Wrexham became Wales's newest city in 2022, a recognition long overdue for the largest town in north Wales and a place with more claim to urban grit than most of the country's cities. A former coal and steel town, it has reinvented itself as a busy commercial centre — and, since 2020, as an unlikely global football sensation.
The main historic draw is St Giles' Parish Church, whose ornate Gothic tower is one of the Seven Wonders of Wales. A copy of the tower stands at Yale University in the United States, whose benefactor Elihu Yale is buried in the churchyard. Just outside the city, Erddig Hall is a National Trust property remarkable for preserving the detailed records of its servants alongside the family's — walking its working kitchens and laundries feels unusually real compared to the usual country house experience. Bersham Ironworks, where John Wilkinson developed the precision boring techniques that made James Watt's steam engine practical, gives the city its industrial dimension.
Eight miles southeast, the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct carries the Llangollen Canal 39 metres above the Dee Valley on Thomas Telford's cast-iron trough — a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the most vertiginous walks in Wales. And in the city centre, Tŷ Pawb is a lively arts centre and market hall that captures something of Wrexham's working-class character. Then there's Wrexham AFC and the Racecourse Ground — the world's oldest international football stadium, now home to a Hollywood-backed club with a global following and a very Welsh soul.