Winsford

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Winsford

Coordinates: 53.194° N 2.5197° W

Winsford (United Kingdom)
Winsford
Population 29,683 (2001 census)
OS grid reference SJ6566
District Vale Royal
Shire county Cheshire
Region North West
Constituent country England
Sovereign state United Kingdom
Post town WINSFORD
Postcode district CW7
Dial code 01606
Police Cheshire
Fire Cheshire
Ambulance North West
UK Parliament Eddisbury
European Parliament North West England
List of places: UK • England • Cheshire

Winsford is a town in the county of Cheshire, North West England. It lies south of Northwich on the River Weaver. It grew around the salt mining industry after the river was canalised in the eighteenth century, allowing freight to be conveyed northwards to the Port of Runcorn on the River Mersey. Winsford is split into two neighbourhoods: Over on the western side of the River Weaver and Wharton on the eastern side.

Contents

[edit] Government

Map of civil parish of Winsford within borough of Vale Royal
Map of civil parish of Winsford within borough of Vale Royal

Three layers of local government have responsibility for Winsford:

[edit] Transport links

Winsford railway station, on the main Liverpool to Birmingham line, is one mile east of the center of the town, in Wharton. The M6 motorway at junction 18 at Middlewich is the nearest motorway link, with the A54 connecting the town to it. The nearest airports are Liverpool John Lennon Airport and Manchester Airport.

[edit] Retail

Fords of Winsford is one of the largest second-hand car dealers in the UK and is situated in Wharton. Major supermarkets are Asda and Aldi in the town centre and Morrisons in Wharton. Other major chains include JJB Sports, Argos, Boots, New look, Brantano and Peacocks. The shopping centre is of 1970s design, with some covered areas. Please click here for a list of shops in Winsford.

[edit] History

[edit] 13th Century

Kings Henry III and Edward I occasionally held court at Darnhall near Winsford. The latter king founded Vale Royal Abbey at Darnhall, but then moved it in 1277 to near Whitegate. By around 1280, a charter had been granted to form a new town near the Abbey, centred on the present-day Delamere Street in Winsford. From this charter can be traced the origins of the market that is still held in the town.

[edit] 18th Century

The Government gave permission for artificial improvements to be made to the River Weaver in 1721, in order to allow large barges to reach Winsford from the port of Liverpool. At first, this was the closest that barges carrying china clay from Cornwall could get to the Potteries district of north Staffordshire, which was then rapidly developing as the major centre of ceramic production in Britain.

Cornish china clay was used in the production of earthenware and stoneware. The clay was taken overland from Winsford by pack horse to manufacturers in the Potteries, a distance of about 30 miles. Locally-produced salt was also transported to the Potteries, for use in the manufacture of salt-glazed stoneware. Finished ceramics from the Potteries were brought back to Winsford, for onward export through the port of Liverpool. That trade ended in the 1780s when the Trent and Mersey Canal carried the goods through Middlewich, bypassing Winsford.

The canalised River Weaver was the inspiration for the Duke of Bridgewater's canals and later the engineer for the Weaver Navigation, Edwin Leader Williams, designed and built the Manchester Ship Canal.

[edit] 19th Century

From the 1830s, salt became important to Winsford, partly because the salt mines under Northwich had begun to collapse and another source of salt near the River Weaver was needed. A new source was discovered in Winsford, leading to the development of a salt industry along the course of the River Weaver, where many factories were established. By 1897, Winsford had become the largest producer of salt in Britain. As a result, a new town developed within a mile of the old Borough of Over which had been focused on Delamere Street. Most of the early development took place on the other side of the river, with new housing, shops, pubs, chapels and a new church being built in the former hamlet of Wharton. As the wind usually blew the smoke away from Over, it became the place for the wealthier inhabitants to live. However, people who worked on the barges and other people working in Winsford started to develop along the old Over Lane, now the High Street. The old Borough tried to keep itself separate but had been connected by the 1860s.

[edit] 20th Century

Winsford, as seen from Weaver Valley Park, Wharton
Winsford, as seen from Weaver Valley Park, Wharton

By the World War II, the salt trade had declined as one company took control of all the salt works and introduced methods of manufacture that needed greatly reduced labour. Slum clearance started in the 1930s and, by the 1950s, there were three new housing estates on both sides of the river to replace sub-standard homes. However, even in the 1960s, Winsford could be described as "one long line of mainly terraced houses from the station to Salterswall".

