buck Farm, Glandeg Farm, Oak Farm, The Fields (Willington Worthenbury), Chapel Farm, New Hall Farm, and Maeslwyn House (Bronington), Gwalia Farm and possibly Lightwood Farm (Overton), Top Farmhouse, Knolton Bryn (Maelor South), and The Cumbers and The Bryn (Hanmer). Surviving lesser houses and workers’ cottages of timber-framed construction include White Cottage (Maelor South), and Bridge Cottages (Willington Worthenbury). Other timber-framed buildings were built in towns and villages at this period, including Magpie Cottage (Hanmer), The Stableyard (Bangor), and the tiny half-timbered cottage near the churchyard in Overton, which may have originated as a shop. Other notable smaller half-timbered buildings in Overton include a number in the High Street and Pen-y-llan Street where timber-framing is exposed in rear elevations, and Quinta Cottage. Most early buildings were most probably thatched, the thatched roof at Magpie Cottage (Hanmer) being one of the few examples that still survives.

Timber was also clearly widely used for barns, an important example being the cruck-built structure at Street Lydan (Penley), dated to about 1550, which has now been re-erected at the Museum of Welsh Life at St Fagans, which stood on a stone sill and was no doubt typical of many which have since disappeared. Later timber-framed barns of which a significant number are recorded in Maelor Saesneg, include a large barn at Althrey Woodhouse (Bangor), probably of 17th-century date, and the outbuildings including a cow-house or stable range at Gwalia Farm and in the stable range at Llan-y-cefn (Overton).

The timber-framed panels would mostly have been infilled with wattle and daub, but as noted below, though unrecorded on the Welsh side of the border, peat appears to have been quite widely used for this purpose in the late medieval and early post medieval periods in the area of the mosses, across the border into Shropshire.

Bricks, both red and brown in colour, became widely used from the later 17th century onwards, generally in conjunction with slated roofs. It appears to have been initially employed for the construction of new and relatively high status buildings, but was subsequently used for refacing and extending many of the existing timber buildings of all kinds and for the infilling of panels in many of the timber-framed buildings that retained their timber elevations. Notable new early brick buildings include Halghton Hall (Hanmer), a brick building with stone dressings and a large doorcase with Doric pilasters, built in 1662, and Bettisfield Old Hall (Bronington), which (as at Plas yn Coed, Overton) were sometimes rendered. During the course of the 18th century brick became the predominant building material for many more buildings spanning a broad range of social status and functions from gentry houses to humble workers’ cottages, and including the terraces of town houses and workers’ cottages which form such an important element of Overton’s quasi-urban Georgian landscape.

Significant high status brick houses of the 18th century include Iscoyd Park (Bronington), built in about 1740, Hanmer Hall, a large brick farmhouse of 1756, and Hanmer Vicarage, close to the mere, Hollybush Lane Farmhouse, a large double-pile structure with a five-bay front. Some of the houses of this period, such as Gwydyr House in Overton and Argoed Farmhouse (Overton) have details such as stone-coped gables, expressing a refinement in vernacular building traditions stemming from increased prosperity and investment in both town and country at this period. Mulsford Hall (Wilington Worthenbury), with stone quoins and fluted keystones, built on part of the Emral estate, with the inscription ‘This house was built by C. Mathews, tenant of J. Puleston Esq. ‘Tis for my landlord’s good, and my own desire. AD 1746’. The architect is thought to have been the same as for St Deiniol’s, the brick-built church of 1736 at Worthenbury, which with stone dressings for pilaster strips, urn finials, balustrading and keystones, cited as ‘the best and most complete Georgian church in Wales’.

The growth of the landed estates in the 18th and 19th centuries gave rise to many new brick-built country houses and associated outbuildings, together with a range of ancillary buildings including lodges, estate cottages, almshouses and other buildings of philanthropic character. Many of the larger country houses originating in this period were also of brick, as at Bryn-y-Pys (Overton) and Emral Hall (Willington Worthenbury), the former demolished in 1956 and the latter 1936, parts of which were re-erected by Clough Williams-Ellis at Portmeirion. Other notable country houses in the area which likewise formed the centre of landed estates shared a similar fate, including Gwernheylod (Overton), Broughton Hall (Willington Worthenbury), and Gredington (Hanmer). Occasionally, isolated monuments of these former country house estates are to be seen, in the form of lodges, stable blocks, walled yards and gardens, icehouses (Emral Hall) and areas of former parkland. More often than not the 19th-century lodges, estate cottages and almhouses were built to be built either in half-timbered or in a stone neo-Gothic style favoured for such buildings. Characteristic buildings of this kind include the Emral Hall lodge (one of three original lodges), The Gelli lodges, Tallarn Green (Willington Worthenbury), the Bryn-y-Pys Estate Office in Overton, a pair of estate cottages at Mannings Green (Bronington) in Tudor style with elaborately decorated brick chimneys, a similar though plainer pair of cottages in Frog Lane, Worthenbury, the Bryn-y-Pys lodges in a neo-vernacular style, the row of eight brick-built cottages with arched doors and windows in Wrexham Road, Overton, and the Methodist Temperance Room and Kenyon Almshouses at Tallarn Green (Willington Worthenbury). Three former gothic-style ashlar almshouses in Salop Road, Overton, again characteristically bear the inscription ‘A.D. 1848. These almshouses were erected to the memory of Caroline Bennion, late of Wrexham Fechan by her affectionate sisters. Faithful in the unremitting exercise of charity to the poor and every Christian virtue, she departed this life on 6th February 1847’.

