In 1841 Island Green was a high-status area, with a mansion and estate on the Gwenfro river, to the west of the town. It was soon to change in character with the death its owner, a prosperous lawyer named John Bennion. The Island Green estate was taken over by a brewery and it subsequently declined in terms of status. Some indication of its former condition may be gleaned from the sale notice of the property which appeared in The Wrexham Advertiser (newspaper) in December 1850: “All that capital mansion House called Island Green with the gardens, yards and appurtenances thereunto belonging together with a piece of meadow land in front containing about 5 acres. The House which has been recently built at a considerable expense ”
Island Green Brewery was established in 1856 by William and John Jones, who hailed from Caia Farm. Their mother, a brewer, passed her skills to her son John. The brewery featured a 16-quarter brewhouse and 32-quarter maltings (8 bushels of barley equal one quarter, which would produce an average of 150 gallons of beer).
The Jones brothers managed the brewery until 1905 and their charitable trust funded half of the Wrexham & East Denbighshire Memorial Hospital after the First World War. In 1931, Island Green Brewery merged with two local breweries to form Border Breweries. The brewery buildings were then mainly used as storage and were said to be haunted by John Jones, who was presumably unhappy with the fate of his business. By the 1970s, the site had closed down and fell into dereliction. The brewery and oast houses have since been converted into flats.
