History of Cheshire

[1] The Romans occupied Cheshire for almost 400 years, from 70 AD, and created the town and fort of Deva Victrix, now Chester.

After the Romans withdrew, Cheshire formed part of Mercia, an Anglo-Saxon kingdom, that saw invasions from the Welsh and Danes.

The Industrial Revolution saw population changes in Cheshire as farm workers moved to the factories of Manchester and Lancashire.

However, primitive tools have been found that date to the Hoxnian Interglacial, between 400,000 and 380,000 years BP, showing that Cheshire was inhabited at that time, probably by Homo heidelbergensis.

It belongs to the "megalithic culture" characterised by the practice of collective burial in stone-built chambers beneath mounds of earth and stone.

Into the Iron Age, Cheshire became occupied by the Celtic Cornovii, bordering the Brigantes to the North and the Deceangli and Ordovices to the West.

In 616, Æthelfrith of Northumbria defeated armies from the kingdoms of Powys and Gwynedd at the Battle of Chester and probably established the Anglo-Saxon position in the area from then on.

Chester was the centre of several battles between the English and Danes until eventually King Alfred, of Wessex and eventually Mercia, drove them away from the city in 894–895[21] and a peace treaty was agreed granting the Danes settlements in the Wirral,[22] which can be seen by their Danish place names, such as Thingwall (from thing meaning 'a meeting place').

[23] 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.

All along the length of the River Mersey as far as Manchester, fortified defensive settlements were created, including Rhuddlan, Runcorn, Thelwall, Bakewell and Penwortham.

This led the Normans to treat Cheshire particularly harshly with land and villages being destroyed, crops burned and people made homeless.

By the 13th century, so important were the city and castle at Chester regarded, that extensions were built to include a royal apartment for King Edward I during the various wars with the neighbouring Welsh.

With minor variations in spelling across sources, the complete list of hundreds of Cheshire at this time are: Atiscross, Bochelau, Chester, Dudestan, Exestan, Hamestan, Middlewich, Riseton, Roelau, Tunendune, Warmundestrou and Wilaveston.

[34] The area in between the Mersey and Ribble (referred to in the Domesday Book as "Inter Ripam et Mersam") formed part of the returns for Cheshire.

[37][38][39] This period of uncertainty of the northern border lasted until 1182, when the land north of the Mersey became administered as part of the new county of Lancashire.

Over the years the remaining ten hundreds consolidated to just seven with changed names: Broxton, Bucklow, Eddisbury, Macclesfield, Nantwich, Northwich, and Wirral.

However the 12th and 13th centuries saw an escalation of towns being granted market rights, probably as the local population grew more used to Norman rule.

Chester was a Royalist stronghold, while the market towns of Stockport, Knutsford, Nantwich, Congleton, Middlewich and Northwich remained in Parliamentarian hands.

[17] In August 1655, England was placed under military rule and Cheshire, Lancashire and North Staffordshire were governed by Charles Worsley.

[42] Riots were planned, even by Parliamentarians, notably Sir George Booth of Dunham Massey near Altrincham, though these were quashed and the leaders executed.

[43] In 1689, Henry, Duke of Norfolk, raised a regiment on the little Roodee in Chester in an effort to resist any attempt by James II to re-take the English throne.

The completion of the Trent and Mersey Canal in 1777[46] and innovations such as the Anderton Boat Lift, allowed Cheshire cheese and salt to become major county exports.

The Egerton family extensively remodelled Tatton Hall between 1760 and 1820,[47] and the 17th-century house at Dunham Massey saw significant 19th century development and expansion.

Bartholomew's Gazetteer of the British Isles (1887) described Cheshire's industry:[51] The chief rivers are the Mersey with its affluent the Bollin, the Weaver, and the Dee.

There are numerous excellent dairy farms, on which the celebrated Cheshire cheese is made; also extensive market gardens, the produce of which is sent to Liverpool, Manchester, and the neighbouring towns.

There are manufacturers of cotton, silk, and ribbons, carried on chiefly in the towns of the East division; and shipbuilding, on the Mersey.The 19th century also saw the creation of formal civic organisations in Cheshire.

[53] Through the Local Government Act 1972, which came into effect on 1 April 1974, some areas in the north-west became part of the metropolitan counties of Greater Manchester and Merseyside.

[54] Stockport (previously a county borough), Hyde, Dukinfield and Stalybridge in the north-east became part of Greater Manchester.

Wulfric's estates remained grouped together after his death, when they were left to his brother Aelfhelm, and indeed there still seems to have been some kind of connexion in 1086, when south Lancashire was surveyed together with Cheshire by the Domesday commissioners.

Nevertheless, the two territories do seem to have been distinguished from one another in some way and it is not certain that the shire-moot and the reeves referred to in the south Lancashire section of Domesday were the Cheshire ones.The Domesday Survey (1086) included south Lancashire with Cheshire for convenience, but the Mersey, the name of which means 'boundary river' is known to have divided the kingdoms of Northumbria and Mercia and there is no doubt that this was the real boundary.