The town experienced a major expansion in the late 1960s and 1970s with its designation as a New Town. This saw the development of two new industrial areas on both sides of the town and new housing estates for council and private development along with the creation of the new shopping centre with its associated library, sports centre, civic hall and doctors' surgeries. The expansion in population was, however, not fully completed, leaving the town with far larger civic buildings than its population would otherwise warrant.

From a social point of view, this led to a mix in the population of the town. The original Cheshire residents experienced a wave of inhabitants from Manchester which was followed by a second and much larger wave of newcomers from Liverpool. There was (and to some extent still is) some friction between "Old" Winsfordians and the "New" Winsfordians. The term "Woolyback" for "Old" Winsfordians was a common term of abuse related to their supposed rural roots. These tensions have, with the passage of time, greatly subsided.

Vale Royal Borough Council was formed in 1974 covering Winsford, Northwich and a large rural area of mid-Cheshire. In 1991, the council moved its main office from Northwich to a purpose-built headquarters in Winsford. Winsford Town Council is also housed in the same building. Since then both Cheshire Fire Service (in 1997) and Cheshire Police (in 2003) have moved headquarters from the county town of Chester to Winsford.

[edit] Industry

[edit] Winsford Rock Salt

The UK's only rock salt mine is at Winsford. Rock salt was laid down in this part of North West England some 220 million years ago, during the Triassic geological era. Seawater moved inland from an open sea, creating a chain of shallow salt marshes across what is today the Cheshire basin. As the marshes evaporated, deep deposits of rock salt were formed.

Rock salt extraction began at Winsford in the 17th century. Initially it was used only as salt licks for animals, and to strengthen weak brine. In 1844 the salt mine was opened. Today, rock salt is quarried from a depth of more than 150 metres below ground, producing salt (commonly known as "grit") for use on road surfaces in winter weather.

[edit] Media

The local newspapers are the Winsford Guardian and Winsford Chronicle. A radio station, Cheshire FM, is planned for 2007 which will cover the mid-Cheshire area including Winsford.

[edit] Places of interest

[edit] St Chad's Church

This church, off Swanlow Lane, is the most well-known local historical landmark. One of the most popular local stories is that St Chad's Church was originally built in Delamere Street, but the devil was so angry at the people's use of it that he decided to fly off with it. The monks at Vale Royal Abbey were said to have seen him and rang the abbey bells so that it was dropped in its current location. In fact, its location is probably due to it having always belonged, along with its tithes (a tax of ten percent of income of the parishioners) to the nuns of St Mary's Convent in Chester. This presumably convinced the Abbot to build the town far enough away from the Church in order to gain the tithes himself. The incumbent vicar of St. Chad's is the Rev. Adam Friend.

[edit] The "Saxon Cross"

By St John's Church of England Primary School on Delamere Street, is a rare (possibly unique) lock-up / monument built in the 19th Century. The Over Market met nearby so the Cross was used for locking up drunks, thieves and swindlers until the magistrates court at the George and Dragon on the edge of Delamere Street was in session. The building is in the form of a stepped pyramid surmounted by a cross. The door to the lock-up is still visible but was blocked up in th 1970s.

Many invented tales of buried treasure and secret passages are told about the Cross but unfortunately none are true. The nearby street name of Saxon Crossway was invented by the Borough Council in the 1960s and refers to the remains of the Saxon Cross preserved at St Chad's Church.

[edit] Winsford Flashes

The Winsford Flashes are the town's most notable geographical feature. In referring to them as the "Cheshire Broads", a comparison is made with the better-known Norfolk Broads. "Flash" is an English dialect word for "lake", with a regional distribution centred on the north-west counties of Cheshire and Lancashire. The Winsford Flashes (Top Flash, Middle Flash, and Bottom Flash, the largest) comprise three lakes along the course of the River Weaver, extending over some 200 acres. They formed in the 19th century (cartographical evidence dates their formation to between 1845 and 1872), due to the subsidence of surface ground into underground voids. The voids were largely the result of brine extraction, in which rock salt deposits were dissolved and washed out by water. As the ground slumped into the voids, the River Weaver widened at each point, until lakes were made where arable land had once been. From the late-19th century, Winsford Flashes became popular with working-class day-trippers from the nearby industrial centres of Manchester and the Staffordshire Potteries. Visitors came in large numbers for a day's leisure boating, picknicking, and sightseeing. However, the Winsford Flashes were never developed as a public amenity, and their popularity soon fell into decline. Today, they are primarily enjoyed by the local community, and are used for sailing, fishing, and walking. They support a wide range of wildlife, with several species of migrant wildfowl, such as Canada Geese, using them as an over-winter destination.

