• Drovers' inns
• Drovers' roads
• Drovers - the characters

Wrexham was said to be the gateway into England for drovers from North Wales taking livestock to market as far as London.

And the crossroads at Llandegla was the spaghetti junction of its day, with converging drovers' tracks from the Vale of Clwyd, Wrexham, Flintshire and Gwynedd.

So where are those tracks and can they still be followed today?

Whilst the roads themselves can be hard to trace, researching the history of local pubs does provide some evidence as many trade on being historic coaching and drovers' inns.

Drovers' inns

Here's a quick list of local pubs that share the name 'Drovers' or claim to have ties with the old drovers:-

Babell: Black Lion Inn: 13th Century former drovers' inn near Holywell and close to the Dee Estuary.

Graigfechan, near Ruthin: Three Pigeon, built in the 17th Century.

Mold: Drover's Arms, Denbigh Road.

Llanarmon DC (Dyffryn Ceiriog): A pair of 16th Century drovers' inns, The Hand Hotel and The West Arms Hotel whose website says: "Centuries ago, cattle drivers coming down from the Welsh hills by way of 3 tracks (now passable roads) that converge on The West Arms were wont of shelter, rest and refresh their cattle at the inn en route to Oswestry, Chirk and Wrexham markets."

Llanarmon yn Iâl: The Raven, built in 1722.

Llandegla: Once had seven inns serving drovers. See below for more details

Rhewl: Drovers Inn. Located on the A525 towards Denbigh.

Ruthin: The Olde Anchor Hotel, Rhos Street, built in the 18th century, apparently served drovers on their way from Holyhead to Shropshire.

Drovers' roads

A trawl through old journals, accounts, and history and reference books at Wrexham Library and Denbighshire Archives at Ruthin Gaol gives some insight as to the locations of some of the region's drovers' roads - and the characters that drove the cattle along them.

From Anglesey, cattle would swim the Menai Strait then pass Bangor, Capel Curig, Llanrwst, over Hireathodg Mountain to Abergele and the Vale of Clwyd to Ruthin and Llandegla.

From Blaenau Ffestiniog the livestock could be driven to Bala and on to Druid and Clawdd Poncen, near Corwen, and then on to Llandegla which was a frequent stop over for the drovers who could rest up in one of seven inns and allow the cattle to graze. The location was well used by pig drovers, so the history books show.

In fact, this area was so popular there's even a Welsh poem: "Wrecsam Fach a Wrecsam Fawr, Pentre'r Felin ac Adwy'r Clawdd, Casgan Dittw, Tafarn y Gath, Lletty Llygoden a Brandy Bach."

It's a list of places and 'hostelries'. The first three are in Wrexham town, Adwy'r Clawdd is the point where the A525 crosses Offa's Dyke in Coedpoeth. That area of Coedpoeth is known as The Adwy (The Gap). Casgan Dittw is the farmhouse on the same road near Llandegla which is now the trout farm near Llandegla moors.

The other three locations are houses between there and the Crown Inn at Llandegla. Tafarn y Gath is a house as you head towards Ruthin but in the 1800s it was a hostelry used by Robert Jones who employed drovers.

Drovers, lords and masters

Robert Jones logs his stay in his note book, A Drover's Account Book, according to an article in the Caernarvonshire History Society Journal of 1945. While his drovers would have walked or used carts, he travelled by coach from Birmingham, Wednesbury, Wolverhampton, Newport, Tern Hill, Whitchurch, Bangor on Dee, Wrexham and Tafarn y Gath en route to his home. He died in Criccieth in 1859.

Llangollen was another place popular with drovers which would have been a tough place to get to even after the opening of the Horseshoe Pass in the early 1800s. In fact, the 'village' is said to have earned a bad reputation due to the drovers.

Irish man Daniel O'Connell, a friend to the Ladies of Llangollen, was certainly no fan, writing in the Royal Hotel's visitors' book in the 1820s: "I remember this village with very bad cheer".

The quote is taken from Richard Keverne's book, Tales of Old Inns, London, 1939, p158 and quoted from Wales and the Drovers, by PG Hughes, 1945, which is regarded as a definitive work about Welsh drovers.

Some drovers, however, were held in high regard. Hughes refers to a David Lloyd, for "40 years the favourite drover of Sir Watcyn Williams Wynne of Wynnstay [Wrexham], who on one occasion paid a bill of no less than £400 in London".

In the 1600s money was rarely carried because of the threat of highwaymen. Bills were settled in London from the sale of cattle at market - the process is regarded as the start of the banking system that we know to this day.

Further reading

I've included some external links [right] regarding further reading but the best information I found was regarding the books and journals previously mentioned on this page and which were obtained from local library and archives. I've also blogged about the research techniques used to produce this article.