Cefn Mawr
Encyclopedia
Cefn Mawr is a large village
in the community
of Cefn
within the County Borough
of Wrexham
, Wales
. Its name translates as "great ridge".
The community of Cefn comprises the villages of Cefn Mawr, Cefn-bychan ("little ridge"), Acrefair
, Penybryn, Newbridge, Plasmadoc and Rhosymedre
and is situated on the northern slopes of the Dee Valley
.
and the area was known as Cristionydd Cynrig (or Cristionydd Kenrick in English). In 1844, most of Cristionydd Cynrig, together with the neighbouring township of Coed Cristionydd became part of the new parish of Rhosymedre.
Cefn railway station
served the village from 1848 to 1960.
and coal
and sandstone
, and heavy industry dominated the area in the 18th and 19th centuries. Iron was worked at several blast furnace
s and forge
s throughout the area and coal was dug at pits
in Cefn, Plas Kynaston and Dolydd. Stone was cut at quarries above Cefn Mawr. Much of the mineral wealth of the area was exported by canal over the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct on the Shropshire Union Canal
, until the railway reached Ruabon in 1855.
In 1867 Robert Ferdinand Graesser, an industrial chemist from Obermosel in Saxony
, Germany
established a chemical works at Plas Kynaston to extract paraffin
oil and wax from the local shale
. The company later expanded into the production of coal tar
, carbolic acid and phenol
. The site soon became the world's leading phenol producer. In 1919 the US chemical company Monsanto Company entered into a partnership with Graesser's chemical works to produce vanillin
, salicylic acid
, aspirin
and later rubber
processing chemicals. The site was later operated by Flexsys, a subsidiary of Solutia, but production ceased in 2010.
With the closure of the nearby Air Products site at Acrefair, the manufacturing side of the village has almost disappeared. There is still a supermarket in the village although it has changed hands from Kwik Save
to Somerfield
to the Co-Op
. Construction has also begun on a large Tesco Extra store in the village, which is due to open early 2012.
is located in the area, and features the Cefn Viaduct
, built by Thomas Brassey
in 1848 to carry the Shrewsbury
and Chester
Railway across the valley of the River Dee
. The village itself includes two primary schools an English, Cefn Mawr County Primary School, and a Welsh Ysgol Min Y Ddol and also a public library
.
The community is home to football club Cefn Druids A.F.C. of the Cymru Alliance
.
Village
A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet with the population ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand , Though often located in rural areas, the term urban village is also applied to certain urban neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New...
in the community
Community (Wales)
A community is a division of land in Wales that forms the lowest-tier of local government in Wales. Welsh communities are analogous to civil parishes in England....
of Cefn
Cefn (community)
Cefn is a local government community, the lowest tier of local government, part of Wrexham County Borough in Wales....
within the County Borough
County borough
County borough is a term introduced in 1889 in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland , to refer to a borough or a city independent of county council control. They were abolished by the Local Government Act 1972 in England and Wales, but continue in use for lieutenancy and shrievalty in...
of Wrexham
Wrexham (county borough)
Wrexham is a county borough centred on the town of Wrexham in north-east Wales. The county borough has a population of 130,200 inhabitants. Just under half of the population live either within the town of Wrexham or its surrounding conurbation of urban villages. The remainder living to the south...
, Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
. Its name translates as "great ridge".
The community of Cefn comprises the villages of Cefn Mawr, Cefn-bychan ("little ridge"), Acrefair
Acrefair
Acrefair is a village in the county borough of Wrexham, Wales. It was formerly part of the ancient parish of Ruabon, and is located between the towns of Wrexham and Llangollen. It is close to the villages of Trefor, Cefn Mawr, Ruabon and Plas Madoc...
, Penybryn, Newbridge, Plasmadoc and Rhosymedre
Rhosymedre
Rhosymedre is a village near Ruabon in north east Wales. The village is within the community of Cefn and the county borough of Wrexham.The Anglican church, which was consecrated in 1837, is dedicated to St John the Evangelist, and is part of the Diocese of St Asaph...
and is situated on the northern slopes of the Dee Valley
River Dee, Wales
The River Dee is a long river in the United Kingdom. It travels through Wales and England and also forms part of the border between the two countries....
.