[edit] Other places

Brunner Guildhall, as seen from across the High Street
Brunner Guildhall, as seen from across the High Street

Also of note is the Salt Union saltmine, stretching for several square miles underneath the area between Winsford and Northwich. The salt mine produces rock salt for use as a de-icing agent on roads. Parts of the worked-out mine are operated by Deep Store Ltd., for the secure storage of documents [1]. Confidential government files, hospital patient records, and business data are stored in the mine, where the dry and stable atmosphere provide ideal conditions for long-term document storage. Rare books from the John Rylands Library, Manchester, have also been stored in the mine, while the library underwent major refurbishment.

St John's Church on Delamere Street dates from 1863 when Lord Delamere of Vale Royal commissioned the young Sandiway architect John Douglas to build it as a memorial to his deceased wife. This is the tallest building on highest part of Over so the spire can be seen for miles around.

Brunner Guildhall. Now a part of Mid Cheshire College, late Nineteenth Century.

[edit] Historic private buildings

Knights Grange Pub, Grange Lane (17th Century)

Littler Grange, now a children's nursery. The best remaining half-timber building in Winsford, including sloping floors on part of the first floor.

Dawk House, Swanlow Lane. A largely unaltered timber framed farm, covered in white stucco probably during the reign of Queen Anne, including the date 1711.

Blue Bell Inn by St Chad's Church, now also a children's nursery. It is in fact an exact replica of a medieval building that burned down in the 1960s.

[edit] Places of Worship

For a map of some local churches click here

[edit] Recreation

Also of interest is the town's football team, Winsford United. The non-league team suffered numerous relegations and now plays in the North West Counties Football League Division 2. Support for the team has dwindled over the years, falling from a pre-war peak of over 10,000 to just 100. The Blues, (after the colour of their shirts) play at Barton Stadium.

Famous ex-players include Peter Bains (formerly of Mickleover Sports), Neville Southall, Wayne Collins, Stephen McCormack, Matthew "Ceefax" Doherty and Jemalbarq.

Winsford has one of the best swimming clubs in the area, Winsford ASC has achieved Swim21 club status and won the North West Division 1 spedo league, and has now been promoted to the premier league.

Also of note is Vale Royal Athletic Club who have several international athletes training with them.

Allotment gardens are sited at Moss Bank, on 4 acres of land purchased by Winsford Urban District Council in 1924. They have been continually used by the community ever since.

The youth football teams are Winsford Over 3 and Winsford diamonds.

The youth Cricket team is Wnsford Cricket team which is also a senior team.

[edit] Notable Residents

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

[edit] Sources for this article

  • Main information of history of Winsford is from "It's All Over", a free booklet written by J.Brian Curzon, 2006.
  • Other information from the free booklet "Official Winsford Town Guide", Winsford Town Council, 2006.

Both publications currently available from Winsford Public Library.

[edit] Books about Winsford

  • "A Ninety Year History: Winsford Church of England Primary School 1909-1999: St Chad's Primary School" by Mary Curry, Leonie Press, 2001.
  • "The Book of Winsford" by J. Brian Curzon, Quotes, 1997 - a general introduction to the town's history.
  • "Winsford" by J. Brian Curzon, Tempus Publishing Ltd, 2001 - Mainly photographs with captions
  • "A Cheshire Parish at War: St Chad's, Over, Winsford, 1914-1925" by Ann Clayton, 1998 - who fought in the First World War from the congregation of St Chad's and what happened to them.
  • "Woollyback" by Alan Fleet, Leonie Press, 2000 - a fictional account of Winsford in the 20th Century.
  • "The Winsford and Over Branch" by RW Miller, Oakwood Press, 1999
  • "Winsford Returns" by Alan Ravenscroft,1996 - A list of all those who served in the First World War.
The Borough of Vale Royal, Cheshire

Principal Settlements

Frodsham • Northwich • Winsford

Civil Parishes

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v • d • e
Ceremonial county of Cheshire
Cheshire Portal
Unitary authorities: Halton • Warrington
Boroughs/Districts: Chester City • Congleton • Crewe and Nantwich • Ellesmere Port and Neston • Macclesfield • Vale Royal
Cities/Towns: Alsager • Bollington • Chester • Congleton • Crewe • Ellesmere Port • Frodsham • Knutsford • Macclesfield • Middlewich • Nantwich • Neston • Northwich • Runcorn • Sandbach • Warrington • Widnes • Wilmslow • Winsford
See also: List of civil parishes in Cheshire
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