Other 19th-century town and country houses were to be built in a ‘revivalist vernacular style’, including notable examples of the work by the architect John Douglas who undertook much work on behalf of the Kenyons and whose buildings include the rectory at Bangor Is-y-coed, the parsonage at Tallarn Green, The Gelli (Willington Worthenbury) and Llannerch Panna (Penley), each of which employ half-timbering and brickwork, generally combined with varied rooflines and an asymmetrical design. Earlier 19th-century picturesque design is evident in the case of a number of middle-class houses in Overton, such at The Quinta, with oriel window, decorative barge-boards and arched windows and in the siting of houses such as The Brow and Min-yr-afon (Overton) which exploit riverside locations along the Dee.

The religious revival of the 19th century gave rise to the many new churches and nonconformist chapels which form a distinctive and characteristic element particularly of the rural landscape, ranging from the gothic style of St Mary Magdalene’s Church, Penley, rebuilt in sandstone in the 1870s, the late Georgian style of Chequer Methodist Chapel (Bronington) to the corrugated-iron misson church at Knolton (Overton). More unusual is Holy Trinity, Bronington, a brick church converted from an earlier barn in 1836.

Water transport

Though no longer used for transport today, the River Dee was still considered to be navigable as far inland as Bangor Is-y-coed until at least the 1830s. River transport along the River Dee had undoubtedly been important by Roman times, if not earlier, being used to transport the products of the tile works at Holt, about 10 kilometres downstream, to the legionary fortress at Chester. Little physical evidence of the history of river transport has survivied, though a dugout canoe is said to have been found in the 1860s or 1870s near Llyn Bedydd (Hanmer), perhaps dating to the later prehistoric to medieval periods. Ferries across the Dee were no doubt important from early times, the river crossing linking Erbistock with the eastern bank of the river, close to a ford near the church, passable at certain seasons, remained in use until the early 20th century.

Early roads

There are no certain Roman roads crossing Maelor Saesneg, though unconfirmed claims for the existence of a Roman road near Dymock’s Mill (Willington Worthenbury) were made in the late 19th century. Greater credence might perhaps be given to the suggestion of an ancient routeway between Whitchurch (the Roman town of Mediolanum) and Bangor Is-y-coed, corresponding to the later turnpike and present A525, on the basis of late 3rd- and early 4th-century Roman coins found in the area of Eglwys Cross. The crossings of the Dee at Overton and Bangor Is-y-coed has clearly been of some strategic significance since early times, at points where higher ground approaches the river and the floodplain is consequently relatively narrow. It was probably in connection with improvements to this same route as part of Edward I’s efforts to secure his conquest of Wales that the captain of his garrison at Whitchurch was granted permission in 1282 to clear trees from the pass at Redbrook (La Rede Broc), on the eastern margins of Maelor Saesneg, on the present national boundary between England and Wales, such clearances typically being a bowshot in breadth, a distance of up to about 250 metres.

Though poorly documented and later subject to improvement, the general course of the routes linking other larger nucleated settlements in the area are likely to be of either early medieval or medieval origin, such as those between Overton and Bangor Is-y-coed, Overton and Ellesmere, Overton and Hanmer, Bangor Is-y-coed and Worthenbury. Likewise, many of the minor lanes and trackways weaving their way through early field systems, linking the larger settlements with the minor townships, probably also had their origins at this period.

Early river crossings

Many of the early bridges and fording points were replaced during the course of the later 18th and 19th centuries, though some early structural evidence has survived in places. The older bridge near the church at Bangor-s-y-coed evidently has medieval origins but was largely rebuilt in the 17th-century and at one time the bridge bore a date-stone of 1658. The bridge was clearly of some significance at this period: Daniel Defoe in his Tour published in the 1720s being evidently pleasantly surprised to encounter this ‘stone-bridge over the Dee, and indeed, a very fine one’. Other notable early bridges include Sarn Bridge at Tallarn Green (Willington Worthenbury), across an early fording point across the Wych Brook, on the border between England and Wales, where the existing early 19th-century stone bridge replaced an earlier construction of 1627.

