The main road through Delamere Street and Swanlow Lane follows this line and is about 200 feet (60 metres) above sea level.

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.

The earliest evidence of anyone living in the area is the piece of a Saxon stone cross, which was found between the World Wars when St Chad's Church was altered.

On becoming King Edward I he granted several town charters for markets and defended Chester in readiness for wars in Wales.

As he had visited Darnhall and knew its quiet, secluded setting, he chose this area as a site for Cistercian monks.

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.

The situation during the English Civil War 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.

Daniel King, who published his history of Cheshire in 1656, described 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".

The Government gave permission for artificial improvements to be made to the River Weaver in 1721 to allow large barges to reach Winsford from the port of Liverpool.

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.

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 historical information in this article is sourced from the booklet It's All Over: the story of a place on a Cheshire Hill by Brian Curzon, published by Winsford Town Council in 2006.