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Film footage of old Wrexham, Wales

 Wrexham, the largest town in North Wales and home to more than 65,000 people, has been caught on film at a number of moments through the past century. They allow today’s viewers to get a glimpse of the lives of previous generations.

Prince Of Wales 1930

On Friday 18th May 1934, Prince Edward, Prince of Wales (later King Edward VIII, Duke of Windsor), visited the town on the third and final day of a visit to North Wales. At a time of high unemployment, many communities in Wales suffered high levels of deprivation. 

In his capacity as Patron of the National Council of Social Services, the Prince visited the following locations:

  • New council houses in Trevenna Way, Spring Lodge, Wrexham
  • Ponciau Recreation Ground playing fields at Rhosllanerchrugog
  • Craft centre at Brymbo Steelworks
  • "33 Club" at Shotton and the children's play area at Queensferry in Flintshire

Because this footage in the British Pathé archives was unused, it’s not accompanied by a commentary. 

It’s amusing to see one particular child determined to keep running about in front of the prince. She seems unaware of the camera, even as she attracts the eye away from the important dignitaries.



His Royal Highness At Wrexham AKA Prince Of Wales In Wrexham (1930) - British Pathé on YouTube

1950s Drive Towards Wrexham

In the 1950s someone driving towards the town took a short film clip of their journey, which is now part of the HuntleyFilmArchives.



Road near Wrexham, North Wales, 1950's. Archive film 99514 - HuntleyFilmArchives on YouTube

1970s Carnival

YouTube channel PoppyWales.Cymru uploaded this wonderful colour cine film from the 1970s.

Made by the late Mr Rees Lewis of 10 Edward Street, Wrexham, it’s almost four minutes of beautifully clear footage of the carnival participants and some of the spectators.

As the parade moves through the town centre to Bellevue Park, we see the young children of the Bellevue Park Playgroup dressed as children's book characters. Their supervising adults - far fewer of them than we would expect to see today for a large group of tiny children on a moving vehicle without barriers - are  dressed as witches. 



Wrexham - Carnival 1970's - PoppyWales.Cymru on YouTube

Photos Taken In 1988

Graham Lloyd uploaded a number of videos showing old photos of the town, to promote the website wrexham-history.co.uk

Three minutes of good quality black and white photos of the town in 1988.



Wrexham Past - 1988 - Graham Lloyd on YouTube

North East Wales Institute 1988

From the Mostyn History Preservation Society Film Archive comes this short film made at North East Wales Institute (NEWI) in 1988.

Various locations, students and tutors appear.

Given the shots of students hanging about in corridors and shuddering in the biting wind, it certainly would not be included in a promotional video today!



NEWI WREXHAM 1988 - Mostyn History Preservation Society Film Archive on YouTube

Welcome To Wrexham 1989

This is a great video, showing nine minutes of Wrexham’s people and places in 1989. 

Unfortunately, the Brymbo Steelworks shown in the film closed the following year, on 14th May 1990.

In town, we see the Littlewoods store. Sold by the Moores family in 2002 to David and Frederick Barclay for £750 million, the brand closed its last stores in 2005.

In the middle of a film promoting the town, it seems strange to ask “What of the lifestyle of a family living in Wrexham?", at the very point we see two very young children and their quiet mother sitting in a gaudy plastic environment eating fast food out of polystyrene containers.

It's especially striking because at no point we see people enjoying a quality meal in a cafe, pub or restaurant. The alleyway offering a teashop contains nothing but a young woman who is maybe searching for customers, or is she looking for a way out past the camera crew?

In the estate agent’s window, a Victorian house is offered for sale at £22,250. Next to it is a detached house for £67,500.

“High technology education and training” appears to be learning how to type into a word processor, and creating random blocks of symbols on a dot matrix printer.



Welcome To Wrexham 1989 | Wrexham.com - on YouTube

It’s all very charming and entertaining, with lots of 80s hair and fashion on display.

Plus, hundreds of people appear on this promotional film that has suddenly become a little piece of history.

Town Centre & Hightown 1991

YouTube channel joe bloggs uploaded a video made back on 7th July 1991 with a cumbersome home video recorder.

It shows a fourteen minute drive around the town centre, and surrounding streets,  passing homes, shops, businesses, other vehicles and a number of pedestrians. The images are accompanied by a well selected soundtrack.



Wrexham town centre and Hightown 1991 - joe bloggs on YouTube

Buses 1992

Dave Spencer's videos of buses around the UK in past decades includes this one from the town centre. 

Amusingly, half way through you suddenly hear someone driving around in the background asking people to vote for the labour candidate, John Marek.

In 1992 John Major’s Conservatives and Neil Kinnock’s Labour fought the General Election. While John Major won nationally, in Wrexham the sitting Labour MP John Marek increased his majority. He later moved on to the National Assembly for Wales before becoming an independent.



WREXHAM BUSES 1992 - on YouTube

Buses 2000

Another video from Dave Spencer, this time recorded on  quiet day in the year 2000.

Toy Story 2 is advertised on the side of one of the passing buses.



WREXHAM BUSES 2000 - on YouTube

Wrexham Bus Station Redevelopment of 2003

Video47 captured a few moments of buses trying to operate around the disruption of the bus station redevelopment works.

A number of pedestrians and passengers also appear.



The Old Wrexham Bus Station - during redevelopment in 2003 - Video47 on YouTube

Libraries Fortnight 2011

Over 400 free events took place for all the family in libraries and local communities across Wales as part of Libraries Fortnight (1st-14th November 2011).

In this video, the Young Ambassadors of the Olympics (London 2012) visited Wrexham’s library. It was an age when having 35 computers, free wifi and the ability to watch one of 2,000 film and TV programmes on demand was something to talk about!



Libraries Fortnight - Olympic Challenge at Wrexham Library - on YouTube

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Location: Wrexham, UK

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