Over, Cheshire
Encyclopedia
Over is a former borough
and market town
that forms the western part of the town of Winsford
in the English
county of Cheshire
. Wharton forms the eastern part, the boundary being the River Weaver
.
when melt waters from the last ice sheet left a long line of sand expanding from near Frodsham
in the north to beyond Nantwich
in the south. The main road through Delamere Street and Swanlow Lane follows this line and is around 200 feet above sea level. A mile or so to the east, the River Weaver
cuts a deep valley through the glacial clay. As there are few real hills in central Cheshire
it would have been an ideal site for early settlers, who generally avoided valleys. Prehistoric tools have occasionally been found along the route, showing that the area had been used for many thousands of years before the first mention of the name in the Domesday Book
of 1086.
stone cross, which was found between the World Wars when St Chad's Church
was altered. The fragment is on display near the organ today. St Chad was the first bishop of the Midlands
in the 7th Century. There are various churches dedicated to him in Cheshire and throughout the Midlands. As it is recorded that he travelled around converting the pagans
, it is possible that he converted early converts in a spring in what might have been a sacred valley at the edge of the forest. The ancient churchyard of the St Chad's church still shows a circular shape, which is usually a clue to an ancient, and often Pre-Christian, foundation. No church however is mentioned in the written records before the time of the Normans.
Earls of Chester had a hunting lodge or summer palace at Darnhall
in Over parish. There was an enclosed area where deer and wild boar were kept to be hunted by the Earl and his guests. It was there that the last Norman Earl met his death. It was rumoured that his wife, Helen the daughter of the Prince of Wales, had poisoned him in order to favour the powerful aristocrat that her daughter had married. However, as this was the time of the Barons' Wars, King Henry III
took control of the county and of the manor himself and even spent time at Darnhall. It was during this time that the brook there was dammed to drive three water mills and to make pools to keep fish.
The first mention of a priest is in 1307 when a Thomas de Dutton is mentioned, but it uncertain if this was at St.Chad's or as a chaplain at Darnhall, or both. The church and responsibility for the parish was given to St. Mary's convent in Chester
, who appointed the priests in charge.
and took great pride in the county. On becoming King Edward I
he granted several town charters for markets and defended Chester
in readiness for wars in Wales
. He also made a vow to found an abbey in Cheshire when he was in danger of shipwreck. As he had visited Darnhall
and knew its quiet secluded setting, he chose this area as a site for Cistercian monks. This religious order chose to live in the wildest places possible, bringing their farming skills to clear forest and to bring unused land into use for farming. A group of monks arrived from Dore Abbey
in Herefordshire to set up the new abbey, but they were soon allowed to move to a better site that we now know as Vale Royal Abbey
.
In 1277 the King and Queen arrived in the Parish of Over to lay the foundation stones of the new abbey, which was planned to be the biggest of its kind in the country. Although the Abbot became lord of the manor, the church and parish remained the property of the convent at Chester so Over paid tithes to both the Abbey and Convent.
plots". Each one was suitable for building a house, forming a garden and/or orchard and have space to keep a pig or cow. The plan of the 13th Century borough is still visible in the modern garden plots. The borough was allowed to have a weekly market and a livestock fair once a year. It had to maintain a prison and pillory for wrongdoers and the mayor acted as the judge in trials within the borough. Fuel was provided by allowing residents to dig peat
from a bog near Blakeden Lane. The remains of these peat cuttings were only filled in during 2005-6.
Every year the Burgesses (those who owned a burgage plot) elected a Court Leet, rather like a cross between a town council and a magistrates' bench, to govern the borough. They selected one of their number to be mayor for a year but this position had to be confirmed by the Abbot.
The original charter is in the Harleian Manuscripts, owned by the Earls of Oxford, and was one of the original donations of antiquities and documents left to the nation which prompted the foundation of the British Museum
and British Library
in the 18th Century.
The stone bases of wayside crosses at Salterswall and Marston mark the boundary between the abbey lands and the borough. The large base at Marton is sometimes called a "wishing seat", with an early record stating it was set up by order of Edward I to mark the boundary.
, upon which the early prosperity of Over depended, came to an end when first the great castle-building programme of Edward I stripped it of funding and then the Black Death
killed half of the population.
