However the land was not suitable for the grand scale of building envisaged, and the locals were not cooperative, so the monks left Darnhall to found Vale Royal Abbey in Whitegate in 1281.

A charter to hold a Wednesday market and an annual fair at Over was granted on 24 November 1280 by Edward I to the Abbot and convent of Vale Royal Abbey.

That trade ended in the 1780s when the Trent and Mersey Canal opened and carried the goods through Middlewich, bypassing Winsford.

[9] A new source was discovered in Winsford, leading to the development of a salt industry along the course of the River Weaver, where many factories were established.

[6] Most of the early development took place on the other side of the river, with new housing, shops, pubs, chapels and a new church being built in the former hamlet of Wharton.

Slum clearance started in the 1930s and, by the 1950s three new housing estates had been built on both sides of the river to replace sub-standard homes.

Vale Royal Borough Council was formed in 1974, covering Winsford, Northwich and a large rural area of mid-Cheshire.

[21] Rock salt was laid down in this part of North West England 220 million years ago, during the Triassic geological period.

Seawater moved inland from an open sea, creating a chain of shallow salt lakes across what is today the Cheshire Basin.

The mine produces one million tonnes of rock salt annually,[citation needed] and has a network of over 160 mi (260 km) of tunnels over several square miles underneath the area between Winsford and Northwich.

[22] A worked-out part of the mine is operated by DeepStore Ltd.,[23] a records management company offering a secure storage facility.

Supermarkets Asda and Aldi are in the town centre, Morrisons, Home Bargains and Co-op are in Wharton and Tesco is in Over.

In 2018 Winsford Cross Shopping Centre was bought by Cheshire West and Chester council[24] for approximately £20 million.

[citation needed] The Jiffy Bag has traditionally been manufactured in the town and sells to packaging businesses as well as retail and post offices.

[28] "Flash" is an English dialect word for "lake", with a regional distribution centred on the northwest counties of Cheshire and Lancashire.

They formed in the 19th century (cartographical evidence dates their formation to between 1845 and 1872), due to the subsidence of surface ground into underground voids.

[29] The voids were largely the result of brine extraction, in which rock salt deposits were dissolved and washed out by water.

As the ground slumped into the voids, the River Weaver widened at each point, until lakes were made where arable land had once been.

From the late 19th century, Winsford Flashes became popular with working class day-trippers from the nearby industrial centres of Manchester and the Staffordshire Potteries.

They support a wide range of wildlife, with several species of migrant wildfowl, such as Canada geese, using them as an over-winter destination.

It was built by Sir John Tomlinson Brunner, who gave it to Winsford Urban District Council, to be used for Trade and Friendly Societies, and other public purposes.

[6] Dawk House on Swanlow Lane is a largely unaltered timber framed farm, covered in white stucco probably during the reign of Queen Anne, including the date 1711.

[6] Blue Bell Inn by St Chad's Church, now also a children's nursery, is an exact replica of a medieval building that burned down in the 1960s.

[6] Winsford railway station, on the Liverpool to Birmingham main line, is one mile (1.5 km) east of the centre of the town, in Wharton.

In March 2019 Winsford was chosen for the site of the £70m Cheshire FA Centre of Excellence, which will be the new home of the England Women's Football Team.

In October 2020 the Prime Minister Boris Johnson gave his support for the development to go ahead; planning applications are expected to be submitted to Cheshire West and Chester Council in spring 2021 with a possible opening date of 2023.

The site shrank in the 1960s and 1970s with the building of housing and an electricity sub-station along Moss Bank, but the acquisition in 1970 of land adjacent to Over Recreation Ground brought it to its present size.