Brymbo - History

History

Brymbo, possibly from the Welsh Bryn baw ("mud hill" or "dirt hill") first appears in records in 1339, although the area had clearly been occupied for centuries beforehand (see "Brymbo Man" below). At this stage Brymbo was a township covering a considerable area and containing a number of scattered settlements, farms, commons, and "wastes", or uncultivated areas. In 1410, the burgesses of the local settlement of Holt were granted the right to dig for coal in the wastes of "Harwd" and Coedpoeth; "Harwd", another early name for Brymbo, came from the English name "Harwood" ("Hare Wood") and referred to a common in one part of the township.

Sometime in the fifteenth century, landowner Edward ap Morgan ap Madoc, gentleman, built a dwelling in the township that was later to become Brymbo Hall, the home of his descendants the Griffith family.

A survey of the Lordship of Bromfield and Yale, conducted in 1620 by John Norden and his son, described the boundaries of the township of Brymbo, in the manor of Esclusham, as follows:

To the ffirst article the said Jurie doe say that the towneshipp of Brymbo, beeing part of ye said mannor, is bounded from Mynera by a brooke called Gwenfro, by a common there called Y Koed boeth by the south side; and from Flintshire by a brooke called Avon y Frith, running from a common called Nant y Frith to a rive' called Kegidog; and soe the said Kegidog running downeward a little beyond a bridge called Pont y Place Mayne vppon ye north side, and from Gwersilt by a little brooke called y Frwe, and from Broughton by a little brook running from a common called Harwood to a place called y Groes faen on ye east side ; and vpon ye west, from ye said common called Nant y Frith to a place vpon ye said common called Maes Maylo' or thereabouts; but ye certaine boundes of ye said towneshipp vppon ye said mountayne or common, they cannott sett downe.

While there was mining of coal in the area on a small scale, the late eighteenth century saw an expansion in activity, particularly after the industrialist John "Iron-Mad" Wilkinson purchased Brymbo Hall and began developing its estate, mining coal and ironstone and building an ironworks which was later to become the Brymbo Steelworks. By 1821 there was a total of 41 coal pits on the Brymbo Hall estate alone. In the nineteenth century, a number of larger deep mines were sunk around the area, and the majority of the village of Brymbo was developed as accommodation for the miners and ironworkers. The village itself was constructed on and around the steep sides of Brymbo Hill with spectacular views towards the Cheshire Plain, though the area's dramatic topography was later to cause problems when the steelworks expanded in 1956: the new parts had to be built on a vast artificial plateau of slag from the furnaces, filling the width of the valley and burying most of the village of Lodge, whose houses were purchased and demolished.

Although the steelworks continued in production, many of the area's collieries ran into geological and financial problems by the time of the Great Depression, and the area's last deep mine (the Plas Power pit, near Southsea) closed in 1938, though the Smelt drift mine, west of the village, closed in 1967 (many of the remaining coal deposits were extracted by open-cast mining immediately west of the steelworks during 1972-75). The steelworks itself, after several years of uncertainty, was finally to close in stages between 1990 and 1991, having a severe economic impact on the village.