Cheshire

Cheshire
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Country	England
Borders	Denbighshire Derbyshire Flintshire Lancashire Shropshire Staffordshire Yorkshire

Cheshire is a county in the west of England, on the border with Wales. 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 county is in the North West, with a much smaller area in the 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.

History

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 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

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.