May 15th, 2025

It's been a busy few months for me especially because I've been working on a new mural! Ty Pawb in Wrexham asked me to create a photo wall of Wrexham landmarks for people to take pictures of themselves in front of when they visit. It's for the National Eisteddfod which is coming to Wrexham this August but it will be there for anyone who wants to highlight their visit to Wrexham.

They asked for a Wrexham skyline sort of thing with the Ty Pawb tower front and centre. It was a fun challenge especially as Wrexham has a lot of wide, flat landmarks and buildings and not so many tall ones, which made creating a skyline on a fairly square wall pretty difficult. I went for more of a collage in the end to make sure the whole wall was filled. 

I wanted the mural to be fun and colourful so I hyped up the colours and changed some of the darker ones. The Ty Pawb tower is black and grey in real life but I couldn't put a big black block in the middle of it all so I changed it to purple (which I definitely think they should change the actual tower to!). 

I was also had quite a tight time window to do it in as they wanted it finished before Focus Wales (a Wrexham music festival) started at the beginning of May and as it was the Easter Holidays (three weeks of them) I was in work almost every day. So I did it over a month but it actual took about 8 or 9 days to do.

Knowing I didn't have much time to get it done I decided to keep it very simple and just do as much detail as was needed to make each landmark recognisable. As with all my paintings there are parts that I would love to add some more detail to but I'm still very happy with how it turned out.

As a finishing touch Ty Pawb added some fake grass and a nice bench to sit on, along with the two Ty Pawb sheep to welcome people in! I think it looks great and it is has already seen some use with BBC Radio Wales using it to mark their time at Focus Wales! It was so nice to be asked to do this and I love that I was able to add another piece to Wrexham's ever growing array of public art!

What's what on the wall?

Here is a list of all the Wrexham landmarks featured on the wall. I was very impressed with how many Wrexham locals could identify them all whilst I was painting them - especially some of the more obscure ones!

• Gresford Miners Wheel
• The Cup and Saucer
• Erddig Hall
• Pontcysyllte Aqueduct
• Chirk Castle
• Ty Pawb
• Tudor Style Building on Hope Street
• Acton Park Sweet Chestnut - UK Tree of the Year 2023
• Acton Park Eisteddfod Stone Circle
• Coal Miner and Steel Worker Statue
• The Racecourse/Stok Cae Ras
• St Giles Parish Church
• Border Brewery Chimney
• Wrexham Waterworld

(For the non-Welsh speakers Croeso i Wrecsam means Welcome to Wrexham)