Hanmer is a village and

community A community is a social unit (a group of people) with a shared socially-significant characteristic, such as place, set of norms, culture, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given g ...

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 ...

. At the 2001 Census the population of the Hanmer community area, which includes Hanmer village itself, Horseman's Green, Halghton 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, one of the tribes of ancient Britain who had their principal settlement at the Wrekin. It later became part of the

Mercia Mercia (, was one of the principal kingdoms founded at the end of Sub-Roman Britain; the area was settled by Anglo-Saxons in an era called the Heptarchy. It was centred on the River Trent and its tributaries, in a region now known as the Midlan ...

n region known as Wreocansaete. The name is thought to have either originally been "Handmere",Hanmer, Flintshire
GENUKI 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 counties of England, ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Merseyside to the north-west, Greater Manchester to the north-east, Derbyshire to the east, Staffordshire to the south-east, and Shrop ...

, 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 (Latin: Malleus Scotorum), was King of England from 1272 to 1307. Concurrently, he was Lord of Ireland, and from 125 ...

.Hanmer family
Dictionary of Welsh Biography, National Library of Wales Sir Thomas settled in English Maelor () 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, known at the time and in following centuries as the Civil Wars, were a series of armed confrontations, machinations, battles and campaigns fought over control of the English throne from 1455 to 1487. The conflict was fo ...

. 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 (architecture), choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may termi ...

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 Flintshire () is a county in the north-east of Wales. It borders the Irish Sea to the north, the Dee Estuary to the north-east, the English county of Cheshire to the east, Wrexham County Borough to the south, and Denbighshire to the west. ...

known as English Maelor. 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 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 local differe ...

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

David Hanmer Sir David Hanmer, Serjeant-at-law, KS, SL (1332–1387) was a fourteenth century Welsh people, Anglo-Welsh Justice of the King's Bench from Hanmer, Wales, Hanmer, Wales,Arthur Herbert Dodd"HANMER family of Hanmer, Bettisfield, Fens and Halton, Fli ...

, married

Owain Glyndŵr Owain ap Gruffydd (28 May 135420 September 1415), commonly known as Owain Glyndŵr (Glyn Dŵr, , anglicised as Owen Glendower) was a Welsh people, Welsh leader, soldier and military commander in the Wales in the late Middle Ages, late Middle ...

c. 1383. *Thomas Hanmer, after whom the town of Hanmer Springs,

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

is named. * Lorna Sage, 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 ( – 1 September 1729) was an Anglo-Irish writer, playwright and politician best known as the co-founder of the magazine ''The Spectator (1711), The Spectator'' alongside his close friend Joseph Addison. Early life Steel ...

(1629–1692), nonconformist theologian and rector, 1650–1666 * R. S. Thomas (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