Turnpike roads, milestones and new bridges

As in other parts of Britain, many improvements were made to the main roads and bridges of Maelor Saesneg during the course of the 18th century. Turnpike acts for the repair of the road from Shrewsbury through Ellesmere and Overton to Wrexham (the present A528/A539) was passed in the 1750s and a similar act for the Marchwiel through Bangor Is-y-coed to Whitchurch road (the present A525) was passed in the 1760s. Turnpike roads were established on the other principal routeways across Maelor Saesneg – the Bangor to Malpas road (B5069, the Overton, Hanmer to Whitchurch road (A539), and the Redbrook to Ellesmere road via Welshampton (A495). There are disappointingly few surviving records relating to the turnpike roads in the area, though it is evident that tolls continued to be collected at ‘Overton Gate’ and ‘Maesgwaelod Bar’ on the Ellesmere to Wrexham road into the 1870s, the former near the town and the latter presumably near Overton Bridge. House names indicating former toll gates include Toll-bar Cottage on the A539 west of Penley, and Tollgate near Pandy on the A525.

Other local roads were to remain in a poor condition until the 19th century, George Kay making the following general observations about roads in Flintshire:

The turnpike roads are kept in good repair in general but cross or parochial roads are in a wretched state. They are so very bad that in many places it is difficult and dangerous to travel on horseback in winter and to get a carriage to pass along them appears to me impracticable. They are uncommonly narrow and low, often answering the double purpose of a road and a drain.

Milestones were set up along the turnpikes, generally in the form of sandstone blocks with an arched upper surface and cast-iron plates indicating distances along the road, of which there are surviving examples of late 18th- or early 19th-century date on the Bangor Is-y-coed to Whitchurch road (A525) near Broad Oak and the London Apprentice, on the Overton-Hanmer road (A539) at Street Lydan and Penley, and on the Overton-Ellesmere road (A528) near Queensbridge and the Trotting Mare public house. Other stones appear to have disappeared since they were first mapped by the Ordnance Survey, though some had evidently already suffered damage by the early years of the 19th century when warning notices were being posted threatening legal action against those guilty of break or damaging the milestones ‘on the Turnpike Roads leading from Marchwiel to Whitchurch, and from Redbrook to Welshhampton, and from Bangor to Malpas’.

Major road bridges built in the 19th century include Overton Bridge, crossing the Dee into Denbighshire, built in 1813, a two-arched bridge of red sandstone. A number of other smaller, single-arched stone road bridges were built by the turnpike trusts during the course of the earlier 19th century, including three on the border between England and Wales: Barton’s Bridge, Knolton (Overton) built in 1819 and said to be the work of Thomas Telford; Sarn Bridge (Worthenbury Willington) also of 1819, but replacing an earlier bridge of 1627, and subsequently widened in 1925; Redbrook Bridge, Bronington, of early 19th-century date and again said to be the work of Thomas Telford. Later bridges include the stone-built Poulton Bridge (Overton) of 1851, and Worthenbury Bridge of 1872-73, replacing an earlier bridge destroyed by floods, with a yellow brick arch.

Notable private estate bridges included the semi-circular arched stone bridge with parapets of brick and stone west of the stable courtyard at Emral (Worthenbury Willington), probably dating to the early 1730s, whose original design included ‘pepper-pot’ guardrooms, regrettably now demolished.

Canal transport

Works had begun by the Ellesmere Canal Company on the construction of the canal between Ellesmere to Whitchurch in 1797, the section across Fenn’s and Whixall Moss having completed by 1804 across Maelor Saesneg, close to the border with Shropshire, crossed by road bridges at Cornhill Bridge, Bettisfield Bridge and Clapping Gate Bridge, all near Bettisfield. Construction of the canal across Fenn’s and Whixall mosses involved extensive drainage works and must have posed a number of engineering difficulties, perhaps involving the use of brushwood rafts to prevent sinkage as in the subsequent construction of the railway. The canal has had a distinct impact upon the landscape of the linear zone of Maelor Saesneg that it traverses including the characteristic humped brick-built road bridges at Clapping Gate Bridge, Bettisfield Bridge and Cornhill Bridge, as well as the small industrial settlement which grew up near the canal wharf and access ramp next to Bettisfield Bridge.

The primary purpose of the canal had been to promote long-distance trade, though it became used to import and export materials locally within Maelor Saesneg, as noted above, including supplying materials for the limekilns at Bettisfield and exporting peat from the works established at Fenn’s Moss in the early 1850s. During the First World War the canal was also used to transport the large number of troops training on one group of rifle ranges on the western edge of the moss, known as The Batters, only being accessible to those arriving by barge.

Today, the canal is a popular recreational facility and tourist attraction.

Tramroads and narrow gauge railways

Horse-drawn tramroads were used during the 19th century by a number of local industries for hauling materials relatively short distances, one being set up at the Pandy pipe and tile works (Hanmer) to link the clay pits with the main works nearer the roadside, and several different stretches of tramroad were used in peat extraction on Fenn’s Moss, to link with either the canal or railway systems. The tramroads on the mosses were subsequently replaced by narrow gauge railway and finally by tractor and trailer.

