Some history on the county of Cheshire

Cheshire Places

Map of Cheshire

John Speed's 1610 Map of Cheshire
Image reproduced under the Creative Commons licence.

Cheshire, or Chester, co. a palatine and maritime county of England, bounded on the NW. by the Irish Sea, and bordering on the counties of Lancaster, York, Derby, Stafford, Salop, Denbigh, and Flint; extreme length, NE. and SW., 58 miles; extreme breadth, 40 miles; average breadth 18 miles; area, 657,123 acres; population 644,037. Cheshire forms, towards the Irish Sea, a flat peninsula, the Wirral [12 miles by 7 miles], between the estuaries of the Mersey and the Dee, and inland a vast plain separating the mountains of Wales from those of Derbyshire. This plain is diversified with fine woods of oak, and etc., and is studded with numerous small lakes or meres. A low ridge of sandstone hills runs north from Congleton, near the east border, and another extends from the neighbourhood of Malpas to Frodsham, near the estuary of the Mersey. The chief rivers are the Mersey with its affluent the Bollin, the Weaver, and the Dee. The soil consists of marl, mixed with clay and sand, and is generally fertile. 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. Salt has been long worked; it is obtained from rock salt and saline springs; the principal works are at Nantwich, Northwich, and Winsford. Coal and ironstone are worked in the districts of Macclesfield and Stockport. There are manufacturers of cotton, silk, and ribbons, carried on chiefly in the towns of the East division; and shipbuilding, on the Mersey. Cheshire contains 7 hundreds and 503 parishes .... it is mostly in the diocese of Chester.¹

Cheshire is a maritime county-palatine, bounded on the north by a small part of the county of York, the county of Lancaster, the estuary of the Mersey, and the Irish sea ; on the east by the counties of Derby and Stafford ; on the south by the county of Shropshire, part of the counties of Flint and Stafford ; on the west by the estuary of the Dee and the counties of Denbigh and Flint. It extends from 53° to 53° 3′N. latitude, and from 1° 46′, to 37° 22′W. longitude. Its greatest length, taking it at the extreme points from east to west, is somewhat more than 60 miles, and its breadth, from north to south about 30 miles. Its form is oval, with a narrow neck of land on the west, of about six miles in breadth, projecting between the estuaries of the Dee and the Mersey, and a still narrower strip on the east, projecting about fifteen miles between the counties of Lancaster, York, and Derby. The county takes its name from the ancient city of Chester, and is an abbreviation of Chester-shire, formerly written Ceastre-Scyre. In the earlier period of our history, Cheshire formed part of the territories of a British tribe called the Cornavii. When the Romans, after their invasion. of Britain, divided into two great districts, this county was included in Britannia Superior. The kingdom being afterwards divided into smaller provinces, it became part of Flavia Cæsariensis. Cheshire has been estimated to contain 1,052 square miles, or about 673,280 statute acres which were distributed in 1808. nearly as follows, viz.: arable, meadow, and pasture lands, including, parks and pleasure grounds, 620,000 acres ; waste lands, heaths, commons, and woods, 28,600 acres ; peats, bogs, and morasses, 18,000 ; the residue consisting of sea-sands, within the estuaries of the Dee and the Mersey, But a good deal of the waste land, and of the bogs and morasses, has since been brought under cultivation. By the census of 1841, it contained 73,444 inhabited houses, 5,844 uninhabited, and 547 houses building, with a population of 395,660 souls; of these, 193,646 were males, and 202,014 females, of which 93,692 males and 95,149 females were under 20 years of age, and 99,954 males and 106,865 females were 20 years of age and upwards. In addition to the above population, the regiment of the King's Cheshire Yeomanry Cavalry, consisting of 490 men, belonging to this county, were temporarily absent, being quartered in Liverpool when the last census was taken, and consequently were in the returns of the county of Lancaster. Of the total population, 300,170 persons were born in the county, 79,012 in other counties, 1808 in Wales, 11,577 in Ireland, 395 in foreign parts, and the birth-place of 2,698 persons were not specified. At the same period there were 15,062 persons between the age of 60 and 70 years, 6,577 between 70 and SO years, 1,712 between 80 and 90 years old, 123 above the age of 90 and not exceeding 100, and two persons whose ages exceeded 100 years. In the year preceding the census, 187 males and 141 females are stated to have emigrated to the colonies and foreign parts. In size, Cheshire ranks as the nineteenth English county, and in population as the twelfth.

Cheshire is divided into seven hundreds, namely, Broxton, Bucklow, Eddisbury, Macclesfield, Nantwich, Northwich, and Wirra1, and contains 98 parishes, exclusive of the city of Chester. These are again divided into 429 townships and 10 extra-parochial places. By the recent reform and division of counties' acts, this county is divided into northern and southern divisions, each of which returns two members to Parliament. The northern division consists of the Macclesfield and Bucklow, and the southern of the remaining hundreds. The boroughs of Chester, Macclesfield and Stockport each also return two members, making in all 10 members from Cheshire returned to Parliament. The number of qualified voters for the county members are stated to be upwards of 10,000. The principal place of election for the northern division is Knutsford, and for the southern, Chester. Judge Blackstone says, England was first divided into counties, hundreds, and tithings by Alfred the Great, for the protection of property and the execution of justice. Tithings were so called because ten freeholders formed one. Ten of these tithings were supposed to form a hundred or wapentake, from an ancient ceremony in which the governor of a hundred met all the aldermen of his district, and holding up his spear, they all touched it with theirs, in token of subjection, and union to one common interest. An indifferent number of these wapentakes or hundreds form a county or shire, for the civil government of which a shire-reeve or sheriff is elected annually. The magistrate above the hundredry was called the trithingmen or lathgrieve, presiding over three, four, or more hundreds, formed into what was called a tithing, in some places a lathe, and in others a rape ; hence the lathes of Kent, the rapes of Sussex, the parts of Lincoln, and trithings or ridings of Yorkshire, The kingdom was divided into parishes soon after the introduction of Christianity, by Honorious, Archbishop of Canterbury, in the year 636, and the boundaries of them, as marked in Domesday book, agree very nearly with the present division. The custom, which still continues, of making the hundreds responsible for the excesses of a lawless mob is an appendage of the Saxon system of tithing. As the extreme ignorance of the age made deeds and writings very rare, the County or Hundred Court was the place where the most remarkable civil transactions were finished, in order to preserve it memorial of them, and prevent all future disputes. Here testaments were promulgated, slaves manumitted, bargains of sale concluded, and, sometimes, for greater security, the most considerable of these deeds were inserted in the blank leaves of the parish bible, which thus became a kind of register, too sacred to be falsified. It was not unusual to add to the deed an imprecation on all such as should be guilty of that crime. In the county court or shiremates, all the freeholders were assembled twice a year, and received appeals from the other inferior courts. They there decided all causes, ecclesiastical as well as civil, and the bishop, together with the alderman or earl, presided over them. All affairs were determined without much pleading, formality, or delay, by a majority of voices, and the bishop or alderman had no further authority than to order among the freeholders. Where justice was denied during three sessions by the hundred, and then by the county court, there lay an appeal to the King's court ; but this was not practised on slight occasions. Two-thirds of the fines levied in these courts went to the King, and made no contemptible share of the public revenue.

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