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Chirk
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Church Street, Chirk | |
Location within Wrexham | |
Population | 4,468 (2011) |
OS grid reference | SJ295375 |
Community |
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Principal area | |
Preserved county | |
Country | Wales |
Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
Post town | WREXHAM |
Postcode district | LL14 |
Dialling code | 01691 |
Police | North Wales |
Fire | North Wales |
Ambulance | Welsh |
UK Parliament | |
Senedd Cymru – Welsh Parliament | |
Chirk (Welsh : Y Waun) is a town and community in Wrexham County Borough, Wales, 10 miles (16 kilometres) south of Wrexham, between it and Oswestry. At the 2011 census, it had a population of 4,468. [1] Historically in the traditional county of Denbighshire, and later Clwyd, it has been part of Wrexham County Borough since a local government reorganisation in 1996. The border with the English county of Shropshire is immediately south of the town, on the other side of the River Ceiriog.
The town is served by Chirk railway station and the A5/A483 roads.
The name of the town in English, Chirk, derives from the name of the River Ceiriog, which itself may mean "the favoured one". The Welsh place name, Y Waun, is literarally "The Moor". [2] [3]
Chirk Castle, a National Trust property, is a medieval castle. Two families are associated with the town and its castle: the Trevor family of Brynkinallt and the Myddelton family. The Hughes of Gwerclas, a family descended from the ancient kings of Powys Fadog, also lived in the area for many years.
Other attractions in the town include a section of Offa's Dyke and the Chirk Aqueduct, part of a larger World Heritage Site including Pontcysyllte aqueduct, on the Llangollen Canal, built in 1801 by Thomas Telford. The Glyn Valley Tramway terminated on the canal near the mainline railway station.
The parish church of St Mary's is a Grade I listed building. [4] The current church building was begun during the 11th century by the Normans, although it is believed that an older llan, dedicated to St Tysilio, had existed on the site and the current church was dedicated to St Tysilio until the late 15th or early 16th century, after which it was re-dedicated to St Mary. Today, the church is a member of the Open Church Network and participates in the Sacred Space Project.
Chirk was formerly a coal mining community with coal being worked from the 17th to the 20th century. The two largest collieries were Black Park (one of the oldest in the north of Wales) and Brynkinallt (Welsh : Bryncunallt). These coal mines have now closed.
Chirk was a coaching stop on the old mail coach route along the A5 from London to Holyhead.
The Chester to Ruabon railway had been extended south to Shrewsbury by 1848, with stations at Llangollen Road (Whitehurst Halt, near Pentre) and Chirk; the Castle owners insisted that the railway not be visible to them and that the station be well outside the town lest it encourage the populace to travel. South of the town a railway viaduct was constructed by Henry Robertson to take the line over the Ceiriog Valley.
The Llangollen branch of the Shropshire Union Canal runs through Chirk. The canal crosses the Ceiriog Valley (from England into Wales) along Thomas Telford's aqueduct. Telford's aqueduct runs alongside the railway viaduct before the canal enters the Chirk Tunnel.
Agriculture continues to be of some importance, as does tourism. The National Trust's Chirk Castle [5] is an attraction, as are the World Heritage Site of the Llangollen Canal, [6] and the local scenery of the Ceiriog Valley and Berwyn Mountains. Manufacturing now plays a prominent position within the local industries, with major international firms such as Kronospan [7] and Mondelez UK [8] maintaining sites in the town. There are small business which support the local communities and its visitors, as well as service industries such as hotels, leisure facilities and restaurants. There are a wide range of employment opportunities and professions. [9]
Religion no longer has a prominent position, but there are four churches: St Mary's (Church in Wales), [4] Chirk Methodist Church, Sacred Heart (Roman Catholic) and the Community Church.
Chirk is served by two local primary schools: Ysgol Y Waun and Pentre Church in Wales Controlled School.
Ysgol Y Waun is the main primary school for children in Chirk. It was formed in 2012, by the merger of Chirk Infants School and Ceiriog Junior School. Ysgol Y Waun is a nursery, infant and junior school of mixed gender and lessons are taught through the medium of English. The school has about 335 pupils, with an increasing number of pupils on free school meals: 19.7% in 2014, which is above the Local Authority average but below the Wales average. [10]
Pentre School is a nursery, infant and junior school of mixed gender. There are approximately 86 pupils on roll who are all taught through the medium of English. Welsh is taught as a compulsory part of the school curriculum as a second language. The school is in a relatively affluent area, with only 15.9% of the school population eligible for free school meals, which is substantially below the Local Authority and Wales averages. [10]
Most pupils in the community attend Ysgol Dinas Brân, Llangollen, for their secondary education. Ysgol Dinas Brân is a relatively large, bilingual secondary school catering for pupils from ages 11 – 19 (including Sixth Form). [11] Other secondary schools in the area include Ysgol Rhiwabon, St Martin's School (Shropshire) and St Joseph's in Wrexham. The area is served by independent schools, such as Moreton Hall and Ellesmere College in neighbouring Shropshire.
