Froncysyllte (; ),

colloquial Colloquialism (), also called colloquial language, everyday language or general parlance, is the style (sociolinguistics), linguistic style used for casual (informal) communication. It is the most common functional style of speech, the idiom norm ...

ly known as Fron, 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 ...

, Wales and stands on the banks of the River Dee and the

Llangollen Canal The Llangollen Canal ( cy, Camlas Llangollen) is a navigable canal crossing the border between England and Wales. The waterway links Llangollen in Denbighshire, north Wales, with Hurleston in south Cheshire, via the town of Ellesmere, Shropshir ...

. It is situated on the main

A5 road A5 Road may refer to: ;Africa * A5 highway (Nigeria), a road connecting Lagos and Ibadan * A5 road (Zimbabwe), a road connecting Harare and Francistown ;Americas * Quebec Autoroute 5, a road in Quebec, Canada * County Route A5 (California) or B ...

which runs from

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

to Holyhead. It is 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, ...

Llangollen Rural Llangollen Rural ( cy, Llangollen Wledig) is a community and electoral ward in Wrexham County Borough, Wales. It contains the villages of Froncysyllte, Garth, and Trevor, and had a population of 1,999 at the 2001 census,

. The population was 606 as of 2011 UK census. The name is derived from the Welsh ''bron'' (here

lenited In linguistics, lenition is a sound change that alters consonants, making them more sonorous. The word ''lenition'' itself means "softening" or "weakening" (from Latin 'weak'). Lenition can happen both synchronically (within a language at a pa ...

to ''fron''), here meaning a hill breast, along with the name Cysyllte, one of the old

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, C ...

s of the parish of

Llangollen Llangollen () is a town and community, situated on the River Dee, in Denbighshire, Wales. Its riverside location forms the edge of the Berwyn range, and the Dee Valley section of the Clwydian Range and Dee Valley Area of Outstanding Natural Bea ...

. The anglicised spelling ''Vroncysyllte'' was commonly used until the mid 20th century.

History

Froncysyllte is situated in the farming landscape of the Vale of Llangollen, but first developed as a settlement of cottages for quarry, limekiln, brick and tile workers during the 19th century.Vale of Llangollen
Clwyd-Powys Archaeological Trust The village was built on a high outcrop of

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...

below several quarries. Though the area's traditional industries have now gone, it still has a rich

industrial archaeology Industrial archaeology (IA) is the systematic study of material evidence associated with the industrial past. This evidence, collectively referred to as industrial heritage, includes buildings, machinery, artifacts, sites, infrastructure, docu ...

.Dee Valley, Froncysyllte to Newbridge
, Wrexham County Borough Council Planning Amongst the landmarks left around Froncysyllte by industrial development is the

Pontcysyllte Aqueduct The Pontcysyllte Aqueduct (; cy, Traphont Ddŵr Pontcysyllte) is a navigable aqueduct that carries the Llangollen Canal across the River Dee in the Vale of Llangollen in northeast Wales. The 18-arched stone and cast iron structure is for use ...

, a

World Heritage Site A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for h ...

, which was built by

Thomas Telford Thomas Telford FRS, FRSE, (9 August 1757 – 2 September 1834) was a Scottish civil engineer. After establishing himself as an engineer of road and canal projects in Shropshire, he designed numerous infrastructure projects in his native Scot ...

in 1795 to carry the

across the River Dee.

Choir

The notable Froncysyllte Male Voice Choir was formed in 1947, in connection with the inaugural Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod, with local management and musical direction. Young men were persuaded to join, to make up a minimum of 60 voices needed to compete in the

Eisteddfod In Welsh culture, an ''eisteddfod'' is an institution and festival with several ranked competitions, including in poetry and music. The term ''eisteddfod'', which is formed from the Welsh morphemes: , meaning 'sit', and , meaning 'be', means, ac ...

. At the 1955 Llangollen Eisteddfod, the choir hosted an Italian choir including tenor Luciano Pavarotti, who was so impressed with his group's first-prize achievement that he decided to embark on a professional career. The

Universal Music Group Universal Music Group N.V. (often abbreviated as UMG and referred to as just Universal Music) is a Dutch– American multinational music corporation under Dutch law. UMG's corporate headquarters are located in Hilversum, Netherlands and its ...

album ''Voices of the Valley'' was released in November 2006, reaching number 9 on the

UK album chart The Official Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales and (from March 2015) audio streaming in the United Kingdom. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the Official Charts ...

. It became the fastest-selling classical record of all time, achieving gold status in three days and, by 2009, had sold over half a million copies.Fron Male Voice Choir (Voices Of The Valley)
at lemonrock.com, 2009

References

External links

BBC Wales Froncysyllte minisitewww.geograph.co.uk : photos of Froncysyllte and surrounding area
{{authority control Villages in Wrexham County Borough