|
The Cheshire Portal
Welcome Cheshire Plain from the Mid Cheshire Ridge
Cheshire is a ceremonial county in the North West of England. Chester is the county town, and formerly gave its name to the county. The largest town is Warrington, and other major towns include Congleton, Crewe, Ellesmere Port, Macclesfield, Nantwich, Northwich, Runcorn, Sandbach, Widnes, Wilmslow and Winsford. The county is administered as four unitary authorities. Cheshire occupies a boulder clay plain (pictured) which separates the hills of North Wales from the Peak District of Derbyshire. The county covers an area of 2,343 km2 (905 sq mi), with a high point of 559 m (1,834 ft) elevation. The estimated population is a little over one million, 19th highest in England, with a population density of around 450 people per km2. The county was created in around 920, but the area has a long history of human occupation dating back to before the last Ice Age. Deva was a major Roman fort, and Cheshire played an important part in the Civil War. Predominantly rural, the county is historically famous for the production of Cheshire cheese, salt and silk. During the 19th century, towns in the north of the county were pioneers of the chemical industry, while Crewe became a major railway junction and engineering facility. Selected article
Lyme Park is a large estate located south of Disley. The Grade I listed mansion house, now the largest in Cheshire, is surrounded by formal gardens and set in a 14th-century deer park within the Peak District National Park. The estate was granted to Sir Thomas Danyers in 1346 and passed to the Leghs of Lyme by marriage in 1388, remaining in this family until 1946. The present house dates from the late 16th century. It was modified in the 1720s by Venetian architect Giacomo Leoni, using elements of both Palladian and Baroque styles. Further modifications were made by Lewis Wyatt in the 19th century, especially to the interior. Formal gardens were laid out in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and include a sunken Dutch Garden. The grounds contain an orangery, stables, kennels, a tower known as "the Cage", and a belvedere known as "the Lantern". Lyme Hall stood in for Pemberley in a BBC television adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, and the park has also appeared in the science fiction series Red Dwarf. The house, gardens and park are now owned by the National Trust, and are open to the public. Selected image
Warrington Town Hall, built in 1750, was formerly the Georgian country mansion of Bank Hall. It was sold to Warrington council in 1870. The elaborately ornamented gateway, known as the Golden Gates, was exhibited at the London Exhibition of 1862. Credit: Racklever (22 July 2006) In this month
September 1707: Physician Nathan Alcock born at Aston. 1 September 1858: Crewe and Shrewsbury Railway opened. 1 September 1876: Activist and editor Harriet Shaw Weaver born in Frodsham. 1 September 2007: Cheshire Regiment merged into the Mercian Regiment. 7 September 1917: Pilot and charity founder Leonard Cheshire born in Chester. 8 September 1949: Bernard Lovell and Charles Husband first meet at Jodrell Bank to discuss the 250-ft radio telescope. 14 September 1804: Landowner and poet Rowland Egerton-Warburton born in Norley. 16 September 1947: Comedian Russ Abbot born in Chester. 21 September 1642: Charles I brought his army to Chester during the Civil War. 24 September 1645: Battle of Rowton Heath (memorial pictured). 29 September 1908: Cheshire County Cricket Club founded. Selected list
The 55 listed buildings in Lymm include one at Grade I, one at Grade II* and the remainder at Grade II. Lymm's oldest listed building is the late-16th-century Lymm Hall, on the site of the medieval manorial seat. Industries developed from the 16th century, and workers' cottages from the fustian-cutting industry have survived. The Bridgewater Canal, completed in 1776, runs through the town, and many of the listed structures are associated with it, including three aqueducts, two bridges and a dock. The damming of Bradley Brook with Lymm Dam in 1821–24 to enhance the water supply created a lake to the south of the town; two associated bridges are listed. After the arrival of the railway in 1853, substantial mid-Victorian houses were built in Gothic and Italianate styles. Lymm stands on the Mid Cheshire Ridge and many of the listed buildings are sandstone. Surface outcrops occur, for example, under the Grade-I-listed Lymm Cross (pictured). There are also a few listed timber-framed buildings, which are relatively rare in the borough of Warrington. Unusual listed structures include an octagonal water tower with battlements, icehouse, pigeon house, mounting block, milepost, stone-lined well, war memorial, water-point case and the village stocks. GeographyTop: Map of modern Cheshire showing urban areas (grey) and the major road network. Chester (red) is the county town, and Warrington has the greatest population. Towns with more than 10,000 inhabitants in 2011 are highlighted; the size of dot gives a rough indication of the relative population. Wales and the adjacent English counties are shown in capitals. Bottom: Relief map showing the major hills. The Mid Cheshire Ridge is a discontinuous ridge of low hills running north–south from Beacon Hill (north of Helsby Hill) to Bickerton Hill. Most other high ground falls within the Peak District in the east of the county. Shining Tor (559 metres), on the boundary with Derbyshire, forms the county's high point.
