St Giles' in Wrexham, with its tall and richly carved early 16th century tower, is one of the Seven Wonders of Wales in the old rhyme. It stands on a slight rise at the heart of the old town, and a tradition preserved by local historians explains how it came to be there.
An earlier church was to be rebuilt, and the builders started on a different site, said to be at Bryn-y-ffynnon, the hill of the well. Each day the work went up, and each night it was pulled down again. At last the churchwardens sat up to watch. In the night they saw the day's building suddenly thrown to the ground, and above them they heard a voice, from a spirit hovering in the air, crying out over and over, "Bryn-y-grog! Bryn-y-grog!"
Bryn-y-grog, the Hill of the Cross, was the name of another piece of ground, and everyone understood that this was where the church must go. There was a problem: the man who owned it did not want to part with land his family had held for generations. He only agreed once he had been told the story of the spirit and been given other land in exchange. The church was founded at Bryn-y-grog, the work went on without interruption, and St Giles' still stands there.
The Wrexham historian Alfred Neobard Palmer, who printed the story, had a practical view. He thought these tales were exaggerated memories of real moves of churches to new sites, and that the night-time destruction was done by people who wanted the move, with the story spread to overcome local objections. Elias Owen, who quoted him, thought that was reasonable but did not explain every such legend.
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