Although Chirk is a predominantly English-speaking area, some parents choose to educate their children through the medium of Welsh. The nearest Welsh-medium primary schools are in Glyn Ceiriog and Cefn Mawr. Pupils can then transfer to either Ysgol Dinas Brân, Llangollen or Ysgol Morgan Llwyd, Wrexham for Welsh-medium secondary education.
The Ceiriog Memorial Institute, in the Ceiriog valley, just west of Chirk, is home to a collection of Welsh cultural memorabilia and was founded in the early 1900s to support the Welsh language, culture and heritage for future generations.
In the 2011 census, a total of 3,652 residents (81.7%) have no skills in the Welsh language. [1]
Chirk is home to Chirk AAA F.C., a football team founded in 1876. Currently playing in the Cymru North (the second tier of Welsh football). Chirk AAA FC have a plaque in honour of the great Billy Meredith, born in the town, and with whom Meredith started his career between 1890-92. Meredith returned briefly in 1894 before signing for Manchester City. A second plaque in Meredith's honour is situated in Chirk's Millennium Gardens at the Station Avenue entrance to the park and cricket club. It was unveiled on 26 July 2002 by Meredith's daughter Winifrede.
Chirk Golf Club was founded in 1991. The club closed in September 2012. [12]
The town receive better television signals from the Wrekin TV transmitter which broadcast BBC West Midlands and ITV Central. [13] However, BBC Cymru Wales and ITV Cymru Wales is also received from the local relay transmitter which is transmitted via the Moel-y-Parc transmitter, it is situated near Cefn Mawr. [14]
Radio stations that broadcast to the town are:
The town is served by the local newspaper, The Border Counties Advertizer. [16]
John Ceiriog Hughes was a Welsh poet and collector of Welsh folk tunes, sometimes termed a Robert Burns of Wales. He was born at Penybryn Farm, overlooking the village of Llanarmon Dyffryn Ceiriog in the Ceiriog Valley of north-east Wales, then in Denbighshire, now part of Wrexham County Borough. One of eight children, he was a favourite of his mother, Phoebe, a midwife and herbal-medicine expert.
Llangollen is a town and community, situated on the River Dee, in Denbighshire, Wales. Its riverside location forms the edge of the Berwyn range, and the Dee Valley section of the Clwydian Range and Dee Valley Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, with the easternmost point of the Dee Valley Way being within the town. It had a population of 3,658 at the 2011 census.
Until 1974, Denbighshire, or the County of Denbigh, was an administrative county in the north of Wales, later classed as one of the thirteen historic counties of Wales. It was a maritime county, that was bounded to the north by the Irish Sea, to the east by Flintshire, Cheshire and Shropshire, to the south by Montgomeryshire and Merionethshire, and to the west by Caernarfonshire.
The Llangollen Canal is a navigable canal crossing the border between England and Wales. The waterway links Llangollen in Denbighshire, north Wales, with Hurleston in south Cheshire, via the town of Ellesmere, Shropshire. The name, which was coined in the 1980s, is a modern designation for parts of the historic Ellesmere Canal and the Llangollen navigable feeder, both of which became part of the Shropshire Union Canals in 1846.
The Pontcysyllte Aqueduct is a navigable aqueduct that carries the Llangollen Canal across the River Dee in the Vale of Llangollen in northeast Wales.
Ellesmere is a town in the civil parish of Ellesmere Urban, in Shropshire, England; it is located near to the Welsh border, the towns of Oswestry and Whitchurch, and the Welsh city of Wrexham. It is notable for its proximity to a number of prominent meres.
Wrexham County Borough is a county borough, with city status, in the north-east of Wales. It borders the English ceremonial counties of Cheshire and Shropshire to the east and south-east respectively along the England–Wales border, Powys to the south-west, Denbighshire to the west and Flintshire to the north-west. The city of Wrexham is the administrative centre. The county borough is part of the preserved county of Clwyd.
Ruabon is a village and community in Wrexham County Borough, Wales. The name comes from Rhiw Fabon, rhiw being the Welsh word for "slope" or "hillside" and Fabon being a mutation from St Mabon, the original church name, of earlier, Celtic origin. An older English spelling, Rhuabon, can sometimes be seen.
