Hanmer is a village and

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 ...

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 Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...

. At the 2001 Census the population of the Hanmer community area, which includes Hanmer village itself, Horseman's Green,

Halghton Halghton is a dispersed settlement and former civil parish in the east of Wrexham County Borough, Wales. It is part of the community of Hanmer. History Halghton is probably identifiable with the vill of "Hulhtune" noted in a 1043 charter of Leo ...

and Arowry along with a number of small hamlets, was recorded at 726, reducing to 665 at the 2011 Census.

History

The village of Hanmer lies at the northern end of Hanmer Mere, part of the 'Shropshire lake district' of meres which was formed during the last ice-age. By the time of the Roman invasion (47 AD), the area was part of the lands occupied by the

Cornovii The Cornovii is the name by which two, or three, tribes were known in Roman Britain. One tribe was in the area centred on present-day Shropshire, one was in Caithness in northernmost Scotland, and there was probably one in Cornwall. The name has ...

, one of the tribes of ancient Britain who had their principal settlement at the

Wrekin The Wrekin is a hill in east Shropshire, England. It is located some five miles (8 km) west of Telford, on the border between the unitary authorities of Shropshire and Telford and Wrekin. Rising above the Shropshire Plain to a height of 4 ...

. It later became part of the

Mercia la, Merciorum regnum , conventional_long_name=Kingdom of Mercia , common_name=Mercia , status=Kingdom , status_text=Independent kingdom (527–879)Client state of Wessex () , life_span=527–918 , era=Heptarchy , event_start= , date_start= , ye ...

n region known as Wreocansaete. The name is thought to have either originally been "Handmere",Hanmer, Flintshire

GENUKI GENUKI is a genealogy web portal, run as a charitable trust. It "provides a virtual reference library of genealogical information of particular relevance to the UK and Ireland". It gives access to a large collection of information, with the emphas ...

or "Hagenamere", taking its name from a

n lord.Hanmer
BBC North East Wales] At the time of the Norman invasion the area was part of ancient

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a ceremonial and historic county in North West England, bordered by Wales to the west, Merseyside and Greater Manchester to the north, Derbyshire to the east, and Staffordshire and Shropshire to the south. Cheshire's county t ...

, within the Hundred of Duddeston, and it later became the estate of (and gave its name to) the prominent Hanmer family, who were descended from Sir Thomas de Macclesfield, an officer of

Edward I Edward I (17/18 June 1239 – 7 July 1307), also known as Edward Longshanks and the Hammer of the Scots, was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 1272 to 1307. Concurrently, he ruled the duchies of Aquitaine and Gascony as a vassal o ...

.Hanmer family
Dictionary of Welsh Biography, National Library of Wales Sir Thomas settled in

English Maelor English Maelor ( cy, Maelor Saesneg) comprises one half of the Maelor region on the Welsh side of the Wales-England border, being the area of the Maelor east of the River Dee. The region has changed counties several times, previously being part ...

( cy, Maelor Saesneg) and his family consolidated their possessions in the area through a series of marriages to heiresses of important Welsh families. The oldest recorded reference to a church in Hanmer dates from 1110, though this building was destroyed in 1463 during the

Wars of the Roses The Wars of the Roses (1455–1487), known at the time and for more than a century after as the Civil Wars, were a series of civil wars fought over control of the English throne in the mid-to-late fifteenth century. These wars were fought bet ...

. It was rebuilt in 1490, destroyed again by fire in 1889 along with many irreplaceable architectural features, and rebuilt between 1892 and 1936, when the

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. Ove ...

was finally reconstructed. It is dedicated to St Chad. Until the reorganisation of Welsh local government on 1 April 1974, Hanmer was in the detached part of the historic county of

Flintshire , settlement_type = County , image_skyline = , image_alt = , image_caption = , image_flag = , image_shield = Arms of Flint ...

known as

. Its local speech was recorded in depth in the

Survey of English Dialects The Survey of English Dialects was undertaken between 1950 and 1961 under the direction of Professor Harold Orton of the English department of the University of Leeds. It aimed to collect the full range of speech in England and Wales before loca ...

; Hanmer was the only site in North Wales to be included in the survey, and so it was grouped together with the sites in

Important buildings

*Halghton Hall – grade I listed house *

Saint Chad Chad of Mercia (died 2 March 672) was a prominent 7th-century Anglo-Saxon Catholic monk who became abbot of several monasteries, Bishop of the Northumbrians and subsequently Bishop of the Mercians and Lindsey People. He was later canonised ...

's Church – grade II* listed, as are the churchyard gates and the churchyard cross. *Bettisfield Park – grade II* listed country house *Hanmer War Memorial – grade II* listed *Magpie Cottage – grade II listed

Notable residents

Dafydd ab Edmwnd Dafydd ap Edmwnd (fl. c. 1450–97) was one of the most prominent Welsh language poets of the Later Middle Ages. Life Dafydd was born into a family of Norman ancestry in Hanmer, in Flintshire (now Wrexham County Borough), north-east Wales. As a ...

(fl. c. 1450–1497), one of the prominent Welsh poets of the later Middle Ages, was born in Hanmer. *

Margaret Hanmer Margaret Hanmer (c. 1370 – c. 1420), sometimes known by her Welsh name of Marred ferch Dafydd, was the wife of Owain Glyndŵr. Early life and marriage Nothing is known of Margaret's early life, not even the precise date of her marriage ...

, daughter of Sir

David Hanmer Sir David Hanmer, KS, SL (1332–1387) was a fourteenth century Anglo-Welsh Justice of the King's Bench from Hanmer, Wales,Arthur Herbert Dodd"HANMER family of Hanmer, Bettisfield, Fens and Halton, Flintshire, and Pentre-pant, Salop." ''Dictiona ...

, married

Owain Glyndŵr Owain ap Gruffydd (), commonly known as Owain Glyndŵr or Glyn Dŵr (, anglicised as Owen Glendower), was a Welsh leader, soldier and military commander who led a 15 year long Welsh War of Independence with the aim of ending English rule in Wa ...

c. 1383. *

Lorna Sage Lorna Sage (13 January 1943 – 11 January 2001) was an English academic, literary critic and author, remembered especially for contributing to consideration of women's writing and for a memoir of her early life, '' Bad Blood'' (2000).ODNB entry ...

, author of '' Bad Blood'', winner of the 2000 Whitbread Biography Award, grew up in Hanmer during the 1940s and 1950s. The book is about her grandfather's tenure as vicar of St Chad's parish church. *

Richard Steele Sir Richard Steele (bap. 12 March 1672 – 1 September 1729) was an Anglo-Irish writer, playwright, and politician, remembered as co-founder, with his friend Joseph Addison, of the magazine ''The Spectator''. Early life Steele was born in Du ...

(1629–1692), nonconformist theologian and rector, 1650–1666 *

R. S. Thomas Ronald Stuart Thomas (29 March 1913 – 25 September 2000), published as R. S. Thomas, was a Welsh poet and Anglican priest ( Church of Wales) noted for nationalism, spirituality and dislike of the anglicisation of Wales. John Betjeman, introduc ...

(1913–2000), poet, was briefly curate in Hanmer in 1940–1942.Byron Rogers,''The Man who went West: The Life of R. S Thomas''. (London: Aurum Press, 2006), pp. 120–122.

References

External links

Photos of Hanmer and surrounding area on geograph
{{authority control Villages in Wrexham County Borough Communities in Wrexham County Borough History of Flintshire