Tag: Wrexham

Why the North Wales town of Wrexham is basking in Hollywood glamour

Another autumn feature: the unlikely tale of Wrexham as a hub for the Hollywood A-list.

Wrexham may seem an unlikely contender for frissons of Tinseltown glamour with its industrial heritage, pockmarked landscape and border-town status as the gateway to Northeast Wales.

But Wrexham is taking the spotlight.

It currently features on the eight-place longlist to be the next UK City of Culture.

The winning city, succeeding Coventry for its year in the cultural spotlight in 2025, will be announced next May.

Last weekend, meanwhile, Hollywood royalty waltzed into town in red football scarves.

Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney (pictured above), the new owners of Wrexham Association Football Club (AFC), arrived at the town’s Racecourse football ground.

It was their first home game since buying the club in February this year

Read more with my feature via Telegraph Travel, How Wrexham is reinventing itself as the Hollywood of Europe.

This Is Wrexham copywriting: A time-travel visit to the Ceiriog valley

A weekend in North Wales then, copywriting a couple of tourism itineraries for This Is Wrexham.

The second trip was based in the Ceiriog Valley, exploring the attractions of a sometimes less visited part of North Wales.

Here’s a flavour of the story:

It’s a view to stop you in your tracks — looking across the village and up the valley to the Berwyn range.

“I’ve painted this view numerous times, trying to capture the soft colours and long shadows,” smiles the artist Rosie Davies, surrounded by her sketchpads and work-in-progress watercolours at her Ceiriog Valley art studio.

Rosie changed careers to move to the village of Llanarmon from Cheshire and now devotes her time to capturing the natural beauty of this lost-in-time area of Wrexham County.

“The valley is like another world,” adds Rosie, who opens her studio at the Tithe Barn to visitors on the second Saturday of the month.

“I’ve finally found the tranquility and inspiration to fulfill my ambition to paint.”

Read the full text here via This Is Wrexham.

This Is Wrexham copywriting: A family weekend around Llangollen

A weekend in North Wales then, copywriting a couple of tourism itineraries for This Is Wrexham.

First up was a family trip based around Llangollen to explore some of the attractions of a sometimes less visited part of North Wales.

Here’s a flavour of the story:

The next day we drive into Langollen to explore the Dee Valley market town guarded by the rambling ruins of Castle Dinas Bran.

We catch a ride on the Llangollen Railway, the only standard-gauge heritage railway in North Wales, where the steam engine huffs and puffs its way along a genteel 10-mile track through the AONB.

We finally steam into Carrog station [see above], whistle tooting, for tea and Welshcakes at the station café. An old railway carriage has been turned into a pop-up shop with Hornby train set pieces, railway jigsaws and well-thumbed copies of Heritage Rail magazine.

A nice touch on the return leg is when the conductor gives out souvenir vintage rail tickets, dating from the 1950s heyday of the railway.

It takes me the rest of the journey back to Llangollen to explain the price — eight shillings and three pence — to the girls who regard the 1980s as ‘the olden days’.

Read the full text here via This Is Wrexham.