History
Cefn Mawr was part of the ancient parish of RuabonRuabon
Ruabon is a village and community in the county borough of Wrexham in Wales.More than 80% of the population of 2,400 were born in Wales with 13.6% speaking Welsh....
and the area was known as Cristionydd Cynrig (or Cristionydd Kenrick in English). In 1844, most of Cristionydd Cynrig, together with the neighbouring township of Coed Cristionydd became part of the new parish of Rhosymedre.
Cefn railway station
Cefn railway station
Cefn railway station was a minor railway station on the Great Western Railway's London to Birkenhead main line serving the mining village of Cefn Mawr in Wales. It had an adjacent signal box but the station seems not to have handled freight traffic. The remains of the station and yard area can be...
served the village from 1848 to 1960.
Industry
Cefn Mawr was formerly heavily industrialised, with large deposits of ironIron
Iron is a chemical element with the symbol Fe and atomic number 26. It is a metal in the first transition series. It is the most common element forming the planet Earth as a whole, forming much of Earth's outer and inner core. It is the fourth most common element in the Earth's crust...
and coal
Coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...
and sandstone
Sandstone
Sandstone is a sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized minerals or rock grains.Most sandstone is composed of quartz and/or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earth's crust. Like sand, sandstone may be any colour, but the most common colours are tan, brown, yellow,...
, and heavy industry dominated the area in the 18th and 19th centuries. Iron was worked at several blast furnace
Blast furnace
A blast furnace is a type of metallurgical furnace used for smelting to produce industrial metals, generally iron.In a blast furnace, fuel and ore and flux are continuously supplied through the top of the furnace, while air is blown into the bottom of the chamber, so that the chemical reactions...
s and forge
Forge
A forge is a hearth used for forging. The term "forge" can also refer to the workplace of a smith or a blacksmith, although the term smithy is then more commonly used.The basic smithy contains a forge, also known as a hearth, for heating metals...
s throughout the area and coal was dug at pits
Coal mining
The goal of coal mining is to obtain coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content, and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from iron ore and for cement production. In the United States,...
in Cefn, Plas Kynaston and Dolydd. Stone was cut at quarries above Cefn Mawr. Much of the mineral wealth of the area was exported by canal over the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct on the Shropshire Union Canal
Shropshire Union Canal
The Shropshire Union Canal is a navigable canal in England; the Llangollen and Montgomery canals are the modern names of branches of the Shropshire Union system and lie partially in Wales....
, until the railway reached Ruabon in 1855.
In 1867 Robert Ferdinand Graesser, an industrial chemist from Obermosel in Saxony
Saxony
The Free State of Saxony is a landlocked state of Germany, contingent with Brandenburg, Saxony Anhalt, Thuringia, Bavaria, the Czech Republic and Poland. It is the tenth-largest German state in area, with of Germany's sixteen states....
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
established a chemical works at Plas Kynaston to extract paraffin
Paraffin
In chemistry, paraffin is a term that can be used synonymously with "alkane", indicating hydrocarbons with the general formula CnH2n+2. Paraffin wax refers to a mixture of alkanes that falls within the 20 ≤ n ≤ 40 range; they are found in the solid state at room temperature and begin to enter the...
oil and wax from the local shale
Shale
Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock composed of mud that is a mix of flakes of clay minerals and tiny fragments of other minerals, especially quartz and calcite. The ratio of clay to other minerals is variable. Shale is characterized by breaks along thin laminae or parallel layering...
. The company later expanded into the production of coal tar
Coal tar
Coal tar is a brown or black liquid of extremely high viscosity, which smells of naphthalene and aromatic hydrocarbons. Coal tar is among the by-products when coal iscarbonized to make coke or gasified to make coal gas...
, carbolic acid and phenol
Phenol
Phenol, also known as carbolic acid, phenic acid, is an organic compound with the chemical formula C6H5OH. It is a white crystalline solid. The molecule consists of a phenyl , bonded to a hydroxyl group. It is produced on a large scale as a precursor to many materials and useful compounds...
. The site soon became the world's leading phenol producer. In 1919 the US chemical company Monsanto Company entered into a partnership with Graesser's chemical works to produce vanillin
Vanillin
Vanillin is a phenolic aldehyde, an organic compound with the molecular formula C8H8O3. Its functional groups include aldehyde, ether, and phenol. It is the primary component of the extract of the vanilla bean. It is also found in Leptotes bicolor, roasted coffee and the Chinese red pine...
, salicylic acid
Salicylic acid
Salicylic acid is a monohydroxybenzoic acid, a type of phenolic acid and a beta hydroxy acid. This colorless crystalline organic acid is widely used in organic synthesis and functions as a plant hormone. It is derived from the metabolism of salicin...