Main line railways

The south-east corner of the Maelor Saesneg landscape is crossed by the now disused railway line whose construction commenced in 1861 and began goods services in 1863, with former intermediate stations at Fenn’s Bank and at Bettisfield. The line, which began as the Oswestry, Ellesmere and Whitchurch Railway, still forms a prominent landscape feature and an important access route to parts of Fenn’s Moss, whose margins are colonized by silver birch and willow. In its early years the line joined the Oswestry and Newtown Railway at Oswestry and the London and North-Western Railway between Shrewsbury and Crewe at Whitchurch, one of its primary purposes being to regenerate the town of Ellesmere which had suffered from competition with other neighbouring towns already provided with railway facilities. Where the track crossed the moss it was accompanied by a pair of drainage ditches, 40 yards (36 metres) apart, to either side of the track, which was bedded on heather, peat, bundles of faggots, a thick bed of sand dug from local sand pits. In 1864 a single track extension to Oswestry was opened and the railway company combined with several others to form the Cambrian Railway Company. In 1922 the Cambrian amalgamated with the Great Western Railway, and was finally closed in 1962. Peat processing works accessible by sidings became established alongside the railway at The Old Graveyard and Fenn’s Old Works (Bronington). The Fenn’s Bank Brick and Tile Works (Bronington), in existence by the 1890s, was likewise conveniently being sited next to the railway line. At one stage a tramroad near the Fenn’s Old Works was linked to a covered exchange siding with the railway. Troops practicing on the Fenn’s Moss rifle ranges during the First World War arrived by railway by means of an extra long siding provided off the passing loop at nearby Fenn’s Bank Station. Apart from the surviving course of the railway line, parts of which are now accommodated by tracks, other visible traces of the railway include the former station, engine shed and road bridge at Bettisfield (Maelor South) and bridges and bridge abutments such as those at Trench and Cloy.

Traces of the former Wrexham and Ellesmere Railway are visible in the landscape of the western side of Maelor Saesneg. The railway, running via Marchwiel, Bangor Is-y-coed, and Overton, was started in 1892 and completed in 1895. Crossing the Dee was a major feat of engineering requiring a single 58-metre span, latticed steel girder bridge just to the north Bangor Is-y-coed, one of the longest single spans in the country, resting on massive sandstone abutments, and manufactured by Pearson and Knowles of Warrington. The railway had intermediate stations serving Bangor Is-y-coed and Overton (occupying part of the former open common at Lightwood Green). Additional stops known as Trench Halt (east of Knolton) and Cae Dyah Halt or Cloy Halt were built to serve the scattered rural populations of these areas in 1914 and 1932 respectively. Passenger traffic was interrupted during the Second World War when the line was used for munitions traffic from the Royal Ordnance Factory at Marchwiel, and both passenger and freight services finally ceased in 1962, as in the case of the Oswestry to Whitchurch line, following which the viaduct over the Dee north of Bangor Is-y-coed was blown up. Much of the former track is visible as embankments or cuttings, some of which forms modern field boundaries or has been reused as a track or has become flooded. Other distinctive visible features include the humped road bridges at Lightwood Green (Overton), the stone bridge abutments at Cloy Bank (Bangor Is-y-coed) and the surviving bridge at Trench (Maelor South).

A number of local industries were to benefit from proximity to both the canal and railway networks crossing Maelor Saesneg. The Overton Brick and Tile Works, established at Lightwood Green in perhaps 1880s, was set up by perhaps 1886, by 1899 the Bryn-y-Pys estate had established a brickyard consisting of engine house, machine shed, closed during the Second World War, Overton Brick and Tile Works, Lightwood Green, sited on the line of the railway, started in late 19th century and modernized in the 1920s produced bricks, pipes, coping blocks and window sills, finally closing during Second World War.

Aqueducts

Underground aqueducts carrying water from Lake Vyrnwy to Liverpool was constructed across Maelor Saesneg in the period between the early 1880s and early 1890s and though largely hidden from view today, air valves and a meter chamber associated with the aqueduct are shown on earlier editions of Ordnance Survey maps dating to the opening years of the 20th century just to the east of Bowen’s Hall (Hanmer), to the north of Horseman’s Green.