When the plague cleared, there were empty spaces to be used up and ambitious men took advantage of this. This caused friction with the Abbot leading to several incidents culminating in a revolt when the local peasants took their case to the Justice of Chester and even to the Queen herself, asking for her to plead their case to the King. The King, however, decided in favour of the Abbot and all the men (and one woman) who had taken over lands had to give them up. The rebels were imprisoned at Weaverham.
The combination of the Abbey and the Convent competing for tithes stifled growth.
, with Over being purchased by Thomas Holcroft for £466.10s.1d who sold it almost at once to Edmund Pershall.
Pershall was a London merchant who saw his purchase as a long term investment. He got regular rents and hoped the properties would increase in value. Over was sold in the middle of the 17th Century to Thomas Cholmondeley, son of Lady Mary Cholmondeley who had purchased Vale Royal Abbey
.
was very dangerous to everyone - proof of this was discovered when workmen in Nixon Drive found a little black ale mug full of silver coins, with a date range from Queen Elizabeth I to 1643. The coins were declared treasure trove
and are now at the Grosvenor Museum
in Chester.
.
Daniel King, who published his history of Cheshire in 1656 describe over thus: "tis but a small thing, but I place it here because of the great prerogative that it has, for it had a mayor". He included it in the list of boroughs of Cheshire for, despite being a tiny village, its mayor was of equal rank to the mayor of Chester
.
, sometimes known as the 'Palatine Prophet' and who came from Over, may have lived at this time.
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
. The clay was then taken overland by pack horses, who in turn would bring back the finished china to be sent for export through Liverpool. In 1744, the manager of the wharf, George Wood, took control of the trade between Winsford and Stoke. He made a reasonable fortune and built Oak House, which remained a farm just off Beeston Drive before the land was purchased to build the Over Estate and the house was demolished.
That trade ended in the 1780s when the Trent and Mersey Canal
carried the goods through Middlewich
and bypassed the town.
The canalised Weaver was, however, 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
.
In 1869 Abraham Haigh built a cotton
mill at the end of what would become Well Street. He used the water supply trapped in the sand enclosed by clay on the Over Ridge to power steam engines. However, almost as soon as the building was completed most of it was destroyed, killing some of the workers who were then buried in a communal grave at St John's church
where a monument records their names. A town fire engine, although ordered, had not yet been delivered by the time of the fire.
The last mayor of Over was Edmund Leigh who held office during the Diamond Jubilee of 1897. The mayoral status of Over was by then a purely ceremonial affair as the right of the mayor to sit in court as a magistrate had by then been removed.
Baron Delamere
, the major local landowner sold most of his considerable property in the town in 1912, resisting the giving of the mace and title to the newly formed Winsford Urban District Council (possibly because he wanted to sell them). The mace was therefore taken back to Vale Royal Abbey and Sir William Verdin gave Winsford a new silver mace to mark the coronation of George V. In 1946 Baron Delamere's son, who had settled in Kenya
, returned the old mace to Winsford when he sold the remaining family land.
Borough
A borough is an administrative division in various countries. In principle, the term borough designates a self-governing township although, in practice, official use of the term varies widely....
and market town
Market town
Market town or market right is a legal term, originating in the medieval period, for a European settlement that has the right to host markets, distinguishing it from a village and city...
that forms the western part of the town of Winsford
Winsford
Winsford is a town and civil parish within the unitary authority of Cheshire West and Chester and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. It lies on the River Weaver south of Northwich and west of Middlewich, and grew around the salt mining industry after the river was canalised in the...
in the English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
county of Cheshire
Cheshire
Cheshire is a ceremonial county in North West England. Cheshire's county town is the city of Chester, although its largest town is Warrington. Other major towns include Widnes, Congleton, Crewe, Ellesmere Port, Runcorn, Macclesfield, Winsford, Northwich, and Wilmslow...
. Wharton forms the eastern part, the boundary being the River Weaver
River Weaver
The River Weaver is a river, navigable in its lower reaches, running in a curving route anti-clockwise across west Cheshire, northern England. Improvements to the river to make it navigable were authorised in 1720 and the work, which included eleven locks, was completed in 1732...
.
