The Turf Hotel at Wrexham Racecourse is considered the oldest purpose-built public house at any sport stadium in the World. The existing building is comprised of two separate buildings, which were each built for slightly different purposes at different times. The Turf Tavern, which is the lower section of the current hotel, was built sometime between 1795 and 1819- when it was first recorded on a local map.  In the same year as the map was published, the Stansty parish register also recorded the Christening of a son for Joseph and Margaret Foulkes, who were listed as the landlords of The Turf Tavern. 

In 1822, the same parish register also recorded that Margaret Foulkes gave birth to a daughter, and identified her husband Joseph as the landlord of  ‘The Grandstand’ (the taller section of the current Turf Hotel) although we know from numerous later newspaper advertisements that The Grandstand section of Turf Tavern was originally a kind of  functions rooms and restaurant that had been built a few metres away from the tavern, specifically to provide an upmarket experience for visitors to The Wrexham Races

Both sections, The Grandstand and Turf Tavern, were each identified as separate structures in the tithe maps from the early 1840’s.

The tithe map shows the taller section of the current Turf Hotel (The Grandstand) as being a completely square building, separated from the older lower section (The Turf Tavern) by a space of about 4 metres. Later maps however show that both buildings were later joined together and a cantilevered bay was added to the Racecourse side of The Grandstand section, to enable visitors to watch the races from a balcony that overlooked the finishing line. At the same time, the roof of The Grandstand section was extended with a fantail that oversailed the original building to protect spectators on the balcony from the weather.

Local newspaper reports indicate that the refurbishment work took place in 1854, when the racecourse was upgraded,

Another map from 1872 confirms that both buildings had been joined together into a single structure ‘The Turf Hotel’ but early photographs of The Racecourse show that the individual sections were joined together by means of an undercroft, with a connecting room on the first floor and a covered foyer that served as an entrance to the course at ground floor level.

Additional work was carried out to upgrade the stadium and The Turf Hotel, in order to host the national game against Scotland in 1913, and so the entrance at the undercroft was bricked up to tie both buildings together at ground floor level, to form a lounge area, and the external skin of The Grandstand section was replaced with the stone panels that can still be seen at the rear of The Grandstand section today.

The doorway out to the balcony was also later bricked up and replaced with a window, and both sections have been roughcast rendered within decorated quoins to provide the appearance of a single structure, although a closer look at the windows and features of both sections, in isolation, shows that details such as the cills, frames and surrounds are just later decorative additions, while the different floor levels of both sections also identify that each section was originally built to a different design.

The front elevation of The Grandstand section was also built around 70mm proud of the line of the older tavern section and this discrepancy is clearly visible on the Mold Road elevation, where the decorative quoins hide the line of the original extension that bonded the structures together, by means of the 1854 undercroft, which was bricked up in 1913.

Information kindly provided provided by Kingsley Burton.

April, 2022.