Extractive industries

Salt

Exploitation of naturally-occurring salt from underlying Triassic rocks exposed along the Wych Brook in the north-eastern part of the area forming part of similar deposits occurring though on a much larger scale in Cheshire at Nantwich, Northwich and Middlewich. Exploitation during the medieval period is indicated by the salt pit or (salinae) valued at 24s recorded in the Domesday survey of 1086 in the manor of Burwardestone, possibly the same one as that noted as being in the possession of Haughmond Abbey in 1291 at Wiche in Iscoyd. Salt was an important commodity in the earlier Middle Ages, being regulated by a system of tolls, which accounts for its appearance in early documentary sources, the place-name element -wich being derived from the Old English wic (‘trading settlement’, itself derived from the Latin vicus) which was often applied to salt-producing settlements. By contrast, little appears to be recorded about salt working in the area at later periods though Thomas Pennant refers to a brine spring and salt works near Sarn Bridge over the Wych Brook in his A Tour in Wales published in 1794 and there is some evidence to suggest that the Upper and Lower Wych Salt Works were in operation in the 1830s. A brine pit about 7 metres in diameter is still to be seen at Lower Wych (Bronington).

Sand

Deposits of glacial sand deposits were exploited on a small scale in various parts of Maelor Saesneg, perhaps from early times up to the early 20th century, some of which are shown on early Ordnance Survey maps and some of which can still be seen in today’s landscape. Several are recorded in the area of Bettisfield Park (Maelor South) and Hanmer, and one near Bryn-y-Pys (Overton).

Rights for the getting of sand to repair designated roads leading from the mosses were granted the enclosure award for Fenn’s and Bettisfield mosses were enacted in the 1770s, and though extraction generally remained at a modest scale, relatively large quantities of sand were being extracted in the 1860s when the bed of the Oswestry, Ellesmere and Whitchurch Railway was being laid across Fenn’s Moss.

Peat

Peat cutting has formed an important industry on Fenn’s Moss in the south-east corner of Maelor Saesneg for many centuries, exploiting deposits which exceeded a depth of 8 metres in certain areas. There are few surviving early records of peat cutting on the Welsh side of the border, though it is evident a well-developed system of turbary — the right to cut peat or turves — had emerged by the 1570s, having probably developed from much earlier times. These early common rights had finally become extinguished by the 1770s as a result of the enclosure acts covering Fenn’s Moss and Bettisfield Moss. This gave rise to a commercial peat-cutting industry, beginning in the 1850s under leases issued by the Hanmer Estate, which continued with increasing intensity until production was finally brought to an end in the last decade of the 20th century following the purchase of the mosses by the Nature Conservancy Council.

There have been distinct changes in the purposes for which peat from Fenn’s Moss has been used over the centuries. The earliest uses were most probably as a source of fuel though, although seemingly unrecorded on the Welsh side of the border, peat appears to have been quite widely used as a building material in conjunction with timber-framing for the construction of peat houses or turfcotes at least in the late medieval and early post medieval periods, examples of which survived on Whixall Moss up to the 1940s. From the middle of the 19th century onwards the peat was used for a much wider variety of purposes, being used in compressed form for a variety of metalworking and manufacturing processes, for the production of charcoal and for distillation, and being developed for use with munitions during both the First and Second World Wars. It was becoming used for horticultural purposes by commercially nurseries from as early as the late 1930s and on a much larger scale following the boom in popular gardening from the 1960s onwards.

The history of peat cutting of the moss can be clearly recognised on the ground — by the linear old hand cuts in certain areas, by the old commercially areas hand-cuts by the ‘Whixall Bible’ method (with reference to the shape of peat blocks), and by more recent mechanised cuttings methods. Commercial exploitation gave rise to the development of machine processing in later 19th century, with steam-powered grinding and bailing machinery installed by the 1880s and as noted in the following section several different stretches of tramroad were used in peat extraction on Fenn’s Moss, to link with either the canal or railway systems, the tramroads on the mosses being subsequently replaced by narrow gauge railway and finally by tractor and trailer. The surviving peat works known as Fenn’s Old Works, thought to be the last such works in mainland Britain, are protected as a scheduled ancient monument. The works are of steel girder construction of the late 1930s, formerly clad in corrugated iron, with a stationary engine (containing the only National Heavy Oil Engine still in situ), which provided power for machinery for milling and baling the peat.

Manufacturing and Processing Industries

Water corn mills

The milling of corn produced by the abundant arable land in Maelor Saesneg was once one of the major processing industries to be found in the area but has entirely disappeared today. Here as elsewhere the most readily available source of energy for grinding the corn was water power, harnessing rivers as well as smaller streams. The earliest mill known in the area was at Worthenbury, recorded in the Domesday survey of 1086 and described as a new mill within the manor of the baron, Robert FitzHugh, and therefore possibly constructed soon after the Norman conquest. The site of the mill is unknown, though it may be represented by an earthwork platform on the Wych Brook, just to the south of the village of Worthenbury. There were undoubtedly other medieval mills in the area, though they too have been little studied. A mill at Overton was said to have been destroyed during the revolt against the English crown led by Madog ap Llywelyn in 1294. The site of the mill is unlocated, but it likely to have been on the Dee to the west of the town, perhaps in the vicinity of the present weir. The mill was evidently rebuilt within a few years, being referred to again in 1300 when it was valued at £12. Other early mills may be represented by place-name evidence. Mill Brook, which gives its name to Millbrook Farm, Millbrook Lane and Millbrook Bridge to the south of Bangor Is-y-coed, is first recorded in 1290 as Milnbrook. The place-name ‘Caer Felin’ (Welsh cae’r felin ‘mill field), recorded in the vicinity of Emral Hall, may represent a further early mill site which is now missing.

