Charles E. Kelsey - Cheshire

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CHESHIRE. ROADS

OXFORD COUNTY HISTORIES
CHESHIRE

BY CHARLES E. KELSEY, M.A.

WITH TEN MAPS AND FORTY-NINE ILLUSTRATIONS

OXFORD
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
1911

HENRY FROWDE, M.A.
PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
LONDON, EDINBURGH, NEW YORK
TORONTO AND MELBOURNE

PREFACE

The aim of the present volume in the Oxford Series of County Histories for Schools is to assist the study of the progress of the English people by an examination of local antiquities, visits to ancient sites and buildings, and suggestions of big national movements from local incident. An attempt is made to foster the powers of observation in children by showing them how to connect various styles of architecture, for instance, with successive stages in the story of their county, and to construct from familiar objects the broad outlines of national history. Thus it is hoped that sooner or later the teaching of history may become, to some extent, an out-of-school subject and take its place side by side with outdoor Nature-study and Practical Geography in the curriculum of our schools.

In rural districts this end is obviously more easily attainable than in large industrial centres. In the latter the expense of moving classes of children from their schools to visit a site some miles distant would be no doubt considerable; but is it too visionary to hope that before long a motor-bus, capable of carrying a class of thirty or forty boys and girls, will be deemed by Educational Committees a necessary part of their 'apparatus'?

Apart from the educative value of such work there would, as the children grow up, arise a body of public opinion which could give valuable help in saving historic sites and buildings from loss or destruction, and preventing the removal of antiquities from their natural home. Cheshire has suffered perhaps more than her share of both these evils, and looks with sorrowful eyes at many of her treasures housed in the museums of towns beyond her borders.

All students of Cheshire history owe much to Ormerod's great work. But his history is largely genealogical, and personally I wish to acknowledge a greater debt to the labours and transactions of local societies, particularly the Chester Archaeological Society and the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society. Many learned members of these two bodies have made most important contributions to our knowledge of ancient and mediaeval Cheshire within the most recent years. Among other works consulted I may mention the Palatine Note Book, Cheshire Notes and Queries, and Morris's Diocesan History of Chester. I have received kindly assistance from several Cheshire clergymen, and to all who have given me permission to take photographs within their churches I express my thanks.

The maps, drawings, and photographs are original, with few exceptions. I am indebted to the Council of the Chester Archaeological Society, and the Grosvenor Museum for the loan of the block of a Roman tombstone from a photograph by Mr. R. Newstead, and to Mr. Alfred Newstead, Curator of the Museum, for photographs of the Runic stone and Roman altar.

The Rev. J. F. Tristram, of the Hulme Grammar School, read the two geological chapters and made valuable suggestions. To the Clarendon Press I am grateful for much kind help and criticism.

The Hulme Grammar School ,
Manchester ,
July, 1911.

CONTENTS

CHAP.	PAGE
I.	Position and Natural Features of Cheshire
II.	The Making of Cheshire (1)
III.	The Making of Cheshire (continued) (2)
IV.	Early Inhabitants of Cheshire
V.	The Romans in Cheshire (1)
VI.	The Romans in Cheshire (2)
VII.	Saxons and Angles come to Cheshire
VIII.	The Cross in Cheshire
IX.	The Coming of the Northmen
X.	The Normans come to Cheshire
XI.	The Norman Abbeys and Churches of Cheshire
XII.	The Earls of the County Palatine
XIII.	The Churches of the Thirteenth Century
XIV.	Growth of Towns in Cheshire
XV.	Edward the First and Cheshire
XVI.	The Coming of the Friars
XVII.	A Deposed King
XVIII.	The Rival Roses
XIX.	Churches of the Middle Ages
XX.	The Reformation and the Great Awakening
XXI.	Elizabethan Cheshire (1)
XXII.	Elizabethan Cheshire (2)
XXIII.	The Rule of the Stuarts
XXIV.	Civil War: (1) The Battles of Middlewich and Nantwich
XXV.	Civil War: (2) A Memorable Siege
XXVI.	Civil War: (3) The Protectorate and the Restoration
XXVII.	The Fall of the Stuarts
XXVIII.	The Eighteenth Century (1)
XXIX.	The Eighteenth Century (1)
XXX.	The Industrial Revolution (1)
XXXI.	The Industrial Revolution (2)
XXXII.	The Railways of Cheshire
XXXIII.	Progress and Reform in the Nineteenth Century
XXXIV.	The Reign of a Great Queen
XXXV.	Famous Men and Women of Cheshire
XXXVI.	Conclusion

CHAPTER I
POSITION AND NATURAL FEATURES OF CHESHIRE

Few English counties owe more of their history to their geographical position and surroundings, and to the character of their natural features, than Cheshire. Not only in the past have the rocks and rivers of Cheshire helped to make history, but even to-day they have a very direct bearing upon the fortunes of Cheshire men and women. How many of us reflect, as our eyes travel over the plain to the distant hills, that on the wise and orderly arrangement of mountain and valley, forest and winding stream, our very existence and means of livelihood depend? Truly Nature has other work to do than merely create picturesque landscapes.

Cheshire is situated in the north-west of England, washed partly by the Irish Sea, and guarded as it were on its eastern and western sides by two great ramparts of hill country, that on the east formed by the southern spurs of the Pennine Chain, while the Welsh hills of Flint and Denbigh are the natural frontier on the west.

The western boundary, however, which has been frequently changed, now follows roughly the Valley of the Dee. A semicircle of hills of lesser height fringes the county on the south, and the river Mersey divides it from its northern neighbour, Lancashire.

In the north-west of the county a rectangular stretch of country known as Wirral is washed by two great estuaries and by the Irish Sea, and a wedge of moorland in the north-east penetrates into the heart of the Pennines. Here the hills reach their greatest height, Black Hill the highest point in Cheshire being just under 2,000 feet above sea-level. The low-lying lands enclosed by this amphitheatre of hills form the Cheshire Plain, broken only by ridges or terraces of low sandstone hills running north and south.

A glance at a map of the British Isles will show you that Cheshire lies in the very heart of the three kingdoms. Its geographical position has thus made it a meeting-place of nations, and you will see in later chapters that all the peoples that have helped to make our national history have in turn realized the importance of its position, and have fought desperately for its possession. Briton and Roman, Angle and Saxon and Dane, Welsh and Norman have all left some mark of their presence in the county, and from these many elements is derived the blood that flows in the veins of nearly all Cheshire boys and girls of to-day.

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