The first one went up on a wall nobody looked at. Now people fly in from Ohio and walk past four before breakfast.
Why a town paints itself
Wrexham has always had more brick than budget. What it also has, and this is the part outsiders miss, is a stubborn habit of decorating things that other towns would knock down. The murals started as a way to cover graffiti on the side of a shuttered unit off Charles Street. Fourteen commissions later they've become the closest thing the town has to a permanent exhibition, and the reason a certain kind of visitor now arrives with a camera rather than a scarf.
None of them are on the tourist trail, because there isn't one. They are on gable ends, under the ring road, above a chip shop and behind the bus station, which means seeing them properly involves walking through the actual town rather than around it. That is the point.
Left: Paul Mullin, mid-celebration, on the gable end beside the Fat Boar. Right: Better Together, Gwell Gyda’n Gilydd, either side of the Eagles Meadow entrance.
The seven to see first
If you have an afternoon and a decent pair of shoes, these are the ones worth planning around. They sit inside a mile and a half of each other, and the order below keeps you walking downhill more often than up.
The Miners' Gable, Charles Street
Four storeys of pit gear and pigeon, painted onto the end of a terrace that only exists because the row beside it came down. Stand across the road or you'll only see boots.
Y Ddraig, behind the bus station
The one everybody photographs badly. It runs the whole length of a service wall, so the only honest angle is from the far corner of the car park.
Lager Girls, Tuttle Street
Painted on the brewery's own wall, facing the yard. Ask at the shop and they'll usually let you through for a proper look.
Pull quote
“We didn't set out to make a gallery. We set out to stop people tagging the same wall twice a month.”Ffion Roberts, who commissioned the first three
Walking it in an afternoon
Start at the station, finish in a pub, the standard Wrexham structure. The full loop is 2.3 miles and takes about two hours at a photographing pace, three if you stop where we'd stop.
Where to stop halfway
Between the bus station and the brewery you pass three of the better places to eat in town, which is either convenient or a trap depending on your afternoon. Zerno does the coffee; the Lemon Tree does the long lunch you'll regret before mural nine.
Six hotels sit within four minutes of the route.