Later water-driven corn mills are known at a number of sites throughout Maelor Saesneg, including five brick-built mills with slate roofs of late 18th- to early 19th-century date on the Wych Brook – Wych Mill, Llethr Mill and Wolvesacre Mill in Bronington (the latter only partly surviving) and Dymock’s Mill and Sarn Mill, Tallarn Green (Willington Worthenbury). Dymock’s Mill, a good example of a Georgian watermill, survived with most of its original machinery until the late 1980s, with a sluice from a former mill pond fed by the Wych Brook which drove an undershot water-wheel pit. Sarn Mill is again a brick-built watermill, rebuilt in 1827, which was later converted to run on electricity.

Three mills, again of late 18th to early 19th-century date, were established on tributaries of the Emral Brook – Halghton Mill, Halton New Mill and at Hanmer Mill at Hanmer Mill Farm (Hanmer), both on tributaries of the Emral Brook. Water still flows from the mill race and leat of Halghton New Mill, and the wheel pit and millpond survive at Hanmer Mill, though all three mills are now disused. Two further mills were established on tributaries of the Emral Brook to the west and north-west of Penley – Penley Mill and Cross Mill (Maelor South), Penley Mill again being a brick structure of 19th-century date, the original French burrstone millstones surviving in the nearby stream. Knolton Mill (Overton) was a further watermill, established on the Shell Brook, a tributary of the Dee which forms the boundary between England and Wales along the south-western boundary of Maelor Saesneg.

Most of the waterpowered mills within the area had ceased production by the later 19th and early 20th centuries due to often unpredictable waterflow and competition with more commercial mills elsewhere, though some, like Sarn Mill, had been converted to run on electrical power. Cadney Corn Mill, a two storey red brick corn mill to the east of Bettisfield (Maelor South), likewise was formerly driven with steam-powered diesel engines installed in 1925.

Windmills

The surviving base of a round, 18th-century brick-built windmill just to the east of Cadney Corn Mill (Maelor South), may perhaps have been built to help to drain the moss. Windmills are known to have been used to drain marshy arable land in neighbouring areas of Shropshire, including those built at Prees in the early 16th century and Ellesmere in the early 17th century.

Fulling mills

Water power was also used for driving a number of fulling mills, used in the finishing of woollen cloth produced in the district in the medieval and post-medieval periods. Two fulling mills are recorded at Halghton (Hanmer) and Tybroughton (Bronington) in the early 15th century though no archaeological remains of these mills have yet been identified. The Halghton fulling mill was probably on the tributary of the Emral Brook at Pandy (Welsh pandy ‘fulling mill’) which has given its name to Pandy Farm and Pandy Bridge. The location of the Tybroughton fulling mill is unknown, though it seems likely to have been on the Wych Brook or one of its tributaries, in the vicinity of Tybroughton Hall.

Smithies

Most communities had ready access to a local smithy, often sited on one of the main roads or near a road junction, including those recorded at Redbrook, Higher Wych, Henrwst, Bronington, Eglwys Cross and Stimmy Heath (Bronington), Bettisfield, Penley and Street Lydan (Maelor South), Three Fingers, Worthenbury, and Sarn (Willington Worthenbury), Halghton, Hanmer (Hanmer). Many of the smithies appear to have come into existence in the late 19th and earler 20th centuries, and represented by small brick-built structures. Few if any of these local workshops, once vital to the local agricultural community, have survived intact to the present day, most having either been demolished, retained as sheds, or converted into domestic accommodation. One of the few which has survived is the remains of the 19th-century forge in the rear wing of Gwaylod House, Overton Bridge (Overton) which includes a double forging hearth apparently formerly open to the rear and later enclosed by a lean-to.

Crabmills

Little has been written about the history of brewing in Maelor Saesneg, though this was evidently of at least local importance until perhaps towards the advent of the larger commercial breweries towards the end of the 19th century. The production of cider is indicated by a number of farm and house names based on ‘crab mill’ indicating a cider press for crushing apples, normally powered by horse or pony. Three former cider presses are indicated by place-name evidence — Crab Mill, on Green Lane (Bangor Is-y-coed), Crab Mill near Little Green (Bronington), and Crabmill Farm (Overton), south of Overton, though little or no tangible archaeological evidence of the industry appears to have survived.