Ancient Origins
Over owes its origins to the Ice AgeIce age
An ice age or, more precisely, glacial age, is a generic geological period of long-term reduction in the temperature of the Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental ice sheets, polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers...
when melt waters from the last ice sheet left a long line of sand expanding from near Frodsham
Frodsham
Frodsham is a market town and civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire West and Chester and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. Its population is 8,982. It is approximately south of Runcorn, 16 miles south of Liverpool, and approximately south-west of Manchester...
in the north to beyond Nantwich
Nantwich
Nantwich is a market town and civil parish in the Borough of Cheshire East and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. The town gives its name to the parliamentary constituency of Crewe and Nantwich...
in the south. The main road through Delamere Street and Swanlow Lane follows this line and is around 200 feet above sea level. A mile or so to the east, the River Weaver
River Weaver
The River Weaver is a river, navigable in its lower reaches, running in a curving route anti-clockwise across west Cheshire, northern England. Improvements to the river to make it navigable were authorised in 1720 and the work, which included eleven locks, was completed in 1732...
cuts a deep valley through the glacial clay. As there are few real hills in central Cheshire
Cheshire
Cheshire is a ceremonial county in North West England. Cheshire's county town is the city of Chester, although its largest town is Warrington. Other major towns include Widnes, Congleton, Crewe, Ellesmere Port, Runcorn, Macclesfield, Winsford, Northwich, and Wilmslow...
it would have been an ideal site for early settlers, who generally avoided valleys. Prehistoric tools have occasionally been found along the route, showing that the area had been used for many thousands of years before the first mention of the name in the Domesday Book
Domesday Book
Domesday Book , now held at The National Archives, Kew, Richmond upon Thames in South West London, is the record of the great survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086...
of 1086.
Saxon times
The earliest evidence of anyone living in the area is the piece of a SaxonAnglo-Saxon art
Anglo-Saxon art covers art produced within the Anglo-Saxon period of English history, beginning with the Migration period style that the Anglo-Saxons brought with them from the continent in the 5th century, and ending in 1066 with the Norman Conquest of a large Anglo-Saxon nation-state whose...
stone cross, which was found between the World Wars when St Chad's Church
St Chad's Church, Over
St Chad's Church, Over, is in the town of Winsford, Cheshire, England. It was formerly in the separate town of Over, but with the growth of Winsford it has become part of this town. The church has been designated by English Heritage as a Grade II* listed building...
was altered. The fragment is on display near the organ today. St Chad was the first bishop of the Midlands
English Midlands
The Midlands, or the English Midlands, is the traditional name for the area comprising central England that broadly corresponds to the early medieval Kingdom of Mercia. It borders Southern England, Northern England, East Anglia and Wales. Its largest city is Birmingham, and it was an important...
in the 7th Century. There are various churches dedicated to him in Cheshire and throughout the Midlands. As it is recorded that he travelled around converting the pagans
Paganism
Paganism is a blanket term, typically used to refer to non-Abrahamic, indigenous polytheistic religious traditions....
, it is possible that he converted early converts in a spring in what might have been a sacred valley at the edge of the forest. The ancient churchyard of the St Chad's church still shows a circular shape, which is usually a clue to an ancient, and often Pre-Christian, foundation. No church however is mentioned in the written records before the time of the Normans.
Norman Rule
The NormanNormans
The Normans were the people who gave their name to Normandy, a region in northern France. They were descended from Norse Viking conquerors of the territory and the native population of Frankish and Gallo-Roman stock...
Earls of Chester had a hunting lodge or summer palace at Darnhall
Darnhall
right|thumb|200px|Map of civil parish of Darnhall within the former Borough of Vale RoyalDarnhall is a civil parish and small village to the south west of Winsford in the Borough of Cheshire West and Chester and the ceremonial county of Cheshire in England...
in Over parish. There was an enclosed area where deer and wild boar were kept to be hunted by the Earl and his guests. It was there that the last Norman Earl met his death. It was rumoured that his wife, Helen the daughter of the Prince of Wales, had poisoned him in order to favour the powerful aristocrat that her daughter had married. However, as this was the time of the Barons' Wars, King Henry III
Henry III of England
Henry III was the son and successor of John as King of England, reigning for 56 years from 1216 until his death. His contemporaries knew him as Henry of Winchester. He was the first child king in England since the reign of Æthelred the Unready...
took control of the county and of the manor himself and even spent time at Darnhall. It was during this time that the brook there was dammed to drive three water mills and to make pools to keep fish.
