CHARITY shop volunteers received a surprise donation when they discovered a bible dating back nearly two centuries in a bag of clothes. Volunteers at the Nightingale House Hospice store on Brook Street, Wrexham, were surprised to find the Welsh language bible among other donations. The book, donated to the store last month, records the names of a number of previous owners, stretching back to the early 1800s. The first recorded owner of the Bible, published in 1837, is John Parry. It was presented to him by John Owens, a minister from Llanuwchllyn, near Bala in Gwynedd. It was passed on to Mr Parry’s daughter Magdalen in March 1840 and records in the bible show they lived at Tanymaes in Llanfihangel. She went on to marry and change her surname to Davies, before later moving to England. By 1925, the Bible came to Whitford in Flintshire via Carno in Montgomeryshire. The last listed owner of the book was an Arthur Wynn Lloyd at Hendre – likely the Hendre between Mold and Denbigh. As well as the family records, it also has notes of religious writings and lists of readings. John Donnelly, retail development manager for Nightingale House Hospice, said: “It came here in a bag of clothes, we knew straightaway it was old. We could see its history. “It has been handed down through a lot of people. It’s very rare getting something like that. “We do get a lot of bibles in, but this is definitely the oldest one we’ve had. We’re not experts on everything, and sometimes when we get more esoteric items in, we make use of the expertise of auctioneers." He added: “Any information on the people mentioned in the book would be very gratefully received and it would be even more exciting if there are any ancestors alive today.” The intention is to place the bible on display at the Brook Street store. For more information, or if you believe you might be related to a previous owner of the Bible, call Nightingale House Hospice on 01978 316800.178