Caego is a village in

Wrexham County Borough Wrexham County Borough ( cy, Bwrdeistref Sirol Wrecsam) is a county borough, with city status, in the north-east of Wales. It borders England to the east and south-east, Powys to the south-west, Denbighshire to the west and Flintshire to the nort ...

, Wales, immediately to the west of the city of

Wrexham Wrexham ( ; cy, Wrecsam; ) is a city and the administrative centre of Wrexham County Borough in Wales. It is located between the Welsh mountains and the lower Dee Valley, near the border with Cheshire in England. Historically in the count ...

in the

community A community is a social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place, norms, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, tow ...

of Broughton. It is contiguous with the neighbouring larger village of New Broughton; the main road passing through the centre of the village is the B5101. Its name can perhaps be translated as "the field (''cae'') of the

smith Smith may refer to: People * Metalsmith, or simply smith, a craftsman fashioning tools or works of art out of various metals * Smith (given name) * Smith (surname), a family name originating in England, Scotland and Ireland ** List of people wi ...

". The village lies in the parish of Berse, whose name has the same origin as the nearby village of

Bersham Bersham ( cy, Y Bers) is a village in Wrexham County Borough, Wales, that lies next to the River Clywedog, and is in the community of Esclusham. Bersham was historically a major industrial centre of the area, but despite this the village sti ...

.Berse

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The name, still sometimes applied to the area of Caego, was originally that of a common and later came to apply to the whole

township A township is a kind of human settlement or administrative subdivision, with its meaning varying in different countries. Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, that tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, Ca ...

of Berse or Bersham; it may be based on an

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...

personal name or on the

Middle English Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English p ...

word "berse", meaning a hedge of osiers.Palmer, A. N. ''A History of Ancient Tenures of Land in North Wales and the Marches'', 1910, p.244Charles, B. G. ''Non-Celtic place-names in Wales'', 1938, p.195 Nearby farms are still known as Higher Berse and Little Berse. Berse parish, however, was created only in June 1934, when it was formed from parts of the parishes of

Rhosddu Rhosddu () is a suburb and community in Wrexham County Borough, Wales, covering the north-western parts of the city of Wrexham and comprises the wards of Grosvenor, Garden Village and Stansty. At the 2011 Census, the population of the community ...

and Wrexham, while most of the houses making up Caego village were built in the 1930s or later. Many of the pre-World War II houses were built by the brothers, Evan and Robert Thomas Williams. The village's main landmark is the small eighteenth-century Berse (or Berse Drelincourt) Parish Church, which is now

Grade II listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

. Originally known as the "Capel Madam", it was built in 1742 by Mrs Mary Drelincourt, widow of Peter or Pierre Drelincourt (1644–1722), the Dean of

Armagh Armagh ( ; ga, Ard Mhacha, , "Macha's height") is the county town of County Armagh and a city in Northern Ireland, as well as a civil parish. It is the ecclesiastical capital of Ireland – the seat of the Archbishops of Armagh, the Pri ...

, and was originally attached to a small girls'

charity school Charity schools, sometimes called blue coat schools, or simply the Blue School, were significant in the history of education in England. They were built and maintained in various parishes by the voluntary contributions of the inhabitants to ...

.Berse church
, Clwyd FHS The church, which does not have a specific dedication, was consecrated in 1759, enlarged in 1828 (to accommodate pews for landowners Thomas Hayes of Gatewen Hall, and Thomas Fitzhugh of Plas Power), and restored in 1862.
, Wrexham County Borough Council As of 2010 the church has been taken out of use and put up for sale by the

Church in Wales The Church in Wales ( cy, Yr Eglwys yng Nghymru) is an Anglicanism, Anglican church in Wales, composed of six dioceses. The Archbishop of Wales does not have a fixed archiepiscopal see, but serves concurrently as one of the six diocesan bishop ...

. The

Great Western Railway The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament on 31 August 1835 and ran ...

's branch to the Moss Valley ran through the village until the 1930s. It was reinstated for a period in the 1960s and 1970s to serve a coal disposal point at Gatewen.

References

{{authority control Villages in Wrexham County Borough