Administration The ceremonial county of Cheshire is administered by four unitary authorities (click on the map for details): 2 – Cheshire East 3 – Warrington 4 – Halton In the local government reorganisation of 1974, Cheshire gained an area formerly in Lancashire including Widnes and Warrington. The county lost Tintwistle to Derbyshire, part of the Wirral Peninsula to Merseyside, and a northern area including Stockport, Altrincham, Sale, Hyde, Dukinfield and Stalybridge to Greater Manchester. Selected biography
Joseph Priestley (13 March 1733 – 6 February 1804) was a theologian, Dissenting clergyman, natural philosopher, educator and political theorist. He is usually credited with the discovery of oxygen, which he dubbed "dephlogisticated air", having isolated it in its gaseous state. He also discovered several other gases, invented soda water and wrote on electricity. He served as a minister in Nantwich (1758–61), and also established a school where he taught natural philosophy. It was here that he wrote the seminal work, The Rudiments of English Grammar. He was also a tutor at Warrington Academy (1761–67). Priestley's metaphysical writings attempted to combine theism, materialism and determinism; these works are considered to be one of the main sources for utilitarianism. Besides Rudiments, his contributions to pedagogy include the invention of modern historiography. He advocated equal rights for religious Dissenters and helped to found Unitarianism in England. Did you know...
Selected town or village
Northwich, the most northerly of Cheshire's wich towns, lies at the confluence of the rivers Weaver and Dane, near Winsford, in the heart of the Cheshire Plain. The population of the civil parish was nearly 20,000 in 2011. Northwich rests on Lower Keuper saliferous beds. The settlement – then called Condate, thought to mean "confluence" – has been known since the Roman era, when it was important as a river crossing and a source of salt, and the area has long been exploited for its salt pans. The town has had a market since at least 1535. From the 19th century, pumped water was used to extract salt as brine, leading to subsidence problems and the creation of flashes. Several buildings were designed to be lifted in the event of subsidence. Northwich has been involved in the chemical industry since 1874, when Brunner Mond, later part of ICI, started to manufacture soda ash in Winnington. The mines were stabilised in the early 2000s, and much of the industrial area has been reclaimed to form Northwich Woodlands. The Weaver Hall Museum documents the town's salt industry. In the news.JPG) Crewe Market Hall 29 October, 1 November: Warrington council and the mayor of Crewe each announce plans to bid for city status in 2022. 13–14 October: Prince Edward visits Chester and opens a Fire Service training centre in Winsford. 8 October: Castle Street shopping area in Macclesfield reopens after refurbishment. 4 October: Restoration of the grade-I-listed Bridgegate, part of Chester city walls, is completed. 25 September: A bronze frieze by the sculptor Tom Murphy is unveiled in Warrington, as a memorial to the band Viola Beach. 9 September: The fifth stage of the Tour of Britain cycle race takes place in Cheshire, starting at Alderley Park and finishing in Warrington. 24 July: The grade-II-listed Crewe Market Hall (pictured) formally reopens after refurbishment. 15 July: Crewe, Runcorn and Warrington are awarded potential funding under the "Town Deal" government scheme. QuotationIn the first place, Cranford is in possession of the Amazons; all the holders of houses above a certain rent are women. If a married couple come to settle in the town, somehow the gentleman disappears; he is either fairly frightened to death by being the only man in the Cranford evening parties, or he is accounted for by being with his regiment, his ship, or closely engaged in business all the week in the great neighbouring commercial town of Drumble, distant only twenty miles on a railroad. In short, whatever does become of the gentlemen, they are not at Cranford. ... The ladies of Cranford are quite sufficient. "A man," as one of them observed to me once, "is so in the way in the house!" From Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell (1851–3)
Subcategories
TopicsRecommended articles.svg) Things you can do
WikiProject Related portalsAssociated WikimediaThe following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:
Discover Wikipedia using portals | ||||||