The first mention of a priest is in 1307 when a Thomas de Dutton is mentioned, but it uncertain if this was at St.Chad's or as a chaplain at Darnhall, or both. The church and responsibility for the parish was given to St. Mary's convent in Chester
Chester
Chester is a city in Cheshire, England. Lying on the River Dee, close to the border with Wales, it is home to 77,040 inhabitants, and is the largest and most populous settlement of the wider unitary authority area of Cheshire West and Chester, which had a population of 328,100 according to the...
, who appointed the priests in charge.
King Edward I and the foundation of Vale Royal Abbey
When Henry's son Edward was old enough, he was made Earl of ChesterEarl of Chester
The Earldom of Chester was one of the most powerful earldoms in medieval England. Since 1301 the title has generally been granted to heirs-apparent to the English throne, and from the late 14th century it has been given only in conjunction with that of Prince of Wales.- Honour of Chester :The...
and took great pride in the county. On becoming King Edward I
Edward I of England
Edward I , also known as Edward Longshanks and the Hammer of the Scots, was King of England from 1272 to 1307. The first son of Henry III, Edward was involved early in the political intrigues of his father's reign, which included an outright rebellion by the English barons...
he granted several town charters for markets and defended Chester
Chester
Chester is a city in Cheshire, England. Lying on the River Dee, close to the border with Wales, it is home to 77,040 inhabitants, and is the largest and most populous settlement of the wider unitary authority area of Cheshire West and Chester, which had a population of 328,100 according to the...
in readiness for wars in Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
. He also made a vow to found an abbey in Cheshire when he was in danger of shipwreck. As he had visited Darnhall
Darnhall
right|thumb|200px|Map of civil parish of Darnhall within the former Borough of Vale RoyalDarnhall is a civil parish and small village to the south west of Winsford in the Borough of Cheshire West and Chester and the ceremonial county of Cheshire in England...
and knew its quiet secluded setting, he chose this area as a site for Cistercian monks. This religious order chose to live in the wildest places possible, bringing their farming skills to clear forest and to bring unused land into use for farming. A group of monks arrived from Dore Abbey
Dore Abbey
Dore Abbey is a former Cistercian abbey in the village of Abbey Dore in the Golden Valley, Herefordshire, England. A large part of the original mediaeval building has been used since the 16th century as the parish church, with remaining parts either now ruined or no longer extant.-History:The...
in Herefordshire to set up the new abbey, but they were soon allowed to move to a better site that we now know as Vale Royal Abbey
Vale Royal Abbey
Vale Royal Abbey is a medieval abbey, and later country house, located in Whitegate, between Northwich and Winsford in Cheshire, England.The abbey was founded in 1270 by Edward I for monks of the austere Cistercian order...
.
In 1277 the King and Queen arrived in the Parish of Over to lay the foundation stones of the new abbey, which was planned to be the biggest of its kind in the country. Although the Abbot became lord of the manor, the church and parish remained the property of the convent at Chester so Over paid tithes to both the Abbey and Convent.
A Borough Charter
Walter, the second Abbot of Vale Royal Abbey, laid out land on either side of Delamere Street in a series of matching "burgageBurgage
Burgage is a medieval land term used in England and Scotland, well established by the 13th century. A burgage was a town rental property , owned by a king or lord. The property usually, and distinctly, consisted of a house on a long and narrow plot of land, with the narrow end facing the street...
plots". Each one was suitable for building a house, forming a garden and/or orchard and have space to keep a pig or cow. The plan of the 13th Century borough is still visible in the modern garden plots. The borough was allowed to have a weekly market and a livestock fair once a year. It had to maintain a prison and pillory for wrongdoers and the mayor acted as the judge in trials within the borough. Fuel was provided by allowing residents to dig peat
Peat
Peat is an accumulation of partially decayed vegetation matter or histosol. Peat forms in wetland bogs, moors, muskegs, pocosins, mires, and peat swamp forests. Peat is harvested as an important source of fuel in certain parts of the world...
from a bog near Blakeden Lane. The remains of these peat cuttings were only filled in during 2005-6.
Every year the Burgesses (those who owned a burgage plot) elected a Court Leet, rather like a cross between a town council and a magistrates' bench, to govern the borough. They selected one of their number to be mayor for a year but this position had to be confirmed by the Abbot.
