The Hand Hotel was most probably ‘the great house’ referred to in the Chirk Castle accounts of 1684 and was one of the principal coaching inns of the town in times when the main London to Holyhead road ran past the door. The name of the inn comes from the red or bloody hand, the crest of the Myddletons of Chirk Castle. In 1752 the Hand was an Inn kept by Thomas Edwards and in the 1780s the Ladies of Llangollen refer to Mr Edwards of the Hand begging them to use his pew in the church. The diary of John Hughes from the 19th century tells us that ‘1810-1815 the Hand Hotel was enlarged, and K, Uncle’s house was added to it, and all the small houses from C to H were levelled down’.
The 1830 Pigot’s Directory shows Jos Phillips owning the Hand Hotel. Sometime in the following 14 years Jos died, but the hotel continued to be run by his widow Amy Phillips. Amy died in 1859 and the hotel was sold to the Edwards family. Harriet Edwards managed the hotel in the 1880s and was succeeded by Anne Edwards. Around 1900 the Hand was again sold, being purchased by J.S. Shaw who had previously run the Royal Hotel. He remained the proprietor until the 1930s being succeeded by J.A. Begg and later, in the 1950s by Mr and Mrs Alfred Brown.