Breweries

We are likewise largely dependent upon place-name evidence for the small breweries scattered across the area which produced local ales and beers, including the late 18th to early 19th-century Malt House in Worthenbury, Pen-y-llan, an early 19th-century brick-built house in Overton, listed as a malt kiln and shop in the 1838 tithe survey, and Maltkiln House in Bronington. A former malthouse in Tallarn Green (Worthenbury Willington) is shown on maps editions of the Ordnance Survey maps published in the 1870s and 1880s, in opposition to which the purpose-built Methodist Temperance Room of 1890 in Tallarn Green may have been established. The small brewery known as the Dee Brewery survived intact until the 1980s, following closure some years before.

Brick and tile works

Local small-scale brick production probably started in the area in about the mid 17th century, mainly for a small number of gentry houses such as Halghton Hall (Hanmer), built in 1662. At the end of the 18th century, Thomas Pennant, amongst others, drew attention to the potentially important sources of clay to be found in Maelor Saesneg, but it was generally not until the later 19th century that relatively small commercial works became established at various centres to feed the increasing demand for building materials and pipes for land drainage. The works that were established during this period included those at Lightwood Green (Overton), Fenn’s Hall, Fenn’s Bank, Tilstock Lane near Brickwalls (Bronington), and at Pandy (Hanmer). Products included pipes, bricks, copings and window sills at the Overton Brick and Tile Works at Lightwood Green, pipes at the Pandy Brick and Tile Works. The Fenn’s Bank and Lightwood Green works were strategically sited on the railway, the former on the Ellesmere-Whitchurch line and the latter on the Wrexham-Ellesmere line. Each of the works were based on local supplies of clay dug from clay pits near the works which were up to forty feet deep in the case of the Fenn’s Bank works, and which here as elsewhere are now represented by flooded hollows, clay being transported to the works by tramroad at Fenn’s Bank and Pandy. The works at Fenn’s Bank had a circular 14-chamber Hoffman kiln built 1860 and a tall chimney, 175 feet high, both demolished when the works were abandoned in the early 1960s. Few other traces of the works still survive, these local production centres failing to compete with the more successful brick and tile works which became established in the Wrexham area during the later 19th and earlier 20th centuries, notably at Ruabon. The works at Lightwood Green were set up by the Bryn-y-Pys Estate probably in the 1880, with engine house and machine shed, which closed during the Second World War. The Pandy works, with two beehive kilns, machine and drying sheds was established in the 1870s.

Limekilns Following the construction of the Whitchurch branch of the Shropshire Union Canal in 1797 lime kilns were established alongside the canal at Bettisfield, fed by limestone and coal from the coalfields of north-east Wales, unloaded by means of the ramp that still remains visible just to the west of Bettisfield Bridge. The chief product of the kilns was probably agricultural lime, marketed to local farms within the district, replacing the practice of marling which probably died out early in the 19th century. Dependence upon liming for maintaining soil fertility itself declined in the later 19th century as chemical fertilizers became more readily available.

Tanneries

Place-name evidence, notably Tan House just to the east of Overton, suggests that tanning was once carried out on perhaps a small scale in Maelor Saesneg, though there is again little surviving physical evidence.

Modern industries

Maelor Saesneg remains a predominantly agricultural and non-industrial area, though the site of the former Fenn’s Bank brick and tile works is now occupied by a modern aluminium works, itself replacing a metal reclamation works established during the Second World War.

Military Activity

The most intensive use of Maelor Saesneg for military activity was during the 20th century. Large areas of Fenn’s and Whixall Mosses were commandeered by the military authorities during the two World Wars. At least eight army rifle ranges between 300 and 1100 yards long and with shooting butts formed of timber and peat, with associated huts in some cases were set up on the mosses. One of the ranges appears to have been in existence before 1909 and probably had its roots in either the South African war years or the expansion of local territorial or militia units. Access to the ranges by large numbers of troops was made easier by the canal and railway which cross the mosses. One group of ranges on the western edge of the moss, known as The Batters, was accessible to troops arriving by canal barge. The main use of the ranges was during the First World War, when troops normally arrived by railway, disembarking by means of an extra long siding provided off the passing loop at nearby Fenn’s Bank Station. A new army tented camp was established at Fenn’s Bank in 1916 for troops training on the North-East Fenns rifle ranges, which could house up to a thousand men.

During the Second World War the mosses lay within a few minutes flying time of a number of military airfields, and consequently a gunnery and bombing range and a decoy site were located here between 1940-45. Visible remains are slight, but include a brick picket hut, concrete plinths that once carried a control building, quadrant towers and a Strategic Starfish decoy site up to several hundred metres across designed to protect Liverpool, together with iron rods protruding from the peat which once supported machine-gun targets for air-to-ground gunnery practice and as a bombing range. The mosses were also the site of a number of air crashes during practice, including those on Cadney Moss and at Little Green, Bronington. As noted above, peat from the mosses was also commandeered during both the First and Second World Wars for the production of munitions.

