Wrexham County Borough 110 - Hanmer /the mere and the connection to Owain Glyndwr/a very large church for a tiny hamlet

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This is the time of the year when you cannot find much to do. However hard you try the mornings are dark and gloomy particularly when it rains which it seems to have done over the last few days. The nights are still dark too. The skies should be black enough to see the meteor showers but somehow I missed them. The first floods of the winter have arrived with the slip road to the bridge closed and the Straight Mile flooded . The fields look like minature lakes . France on the other hand is experiencing a heat wave . I know where I would prefer to be at the moment.

We decided to take the car out for a drive. Not too far just far enough to make sure that the brakes did not stick on. Far enough to get a bit of fresh air and see a different bit of scenery. We are getting to the point where we are fast running out of places on the doorstep to visit. We have exhausted all the local castles and hillforts over the years. Visited the local pubs and eaten lunch in a number of them . We have been further afield . First of all half an hour from home increasing this to one hour of travelling . We seem to be more home than away. We are slowly ticking off everything of offer in the local museum . We are due another change of exhibition as the one on at the moment has been running for months or so it seems. We have a few places to revisit. Oswestry with its hill fort. Market Drayton with its gingerbread connection and Mold with its beautiful charge and Motte and Bailey castle . We have been to Chester and walked the walls. We need to get up the Wirral and perhaps when Spring comes we may visit the Boat Museum, Ness Gardens and Birkenhead . There are places to see but when the weather is poor somehow it seems easier to stay in than go out .

Today our trip was just a short quarter of an hour drive to nearby Hanmer. A tiny hamlet with a handful of pretty houses and a very large mere. Not as large as Ellesmere but formed at the same point in the Ice Age when huge ice blocks melted and left behind a series of meres . There used to be a pub The Hanmer Arms in the village but that was up for sale . Village pubs are getting few and far between as one by one they close down and are converted to houses or just lay derelict and sad. A Yesteryear rally was held here about thirty years ago or was it even longer than that .. I moaned about the swimmer in the baths . An inconsiderate soul who ploughed up and down with little or no regard for anyone else . She had moaned at me this morning and in between looking at the empty shop - the only one in Hanmer I complained about closed shops and ignorant swimmers .

We parked up outside the church . There was no specific parking . Park up on the road . It was bin day but luckily the bin men were ahead of us and we were never going to block them in. The pale sun smiled down on the mere. I guess you could walk around it if you wanted to but not today .

The small hamlet had its own war memorial . The poppy wreaths were all new and clean. The winter weather had not had chance to dirty them and turn the bright red a dull and muddy colour . The memorial like many in this part of Maelor Saesneg the detached part of old Flintshire is constructed of sandstone to a Gilbert Scott design. The base forms a stone seat similar to the one in Bangor on Dee and is set in the churchyard wall . Stepped stages rise up and each stage holds the inscriptions of the dead who lost their lives in both world wars . A slender column is summounted by a very unusual crucified Christ who is topped by a small roof .

We left the memorial and walked up the path to the church . We were unsure we would find it open but hoped that it would be . It is a massive church in relation to the side of the hamlet. A tranquil place with paths leading through meadows and woodlands. Around the church was an 18th century vicarage and and the oldest half timbered cottage in the magpie style of the area. The oldest school in continuous use was also in the area. Hanmer apparently or so we read took its name from the Anglo Saxon Hagena who established a holding here . St Chad the Mercian saint baptised converts here in or around AD670. So we were surrounded by a good deal of history in such a small place .

Edward 1st, after his conquest of Wales, gave the area to Sir Thomas de Macclesfield. His grandson took the name of the village and the Hanmer family have been in Hanmer ever since. The twelfth century church was the setting in 1383 for the marriage of Margaret Hanmer to Owain Glyndwr, the man many see as the greatest Welshman of all time. That church was destroyed by fire in 1463 during the Wars of the Roses. It was rebuilt at the expense of Margaret Beaufort, wife of Lord Thomas Stanley and mother of Henry Tudor . The Tudor Rose motif, seen throughout the church, refers back to that time. We spotted one on the doorway as we stopped to talk to the elderly man who was clearing the paths of moss . The church is open he shouted. We walked in through the porch as it was clear to see the changes inside the church. The roof was lovely. Where that had burnt down it had been replaced with a new wooden one. The altar and the rood screen were Victorian and beautifully decorated . The pews had been replaced around the 1960's by the look of the style. Light oak and plain. They looked odd . I was not fond of those additions . Apparently during the Civil War Roundhead troops from Nantwich invaded the village and stabled their horses in St. Chad’s. By order of Oliver Cromwell the ancient Churchyard Cross was thrown down and was only set up again at the southeast corner of the church in 1739. On the 20th June 1643 a large body of these Parliamentarian horse and dragoons was ambushed near Hanmer mere by Welsh Royalists and ‘cut to pieces’ in a skirmish.

We read that the the ‘Great Fire’ of Hanmer on 3rd February 1889 destroyed the magnificent interior woodwork, windows and roof of the church and threatened the whole village. Many fires were beaten out on thatched roofs of the nearby houses. The new box ceiling of the church has carvings designed and made by village youths in woodwork classes. Sadly work came to a sudden unfinished end when the young men went to the first World War. There are also beautifully carved screens and fitments from that time and the stained glass includes three Kempe windows. To be fair the restoration was in most parts sympathetic .

In the nave was the largest Christmas tree I had seen. It reached the ceiling but was sparsly decorated . An Italian painting of the Madonna and Child was hung on the wall and an old hand cart was placed in a corner . Odd how there are handcarts for carrying coffins in all the Maelor churches. A modern Madonna and Child was placed in one corner and it was fair to see we were finding all sorts of things to see . In fact a lot more than we expected.

All in all Hanmer was a lovely church .Items here and there knitted by the congregation . Three kings on the font. Beautiful stained glass windows . A worthwhile ride out to tick off another local church .

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