The original charter is in the Harleian Manuscripts, owned by the Earls of Oxford, and was one of the original donations of antiquities and documents left to the nation which prompted the foundation of the British Museum
British Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
and British Library
British Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, and is the world's largest library in terms of total number of items. The library is a major research library, holding over 150 million items from every country in the world, in virtually all known languages and in many formats,...
in the 18th Century.
The stone bases of wayside crosses at Salterswall and Marston mark the boundary between the abbey lands and the borough. The large base at Marton is sometimes called a "wishing seat", with an early record stating it was set up by order of Edward I to mark the boundary.
Disaster
Unfortunately, the great plans for Vale Royal AbbeyVale Royal Abbey
Vale Royal Abbey is a medieval abbey, and later country house, located in Whitegate, between Northwich and Winsford in Cheshire, England.The abbey was founded in 1270 by Edward I for monks of the austere Cistercian order...
, upon which the early prosperity of Over depended, came to an end when first the great castle-building programme of Edward I stripped it of funding and then the Black Death
Black Death
The Black Death was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, peaking in Europe between 1348 and 1350. Of several competing theories, the dominant explanation for the Black Death is the plague theory, which attributes the outbreak to the bacterium Yersinia pestis. Thought to have...
killed half of the population.
When the plague cleared, there were empty spaces to be used up and ambitious men took advantage of this. This caused friction with the Abbot leading to several incidents culminating in a revolt when the local peasants took their case to the Justice of Chester and even to the Queen herself, asking for her to plead their case to the King. The King, however, decided in favour of the Abbot and all the men (and one woman) who had taken over lands had to give them up. The rebels were imprisoned at Weaverham.
The combination of the Abbey and the Convent competing for tithes stifled growth.
New Owners
In 1545 Vale Royal Abbey and its lands were sold during the Dissolution of the MonasteriesDissolution of the Monasteries
The Dissolution of the Monasteries, sometimes referred to as the Suppression of the Monasteries, was the set of administrative and legal processes between 1536 and 1541 by which Henry VIII disbanded monasteries, priories, convents and friaries in England, Wales and Ireland; appropriated their...
, with Over being purchased by Thomas Holcroft for £466.10s.1d who sold it almost at once to Edmund Pershall.
Pershall was a London merchant who saw his purchase as a long term investment. He got regular rents and hoped the properties would increase in value. Over was sold in the middle of the 17th Century to Thomas Cholmondeley, son of Lady Mary Cholmondeley who had purchased Vale Royal Abbey
Vale Royal Abbey
Vale Royal Abbey is a medieval abbey, and later country house, located in Whitegate, between Northwich and Winsford in Cheshire, England.The abbey was founded in 1270 by Edward I for monks of the austere Cistercian order...
.
The Civil War
In 1643, Royalists escaping from Nantwich "sacked" Over. The situation during the English Civil WarEnglish Civil War
The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists...
was very dangerous to everyone - proof of this was discovered when workmen in Nixon Drive found a little black ale mug full of silver coins, with a date range from Queen Elizabeth I to 1643. The coins were declared treasure trove
Treasure trove
A treasure trove may broadly be defined as an amount of money or coin, gold, silver, plate, or bullion found hidden underground or in places such as cellars or attics, where the treasure seems old enough for it to be presumed that the true owner is dead and the heirs undiscoverable...
and are now at the Grosvenor Museum
Grosvenor Museum
Grosvenor Museum is in Grosvenor Street, Chester, Cheshire, England. It has been designated by English Heritage as a Grade II listed building. Its full title is The Grosvenor Museum of Natural History and Archaeology, with Schools of Science and Art, for Chester, Cheshire and North Wales...
in Chester.
Later 17th Century
A silver mace was presented by the owner of Vale Royal Abbey mansion during this time, although it is unclear exactly by whom and when. It is still in the possession of Winsford Town CouncilWinsford Town Council
Winsford Town Council is the lowest tier of the local government of Winsford, Cheshire and the direct successor of the old Manor Court of the Mayors of "Over" dating back to around 1280...
.