Maelor Saesneg also became an important focus for military hospitals during the Second World War due to its proximity to military airfields, its relatively good communications by road and rail to the Atlantic seaport at Liverpool, its peaceful rural environment, and the ready availability of parkland associated with a number of country houses. Consequently the parkland associated with country houses at Bryn-y-Pys, Bettisfield, Iscoyd, Penley Hall and Llannerch Panna were all requisitioned for military purposes. In addition Gredington Park became an out-station of the Gobowen Orthopaedic Hospital and military depots were established at Lightwood Green, Gwernheylod and The Brow (Overton). Large US Army hospitals were constructed at Penley Hall, Llannerch Panna and Iscoyd which between them catered for almost 10,000 battle casualties during the course of the war and considered at the time as ‘a little bit of US territory in Wales’. After the end of the war the hospitals continued in use for the post-war settlement of Polish communiites into the 1950s and early 1960s. The former military hospital still dominates the landscape of Penley, part of which remain in use as a hospital and part as an industrial park.

Memorials commemorating the dead of the two World Wars were first erected at various centres of population during the period after the First World War in a number of the larger centres of population, including Overton, Bangor Is-y-coed, Hanmer, Bronington, Iscoyd and Tallarn Green.

Sport and Recreation

Fishing is perhaps one of the oldest sporting activities still carried out in the area, especially on the River Dee, and in earlier times no doubt an important economic activity. A valuable fishery, presumably for salmon, is recorded at Overton mill in the late 13th century, the fishing rights at one time being owned by the Cistercian monastery at Valle Crucis, and Thomas Pennant records that coracles in the late 18th century were ‘much in use in these parts for the purposes of salmon fishing’. Pennant also noted that water-races were often performed in these slight vessels, mentioning a ‘regatta of great magnificence is to be exhibited by them above Bangor Bridge’ to be held on a forthcoming Michaelmas day (29 September). Hanmer Mere and Llyn Bedydd were probably also exploited from an early date, with a boathouse for fishing or other recreational purposes being represented on the banks of Hanmer Mere on early Ordnance Survey maps published in the 1880s and 1890s. Several other pursuits are also no longer undertaken, including the now illegal sport of cock fighting is said to be represented by a cock-pit to the rear of former Buck Inn at Worthenbury and possibly also carried out elsewhere in the area.

School and village sports

Modern village sports are represented by football pitches at a number of centres, including Bangor Is-y-coed, Overton and Penley, with an additional village cricket pitch at Overton and a country house cricket pitch next to the house at Iscoyd Park. A variety of other village sporting activities take place at Overton including tennis courts and bowling greens (including a former bowling green behind Gwydyr House). A more recent introduction is the boules pitch, where competitions are held with visitors from the twinned village of La Murette in France.

Horse racing

The most widely-known modern sporting activity associated with Maelor Saesneg is the horse racing at the Bangor-on-Dee Racecourse, on the banks of the Dee just to the south of Bangor Is-y-coed, where National Hunt meetings are regularly held during the racing season.

Walking

The relatively recent interest in recreational walking has given rise to the 38-kilometre waymarked recreational trail crossing Maelor Saseneg known as the Maelor Way, linking the similar footpaths in Shropshire and Cheshire on the east with the Offa’s Dyke national trail on the west. The cross-country footpath, using public footpaths, lanes and a canal towpath, passes through Whitewell, Bronington, Hanmer, Penley and was first opened in 1991 and has attracted many walkers to the area.

Parks and Gardens

Parkland areas associated with a number of country houses and former country houses forms a significant element of several areas of the Maelor Saesneg landscape. There is no certain evidence for the creation of medieval parks within the area, and the surviving evidence suggests relatively late emparkment during the later 17th to earlier 19th centuries, and in some instances appears to correspond with a period during which a number of the major landowning families were rebuilding their family seats, abandoning earlier moated sites and replacing timber halls as their principal residences. In some instances, as at Emral in perhaps the 18th century and Gredington in the 19th century the parkland overlies areas of former ridge and furrow of perhaps several different periods, probably enclosed from former open fields in earlier centuries. In both of these instances the surviving parkland remains as a poignant reminder of the country houses which have now disappeared from the landscape, Emral having been demolished in 1936 and Gredington finally in the 1980s. A similar fate befell the parkland associated with Gwernheylod, a former country house with 17th century origins demolished in the 1860s and Bryn-y-Pys, a stylish house of the 1730s demolished in the 1950s, and Bettisfield Park, dating from the earlier 17th century and partly demolished in the late 1940s. Areas of former parkland associated with the house at Penley Hall and the Victorian country house at Llannerch Panna have been built over during the 20th century, for a hospital in the case of Penley and by a modern housing development in the case of Llannech Panna. The only surviving example where both the parkland and its house remain substantially intact is at Iscoyd Park where the 18th-century house, built for the Hanmer family and enlarged in the 19th century, stands within its complete 18th- and 19th-century landscape park.