Broughton is a Community (Wales), community in

Wrexham County Borough Wrexham County Borough () is a Principal areas of Wales, county borough, with city status in the United Kingdom, city status, in the North East Wales, north-east of Wales. It borders the English ceremonial counties of Cheshire and Shropshire to ...

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

. It has an area of 469 hectares and had a population of 6,498 in the 2001 census, increasing to 7,454 at the 2011 Census. The area is dominated by the Moss Valley, which was known for its coal mining. Today it is operated as a country park, and there is a golf course of the same name in the vicinity.

History

Broughton was recorded in the reign of Henry VII as one of the

townships A township is a form of human settlement or administrative subdivision. Its exact definition varies among countries. Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, this tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, Canad ...

of the manor of Eglwysegle (a name preserved in the area known as

Eglwyseg The Eglwyseg valley is an area to the north east of Llangollen in Denbighshire, Wales; it is within the boundaries of Llantysilio Community. The name also refers to a widely scattered hamlet in the valley. Formerly the old township of Eglwysegl ...

near

Llangollen Llangollen () is a town and community (Wales), community, situated on the River Dee, Wales, 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 Val ...

), part of the lordship of Bromfield. The

Wrexham Wrexham ( ; ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city in the North East Wales, north-east of Wales. It lies between the Cambrian Mountains, Welsh mountains and the lower River Dee, Wales, Dee Valley, near the England–Wales border, borde ...

historian

Alfred Neobard Palmer Alfred Neobard Palmer (10 July 1847 – 7 March 1915) was a chemist and local historian. He published several books concerning the local history of Wrexham and north Wales. Biography Alfred Neobard Palmer was born in Thetford, Norfolk, England ...

noted:

Three villages alled Broughtonare situated in that part of Wales which was settled by Englishmen. They appear in
Domesday Domesday Book ( ; the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book") is a manuscript record of the Great Survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...
as "Brochetune" or "Broctune," which can hardly mean anything else than "Brook-town". The brook which may have given the Bromfield Broughton its name is now almost always dry, but "Rhyd Broughton" (or Broughton ford) preserves the memory of it.Palmer, A. N. and Owen, E. ''A History of Ancient Tenures of Land in North Wales and the Marches'', 2nd ed, 1910, p.245

Under the ecclesiastical administration the township of Broughton was part of the

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...

of Wrexham, and later of

Brymbo Brymbo is a village and community in Wrexham County Borough, Wales. It lies in the hilly country to the west of Wrexham city, largely surrounded by farmland. At the 2001 Census, the population of the community area (including Brymbo village, a ...

. Population changes led to it being made a parish in its own right in 1909. The corresponding

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

of Broughton, which was ultimately based on the boundaries of the ancient township, became the community of Broughton under the terms of the

Local Government Act 1972 The Local Government Act 1972 (c. 70) is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that reformed local government in England and Wales on 1 April 1974. It was one of the most significant acts of Parliament to be passed by the Heath Gov ...

. It today contains the villages of

Moss Mosses are small, non-vascular plant, non-vascular flowerless plants in the taxonomic phylum, division Bryophyta (, ) ''sensu stricto''. Bryophyta (''sensu lato'', Wilhelm Philippe Schimper, Schimp. 1879) may also refer to the parent group bryo ...

Pentre Broughton Pentre Broughton is a formerly industrial village in the community of Broughton in Wrexham County Borough, Wales. It is contiguous with the neighbouring villages of Moss and Brynteg. The village's name is derived from the Welsh word ''pentre' ...

, Brynteg, New Broughton,

Southsea Southsea is a seaside resort and a geographic area of Portsmouth, Portsea Island in the ceremonial county of Hampshire, England. Southsea is located 1.8 miles (2.8 km) to the south of Portsmouth's inner city-centre. Southsea began as a f ...

and

Caego Caego is a village in Wrexham County Borough, Wales, immediately to the west of the city of Wrexham in the community of Broughton. It is contiguous with the neighbouring larger village of New Broughton; the main road passing through the centre ...

. The majority of the villages date from the 19th century, when the area became heavily industrialised through

coal mining Coal mining is the process of resource extraction, extracting coal from the ground or from a mine. Coal is valued for its Energy value of coal, energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to Electricity generation, generate electr ...

and its proximity to the

Brymbo Steelworks The Brymbo Steel Works was a former large steelworks in the village of Brymbo near Wrexham, Wales. In operation between 1796 and 1990, it was significant on account of its founder, one of whose original blast furnace stacks remains on the sit ...

. A number of coal mines were located in the area known as Moss Valley, along with a number in Pentre Broughton near

such as the Brynmally and Pwll Cadi collieries. Most of the area's coal mines had closed by the 1930s and the Moss Valley has now been reclaimed as a park. Continuing development has urbanised much of the rest of the community's area, with some agricultural land remaining in the south and east. The Moss Valley Golf Club was built in the 1980s by five designers, and was initially run by the local council.

References

* Davies, John; Nigel Jenkins, Menna Baines & Peredur I. Lynch (2008) ''The Welsh Academy Encyclopaedia of Wales'', University of Wales Press, Cardiff.

External links

Broughton community website
{{Wrexham Communities in Wrexham County Borough The Lordship of Bromfield and Yale