Cheshire
| Cheshire | |
|---|---|
 | |
 | |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Country | England |
| Borders | Denbighshire Derbyshire Flintshire Lancashire Shropshire Staffordshire Yorkshire |
Cheshire is a traditional county in the west of England, on the border with Wales, stretching from the Pennines in the east to the Wirral in the west. It is primarily considered to be in northern England, although occasionally it is considered a part of the English Midlands, due to it having formed a part of the Anglian kingdom Mercia (527–918 AD); for statistical purposes, the majority of the council areas which cover Cheshire are in the North West, with a much smaller area being part of East Midlands. It forms a part of the historic Welsh Marches border region between England and Wales.
Cheshire borders Lancashire across the River Mersey to the north, with a significantly shorter border with Yorkshire to the north east. Its eastern border is mostly with Derbyshire. To the south, Cheshire borders Staffordshire and Shropshire, bordering Denbighshire and Flintshire, both in Wales, to the west.
Much of Cheshire is low-lying and flat - the 'Cheshire Plain', though in the east the land rises in the Pennine foothills. The county is largely agricultural, though significant industries have since Roman times exploited the salt beds underlying the county. The 'Cheshire Witches', the towns of Northwich, Nantwich and Middlewich, grew prosperous on salt; and the industry also gave rise to the chemicals industry on the Mersey. Macclesfield, in the east of the county, specialised in silk manufacture, and Crewe in railway engineering. North Cheshire has some of the most expensive residential property in the United Kingdom, and the area around Alderley Edge is nicknamed the 'footballer belt', as many highly-paid football stars live in the vicinity.
The population of Cheshire is around 1.67 million. The county town is Chester, an ancient cathedral city which grew out of the Roman fort Deva. Other major settlements include Birkenhead, Crewe, Macclesfield, Runcorn and Stockport. Some southern suburban areas of Manchester are in Cheshire, as is Manchester Airport, although the city is primarily in Lancashire. Similarly, the part of Warrington south of the River Mersey is in Cheshire, with that to the north in Lancashire.
Geography
The traditional county is divided into seven areas called hundreds. The hundreds of Cheshire are Broxton (containing Chester), Bucklow, Eddisbury, Macclesfield, Nantwich, Northwich and Wirral.
The Wirral, a peninsula between the Mersey and Dee estuaries, has a short coastline on Irish Sea.
History
The Bridestones, near Congleton, is a chambered burial cairn thought to date to the Neolithic period (3500–2400 BC). Another prehistoric burial ground is Robin Hood's Tump is at Alpraham is thought to date from the Bronze Age.
During the Iron Age (c. 1200 – c. 550 BC), several hill forts were constructed in present-day Cheshire, including two at Frodsham: Helsby Hillfort and Woodhouse Hillfort.
Around the time of the Roman invasion of Britain in 43 AD, most of present-day Cheshire formed part of the territory of the Brittonic Celtic tribe Cornovii, which was centred on present-day Shropshire and also covered neighbouring areas of what is now Staffordshire, Herefordshire, and the Welsh counties of Denbighshire, Flintshire, Montgomeryshire and Radnorshire. Their capital may have been at the Wrekin in Shropshire. Northern Cheshire may have been within the territory of the neighbouring tribe Brigantes, which covered the majority of what is now the North and North Midlands of England. The Romans arrived in the territory of the Cornovii in 47 AD, when a Roman army, Legio XIV Gemina, stormed the Wrekin. By c. 70 AD, Rome had established a fortress and town at the site of present-day Chester called Deva Victrix. It is likely that Cheshire's early Triassic salt deposits began being mined in the Roman era; the Romans established a settlement called Condate (present-day Northwich), which can be identified from a 3rd century road map, and it is believed that the Romans built this settlement due to the strategic river crossing of the Weaver and the presence of the brine springs. The Romans used lead salt pans to extract the salt from the brine. Salt pans and first-century brine kilns have both been found around Northwich.
