Willington Worthenbury
Encyclopedia
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....
, the lowest tier of local government, part of Wrexham County Borough in 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...
.
It has an area of 2,146 hectare
Hectare
The hectare is a metric unit of area defined as 10,000 square metres , and primarily used in the measurement of land. In 1795, when the metric system was introduced, the are was defined as being 100 square metres and the hectare was thus 100 ares or 1/100 km2...
s and a population of 730 (2001 census
United Kingdom Census 2001
A nationwide census, known as Census 2001, was conducted in the United Kingdom on Sunday, 29 April 2001. This was the 20th UK Census and recorded a resident population of 58,789,194....
). It contains the village
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...
s of Worthenbury and Tallarn Green.
It is located on the eastern side 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....
in the Maelor Saesneg
Maelor
Maelor is a border area of north-east Wales. It originated as a Cantref of the Kingdom of Powys, focused on Bangor-on-Dee.-History:The Maelor was first divided from the rest of Wales by the construction of Offa's Dyke in the eighth century, but was reclaimed for Wales during the reign of Stephen...
area adjacent to the English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
county of Cheshire
Cheshire
Cheshire is a ceremonial county in North West England. Cheshire's county town is the city of Chester, although its largest town is Warrington. Other major towns include Widnes, Congleton, Crewe, Ellesmere Port, Runcorn, Macclesfield, Winsford, Northwich, and Wilmslow...
. It has the lowest proportion of Welsh language
Welsh language
Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...
speakers of all the communities in Wrexham county borough, with 88.81% having no knowledge of Welsh according to the 2001 census.
Settlement at Worthenbury may have begun as early as the tenth century. There has been a parish church
Parish church
A parish church , in Christianity, is the church which acts as the religious centre of a parish, the basic administrative unit of episcopal churches....
in the village since at least 1388. The current building was built in 1739; it is dedicated to Saint Deiniol
Deiniol
Saint Deiniol was the first Bishop of Bangor in the Kingdom of Gwynedd, Wales. He is also venerated in Brittany as Saint Denoual. In English, the name is translated as Daniel but this is rarely used....
and has many Georgian
Georgian architecture
Georgian architecture is the name given in most English-speaking countries to the set of architectural styles current between 1720 and 1840. It is eponymous for the first four British monarchs of the House of Hanover—George I of Great Britain, George II of Great Britain, George III of the United...
features.
South of the village lay Emral Hall, home to the influential Puleston family until 1936 when it was demolished.
Tallarn Green also has a small church, completed in 1873 and dedicated to Mary Magdalene
Mary Magdalene
Mary Magdalene was one of Jesus' most celebrated disciples, and the most important woman disciple in the movement of Jesus. Jesus cleansed her of "seven demons", conventionally interpreted as referring to complex illnesses...
. The famous poet R. S. Thomas
R. S. Thomas
Ronald Stuart Thomas was a Welsh poet and Anglican clergyman, noted for his nationalism, spirituality and deep dislike of the anglicisation of Wales...
was curate
Curate
A curate is a person who is invested with the care or cure of souls of a parish. In this sense "curate" correctly means a parish priest but in English-speaking countries a curate is an assistant to the parish priest...
here in the 1940s. The word "green" in the name of the village indicates an area of grassy common land
Common land
Common land is land owned collectively or by one person, but over which other people have certain traditional rights, such as to allow their livestock to graze upon it, to collect firewood, or to cut turf for fuel...
.