Llay

Coordinates: 53°05′53″N 2°59′42″W / 53.098°N 2.995°W / 53.098; -2.995

Llay (Welsh: Llai meaning meadow) is a village and local government community, the lowest tier of local government, part of Wrexham County Borough in Wales.

It borders several other villages including Gwersyllt and Gresford. At the 2001 Census, the total population of the community of Llay, including Llay village, was 4,905, reducing to 4,814 at the 2011 Census.

Prior to the 1960s, Llay was a coal mining village. Llay Main Colliery, at one time the largest colliery in Wales and after 1952 the deepest pit in the UK, was a major employer for the area before its coal reserves were exhausted in 1966.

History

Llay first appears in mediaeval records as a hamlet - a small settlement without a church - of the township and manor of Burton. It later formed an outlying part of the parish of Gresford, but the relatively late growth of the village is shown by the fact that the first church service was not held there until 1916, and its church was not completed until 1925. Llay was eventually made a separate parish in its own right in 1944.