Germanic speakers, whose dialects would develop into the Old English language, arrived in Britain from c. 450 AD. Angles arrived in Cheshire by the 6th century. A people of Anglo-Saxon Britain, the Wreocensæte (or Wrekinset), are first identified in the Tribal Hidage (dated 7th century) and their territory is thought to have corresponded approximately to modern-day Cheshire and Shropshire and adjacent parts of Wales. The name is Old English for "Wrekin-dwellers". Whether they were a Germanic or Celtic people, or of mixed background, is uncertain. They may be a continuation of the Roman-era Cornovii people. The Wreocensæte were under control of the Anglian kingdom Mercia from the 7th century. A small folk group within the Wreocensæte were the Meresæte, based near Chester. Christianity became widespread in Mercia in the mid-7th century, following Penda, the Pagan king, being slain in battle by Northumbria. Local legend, now thought pseudohistorical, states that the Sandbach Crosses were erected to commemorate the conversion to Christianity of Peada of Mercia. Towards the end of the 7th century, Saint Werburgh founded a religious institution on the present site of Chester's St John's Church which later became the first cathedral. In 915 AD, Æthelflæd Lady of the Mercians constructed fortifications at Runcorn, to protect the northern frontier of the kingdom from Scandinavian Viking raids.
The name "Cheshire" first appears on record in 980 AD, although it is likely that the shire was established in c. 920 AD by Edward the Elder.
Following the Norman conquest of 1066 by William the Conqueror, dissent and resistance continued for many years after the invasion and Cheshire, being a remote part of the kingdom, far from centres of power in Normandy and the south-east of England, provided persistent resistance to the Normans. In 1069 local resistance in Cheshire was finally put down using harsh, genocide-like measures, referred to by historians as the Harrying of the North (1069-1070). The ferocity of the campaign against the English populace was enough to end all future resistance. Major local landowners such as Edwin, Earl of Mercia (died 1071), had their properties confiscated and redistributed among Norman barons.
The devastation caused by the Harrying was evident in the Domesday Book (1086), as much of the county's land was written off as "wasta" (wasteland). During this period, much of north-east Wales was recorded as being a part of Cheshire. The lands recorded as Inter Ripam et Mersam (meaning "(lands) between the Ribble and Mersey"), effectively southern Lancashire, may also have formed part of Cheshire at this time, but this is far from certain.
The earldom of Mercia was abolished around this time, and the Earldom of Chester (roughly co-terminus with the combined areas of Cheshire and Flintshire) was established. The earldom was sufficiently independent from the kingdom of England that the 13th-century Magna Carta did not apply to the shire of Chester, so the earl wrote up his own Chester Charter at the petition of his barons.
On 25 June 1938, Manchester Airport opened at Ringway in the north of the county. As of the 21st century, it is the 3rd busiest airport in the United Kingdom and the busiest not serving London.
Culture
Architecture
Many buildings in Cheshire featured black and white timber framing, giving many towns in the county a distinct Tudor charm. Examples of Tudor manor houses in Cheshire include the 15th century Bramall Hall near Stockport and the early-16th century Little Moreton Hall near Congleton. Black-and-white Revival architecture of the 19th century refers to the architectural movement that revived Tudor-style timber framing, and has been described as a "Cheshire specialty", due to numerous examples of such architecture in the county town Chester.
Administration
The large and predominantly rural interior of the county Cheshire is served by two council areas; Cheshire East Council and Cheshire West and Chester Council. Other areas of the county are served by Derbyshire County Council (High Peak district), Halton Borough Council, Manchester City Council, Shropshire Council, Stockport MBC, Tameside MBC and Wirral Council.
The county also lends its name to a "county for the purposes of lieutenancy" (which Wikipedia wrongly calls a "ceremonial county"), which consists of the council areas Cheshire East, Cheshire West and Chester, Halton and Warrington, despite the latter two partially consisting of areas of Lancashire.