Chirk Castle is a Grade I listed castle located in Chirk, Wrexham County Borough, Wales, 1.5 mi (2.4 km) from Chirk railway station, now owned and run by the National Trust.
Chirk Aqueduct is a 70-foot (21 m) high and 710-foot (220 m) long navigable aqueduct that carries what is now the Llangollen Canal across the Ceiriog Valley near Chirk, on the England-Wales border, spanning the two countries.
St Martin's is a village and civil parish in Shropshire, England, just north of Oswestry and east of Chirk, Wales on the England–Wales border.
The Ceiriog Valley is the valley of the River Ceiriog in north-east Wales. Its Welsh name, "Dyffryn Ceiriog", is the name of an electoral ward of Wrexham County Borough. The ward is the largest ward of the county borough by area and forms a strikingly-shaped salient of the county borough between Powys and Denbighshire.
Glyn Ceiriog is the principal settlement of the Ceiriog Valley and a community in Wrexham County Borough, north-east Wales. Glyn Ceiriog translates simply as Ceiriog Valley, though there are other villages in the valley. The village and community is technically known, in traditional Welsh naming style, as Llansantffraid Glyn Ceiriog or sometimes Llansanffraid Glyn Ceiriog, which means church of St Ffraid in the Ceiriog Valley, but it has come to be known simply as Glyn Ceiriog, or even Glyn for short. The name Llansanffraid is now more associated with other villages of the same name.
Maelor Way is a key long distance footpath, running 38 kilometres / 24 miles from the Offa's Dyke Path National Trail at Bronygarth to the Shropshire Way, Sandstone Trail, Llangollen Canal, South Cheshire Way, and the Marches Way all at Grindley Brook near Whitchurch.
Llanarmon Dyffryn Ceiriog is a village in Wrexham County Borough, Wales. It lies on the River Ceiriog and is at the end of the B4500 road, five miles (8 km) south-west of Glyn Ceiriog and ten miles (16 km) north-west of Oswestry. It is within the Ceiriog Valley ward, Clwyd South Senedd constituency and Clwyd South UK parliamentary constituency. It is in the community of Ceiriog Ucha.
Ysgol Dinas Brân is an 11-18 bilingual co-educational secondary school in Llangollen, Denbighshire, Wales. It serves the town of Llangollen and the surrounding areas including Corwen, Wrexham, Johnstown, Ruabon, Cefn Mawr, and Trevor. The school was previously called Llangollen Grammar School. The school had 1072 pupils on roll in 2023.
The River Ceiriog is an 18 miles (29 km) long river in north east Wales, whose name may derive from a term meaning "favoured one". It is a tributary of the River Dee. It rises at an altitude of around 1,800 ft (549 m) on the south east slopes of Moel Fferna in the Berwyn Mountains, and flows through the Ceiriog Valley in Wrexham County Borough. It flows below Chirk Castle and the town of Chirk, where the Chirk Aqueduct carries the Llangollen Canal, and the Chirk Viaduct carries the Shrewsbury–Chester line over the river. The Ceiriog joins the Dee east of the town. In its lower reaches, the river forms the border between Wales and Shropshire in England. Home to a trout fishing club, the river and its valley were described by British prime minister David Lloyd George as "a little bit of heaven on earth". As well as being a home to trout, the first grayling to be artificially reared in Wales were released into the river in 2009.
North East Wales is an area or region of Wales, commonly defined as a grouping of the principal areas of Denbighshire, Flintshire, and Wrexham County Borough in the north-east of the country. These principal areas comprise most of the former administrative county of Clwyd. It is bordered by Conwy, and Gwynedd, in North West Wales to the west, Powys, in Mid Wales to the south, the English counties of Cheshire, and Shropshire to the east, and the Irish Sea, and Dee estuary to the north. It is the more urban, densely populated, and industrial part of the north Wales geographic region, centred on the city of Wrexham and the towns of Rhyl and Prestatyn, and the conurbation of Deeside. The region's close links with North West England in general and Merseyside in particular are crucial to the region's economy. The Clwydian Range and Dee Valley Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty is located in the region. Other attractions include historical buildings such as Chirk Castle, and Erddig in Wrexham, valley towns such as Corwen and Llangollen, and the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct and Canal World Heritage Site.
The Clwydian Range and Dee Valley is a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty located in north-east Wales, covering the Clwydian Range, and the valley of the River Dee.
The Chirk Viaduct is a Grade II* listed railway viaduct over the River Ceiriog between England and Wales. The viaduct carries the Shrewsbury–Chester line from the Welsh town of Chirk in historic Denbighshire from the north to the English village of Chirk Bank in Weston Rhyn, Shropshire to the south. To the east, the Chirk Aqueduct lies parallel to the railway viaduct.