Daniel King, who published his history of Cheshire in 1656 describe over thus: "tis but a small thing, but I place it here because of the great prerogative that it has, for it had a mayor". He included it in the list of boroughs of Cheshire for, despite being a tiny village, its mayor was of equal rank to the mayor of Chester
Chester
Chester is a city in Cheshire, England. Lying on the River Dee, close to the border with Wales, it is home to 77,040 inhabitants, and is the largest and most populous settlement of the wider unitary authority area of Cheshire West and Chester, which had a population of 328,100 according to the...
.
18th Century
Robert NixonRobert Nixon (Cheshire)
Robert Nixon was a legendary prophet of Cheshire. Many accounts about him appear to be in conflict with each other.At least one account has Robert Nixon being born in c. 1467. In this account, he is the son of John Nixon during the time of Edward IV, who leased a farm in the parish of Over from...
, sometimes known as the 'Palatine Prophet' and who came from Over, may have lived at this time.
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
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
. At first, this was the closest that barges carrying china clay
Kaolinite
Kaolinite is a clay mineral, part of the group of industrial minerals, with the chemical composition Al2Si2O54. It is a layered silicate mineral, with one tetrahedral sheet linked through oxygen atoms to one octahedral sheet of alumina octahedra...
from Cornwall
Cornwall
Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...
could get to The Potteries
Staffordshire Potteries
The Staffordshire Potteries is a generic term for the industrial area encompassing the six towns that now make up Stoke on Trent in Staffordshire, England....
. The clay was then taken overland by pack horses, who in turn would bring back the finished china to be sent for export through Liverpool. In 1744, the manager of the wharf, George Wood, took control of the trade between Winsford and Stoke. He made a reasonable fortune and built Oak House, which remained a farm just off Beeston Drive before the land was purchased to build the Over Estate and the house was demolished.
That trade ended in the 1780s when the Trent and Mersey Canal
Trent and Mersey Canal
The Trent and Mersey Canal is a in the East Midlands, West Midlands, and North West of England. It is a "narrow canal" for the vast majority of its length, but at the extremities—east of Burton upon Trent and west of Middlewich—it is a wide canal....
carried the goods through Middlewich
Middlewich
Middlewich is a market town in the unitary authority of Cheshire East and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. It is east of the city of Chester, east of Winsford, southeast of Northwich and northwest of Sandbach....
and bypassed the town.
The canalised Weaver was, however, 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
Manchester Ship Canal
The Manchester Ship Canal is a river navigation 36 miles long in the North West of England. Starting at the Mersey Estuary near Liverpool, it generally follows the original routes of the rivers Mersey and Irwell through the historic counties of Cheshire and Lancashire. Several sets of locks lift...
.
19th Century - The Time of Salt
The Salt industry became firmly established in Winsford from the 1830s, bringing with it massive pollution. As the wind usually blew away from Over, it became the popular place for more wealthy people in the town 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.In 1869 Abraham Haigh built a cotton
Cotton
Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective capsule, around the seeds of cotton plants of the genus Gossypium. The fiber is almost pure cellulose. The botanical purpose of cotton fiber is to aid in seed dispersal....
mill at the end of what would become Well Street. He used the water supply trapped in the sand enclosed by clay on the Over Ridge to power steam engines. However, almost as soon as the building was completed most of it was destroyed, killing some of the workers who were then buried in a communal grave at St John's church
St John the Evangelist's Church, Winsford
St John the Evangelist's Church, Winsford, is in Over, Winsford, Cheshire, England. The church has been designated by English Heritage as a Grade II listed building...
where a monument records their names. A town fire engine, although ordered, had not yet been delivered by the time of the fire.
The last mayor of Over was Edmund Leigh who held office during the Diamond Jubilee of 1897. The mayoral status of Over was by then a purely ceremonial affair as the right of the mayor to sit in court as a magistrate had by then been removed.
Baron Delamere
Hugh Cholmondeley, 3rd Baron Delamere
Hugh Cholmondeley, 3rd Baron Delamere KCMG , styled The Honourable from birth until 1887, was a British peer. He was one of the first and most influential British settlers in Kenya....
, the major local landowner sold most of his considerable property in the town in 1912, resisting the giving of the mace and title to the newly formed Winsford Urban District Council (possibly because he wanted to sell them). The mace was therefore taken back to Vale Royal Abbey and Sir William Verdin gave Winsford a new silver mace to mark the coronation of George V. In 1946 Baron Delamere's son, who had settled in Kenya
Kenya
Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...
, returned the old mace to Winsford when he sold the remaining family land.