Clayhole Croft, Wrexham Road

View of the Clay Hole Croft rest area

Have you ever wondered what the little piece of overgrown land is just below the Malpas Sports Club Ground on Wrexham Road?

There is some interesting history attached to this triangular piece of land.

Records indicate that the land started life as a clay hole and opposite used to stand a pair of timber-framed cottages, known as 'Clayhole Cottages', which it is thought were demolished in the late 1940s or early 1950s, having latterly been the home of the Lawrence family.

The clay hole was initially the semicircular piece of common land situated beside the Wrexham Road.

One of the uses of the clay would have been to make the 'daub' for the wattle and daub (known as 'clay windings' in Cheshire) used to fill the wall panels of timber-framed buildings (such as the former Clayholes Cottages).

After clay extraction had ceased, the clay hole filled with water and was probably used as a watering pit for horses and cattle using the Wrexham Road.

It is shown as a water filled pit on the Tithe Map of 1841. The owner and occupier at that time is recorded as the Reverend Charles Augustus Thurlow of the Higher Rectory.

Later it was filled in, to become the feature that is still visible today.