Historic Landscape Characterisation

Maelor Saesneg: Ywern
Bangor Is-y-coed and Willington Worthenbury communities, Wrexham County Borough
(HLCA 1114)

Floodplain with scattered and isolated farms, land traditionally used as meadow, with drainage dykes and ditches in some areas, and with some ridge and furrow possibly indicating areas of open field cultivation during the medieval and early post-medieval periods.

Historic background

Key historic landscape characteristics

The only settlement in the area comprises a small number of isolated farms which probably originated in the post-medieval period. Present-day land use is predominantly pasture, though there are some areas of relict field systems represented by ridge and furrow which appear to represent areas of open field cultivation during the medieval and early post-medieval periods, possibly on a periodic rather than continuous basis. Modern boundaries are generally either formed of thin hedges or post-and-wire fences. Land improvement and water management schemes of post-medieval date are represented by drainage ditches and dykes, area of which have the appearance of water meadows. The modern field pattern is predominantly of large irregular fields with some discrete areas of strip fields which are possibly of medieval origin, associated with ridge and furrow.

Communications are generally limited to the lanes and footpaths giving access to isolated farmsteads and parts of the river bank. The western part of the area was once crossed by the course of the Wrexham and Ellesmere Railway, constructed in the 1890s and closed in the 1960s, following which the viaduct across the river to the north of Bangor Is-y-coed was demolished.

Sources