, aspirin
Aspirin
Aspirin , also known as acetylsalicylic acid , is a salicylate drug, often used as an analgesic to relieve minor aches and pains, as an antipyretic to reduce fever, and as an anti-inflammatory medication. It was discovered by Arthur Eichengrun, a chemist with the German company Bayer...
and later rubber
Rubber
Natural rubber, also called India rubber or caoutchouc, is an elastomer that was originally derived from latex, a milky colloid produced by some plants. The plants would be ‘tapped’, that is, an incision made into the bark of the tree and the sticky, milk colored latex sap collected and refined...
processing chemicals. The site was later operated by Flexsys, a subsidiary of Solutia, but production ceased in 2010.
With the closure of the nearby Air Products site at Acrefair, the manufacturing side of the village has almost disappeared. There is still a supermarket in the village although it has changed hands from Kwik Save
Kwik Save
Kwik Save was a discount supermarket chain in the United Kingdom until 2007. Its stores were small to medium sized high street supermarkets, mainly located in areas with below average incomes...
to Somerfield
Somerfield
Somerfield was a chain of small to medium sized supermarkets operating in the United Kingdom. The company was taken over by the Co-operative Group on 2 March 2009 in a £1.57 billion deal, creating the UK's fifth largest food retailer. The name is currently being phased out and replaced by the...
to the Co-Op
The Co-operative brand
The Co-operative is a common branding used by a variety of co-operatives based in the United Kingdom.Many in the UK mistakenly consider the Co-op to be a single national business, however each Co-operative is actually a franchise selling branded goods produced by the Co-operative Group The...
. Construction has also begun on a large Tesco Extra store in the village, which is due to open early 2012.
Notable residents
- Miles ThomasMiles ThomasMiles Webster Thomas, Baron Thomas, Lord Thomas of Remenham, known as Sir Miles Thomas, or Lord Thomas, DFC was Managing Director of the Morris Motor Company, 1940–1947, Chairman of the British Overseas Airways Corporation , 1949–1956, Chairman of the merger...
Chairman of BOACBoacBoac may refer to:* Boac, Marinduque, a municipality in the Southern Philippines* Boac , an American rapper* British Overseas Airways Corporation, a former British state-owned airline...
was born here. - Andy Radford Journalist and author of 6 books currently lives here.
Leisure
Tŷ Mawr Country ParkCountry park
A country park is an area designated for people to visit and enjoy recreation in a countryside environment.-History:In the United Kingdom the term 'Country Park' has a special meaning. There are over 400 Country Parks in England alone . Most Country Parks were designated in the 1970s, under the...
is located in the area, and features the Cefn Viaduct
Viaduct
A viaduct is a bridge composed of several small spans. The term viaduct is derived from the Latin via for road and ducere to lead something. However, the Ancient Romans did not use that term per se; it is a modern derivation from an analogy with aqueduct. Like the Roman aqueducts, many early...
, built by Thomas Brassey
Thomas Brassey
Thomas Brassey was an English civil engineering contractor and manufacturer of building materials who was responsible for building much of the world's railways in the 19th century. By 1847, he had built about one-third of the railways in Britain, and by time of his death in 1870 he had built one...
in 1848 to carry the Shrewsbury
Shrewsbury
Shrewsbury is the county town of Shropshire, in the West Midlands region of England. Lying on the River Severn, it is a civil parish home to some 70,000 inhabitants, and is the primary settlement and headquarters of Shropshire Council...
and Chester
Chester
Chester is a city in Cheshire, England. Lying on the River Dee, close to the border with Wales, it is home to 77,040 inhabitants, and is the largest and most populous settlement of the wider unitary authority area of Cheshire West and Chester, which had a population of 328,100 according to the...
Railway across the valley of the River Dee
River Dee, Wales
The River Dee is a long river in the United Kingdom. It travels through Wales and England and also forms part of the border between the two countries....
. The village itself includes two primary schools an English, Cefn Mawr County Primary School, and a Welsh Ysgol Min Y Ddol and also a public library
Public library
A public library is a library that is accessible by the public and is generally funded from public sources and operated by civil servants. There are five fundamental characteristics shared by public libraries...
.
The community is home to football club Cefn Druids A.F.C. of the Cymru Alliance
Cymru Alliance
The Huws Gray Alliance is a football league and forms the second level of the Welsh football league system in north and central Wales....
.