Knutsford


Knutsford is a market town and civil parish in the Cheshire East district, in Cheshire, England; it is located south-west of Manchester, north-west of Macclesfield and south-east of Warrington. The population of the parish at the 2021 census was 13,259.
Knutsford's main town centre streets, Princess Street and King Street lower down, form the hub of the town. At one end of the narrow King Street is an entrance to Tatton Park. The Tatton estate was home to the Egerton family and has given its name to Tatton parliamentary constituency, which includes the neighbouring communities of Alderley Edge and Wilmslow.
Knutsford is near Cheshire's Golden Triangle and is on the Cheshire Plain, between the Peak District to the east and the Welsh mountains to the west.

History

Knutsford was recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Cunetesford. King Canute was the king of England and later king of Denmark, Norway and parts of Sweden as well. Local tradition says that King Canute blessed a wedding that was taking place and forded the River Lily, which was said to be dangerous then, though other reports say it was the Birkin Brook at or near Booth Mill. The English Place-Name Society gives the name as being derived from the Old English for Knutr's ford or possibly hillock ford.
In 1292, Edward I granted Knutsford a market charter, allowing the town to hold a weekly market and annual fairs.
Knutsford was historically part of the ancient parish of Rostherne. A chapel of ease to serve Knutsford was built in the 14th century on a site to the east of the town near Booths Mere. The chapel was initially dedicated to St Helena and later to St John. In 1741, Knutsford was made a separate parish from Rostherne. St John the Baptist's Church was built between 1741 and 1744, on a site in the centre of the town to serve as the new parish church; the old chapel to the east of the town was demolished.
Knutsford gaol was built in 1817 and later extended in 1853. It was not just built to house those committed of crimes but also to house those who could not be employed. In 1915, due to the low population and there being an ongoing World War, the gaol was used as a military prison for the detention of soldiers found guilty of committing offences. From 1916, it was used to house conscientious objectors who broke the Military Service Act 1916. In April 1916, there was an Easter Rising in Ireland, where rebels hoped to form an independent Ireland free from British rule. At least 600 rebels involved in that rising were transported to Knutsford by train from Holyhead and imprisoned in Knutsford Gaol. During this period, many prisoners were not properly fed and resorted to eating grass and anything discarded by visitors. The gaol was demolished in 1934.
Knutsford was the place in which General George S. Patton, shortly before the Normandy invasion, delivered a speech perceived to be critical of the Soviets, and to have "slap the face of every one of the United Nations except Great Britain", which nearly ended his career.
After the Second World War, overspill housing estates were created in the town to accommodate families from Manchester. The Longridge overspill estate was built in Over Ward by Manchester City Council in the 1960s. At the end of the 20th century, all of the homes on the estate that had not already been sold to their occupants were transferred to Manchester Methodist Housing.
In 2005, Knutsford was named as the most expensive town to buy a house in Northern England, followed by nearby town Altrincham. There is an extremely large range of house prices in Knutsford, varying from approximately £175,000 to nearly £4,000,000 in late 2017. The average price is above £400,000.

Governance

There are two tiers of local government covering Knutsford, at civil parish and unitary authority level: Knutsford Town Council and Cheshire East Council. The town council is based at the Council Offices on Toft Road, which had been built in 1846 as the Governor's House for Knutsford Gaol.
For national elections, the town forms part of the Tatton constituency, named after Tatton Park which lies immediately north of the town.

Administrative history

Knutsford was historically in the ancient parish of Rostherne, which formed part of the Bucklow Hundred of Cheshire. Rostherne parish was subdivided into several townships, including Nether Knutsford and Over Knutsford. The main part of the town was in Nether Knutsford township, with Over Knutsford lying to the south-east. In 1741, Knutsford was made a separate parish, which contained the five townships of Nether Knutsford, Over Knutsford, Bexton, Ollerton, and Toft.
From the 17th century onwards, parishes were gradually given various civil functions under the poor laws, in addition to their original ecclesiastical functions. In some cases, including Rostherne and Knutsford, the civil functions were exercised by each township separately rather than the parish as a whole. In 1866, the legal definition of 'parish' was changed to be the areas used for administering the poor laws and so the townships also became civil parishes.
When elected parish and district councils were established in December 1894, under the Local Government Act 1894, Nether Knutsford and Over Knutsford were both briefly included in the Altrincham Rural District and given separate parish councils. The two townships were subsequently merged into a single civil parish and urban district of Knutsford, which came into effect on 1 April 1895. The urban district council bought the former Governor's House of Knutsford Gaol in 1929 and converted the building to serve as its offices and meeting place.
Knutsford Urban District was abolished in 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972. District-level functions passed to Macclesfield Borough Council. A successor parish covering the area of the former Knutsford Urban District was created at the same time, with its parish council taking the name Knutsford Town Council. In 2009, Cheshire East Council was created, taking over the functions of the borough council and Cheshire County Council, which were both abolished.

Transport

Roads

Knutsford has excellent access to the motorway network, with junctions to the M6 and M56 motorways nearby. However, this can also have disadvantages as the A50, which runs through Knutsford town centre, follows a similar route to the M6 between Warrington and Stoke-on-Trent; this means that if the M6 is closed, due to an accident or roadworks, then a large volume of traffic transfers to the A50 and causes major traffic jams in Knutsford.

Railway

is a stop on the Mid-Cheshire Line that runs between and, via Altrincham and.
The station was built in 1862 by the Cheshire Midland Railway. The CMR was absorbed into the Cheshire Lines Committee in August 1867; this entity continued to serve Knutsford until nationalisation on 1 January 1948. The rail service to Manchester was re-routed via a slower route when the Manchester Metrolink trams took over the CLC direct line between Altrincham and Manchester; the heavy rail service was re-routed, via Stockport, to Manchester.
Currently, Northern Trains generally runs an hourly service in both directions. Trains operate to Northwich and Chester to the south-west; northbound services travel to Altrincham, Stockport and Manchester. There are extra trains to and from Stockport at peak times on weekdays. On Sundays, there is a service every two hours in each direction.
The number of weekday peak trains to Manchester was cut back controversially in December 2008, to allow Virgin Trains West Coast to run extra services between Manchester and London. Knutsford was expected to get a half-hourly train services to Northwich and Manchester by December 2017, with an increase in the Sunday frequency to hourly, but the promised additional services have failed to materialise.

Buses

operates three bus routes in the town, which can be accessed from Knutsford bus station.

Airport

is located from Knutsford in the civil parish of Ringway; however, there are no direct bus or railway links to it from the town.

Economy

Knutsford town centre has several restaurants and pubs, coffee shops, boutiques, antique shops and art galleries. It has several supermarkets, including Booths, Aldi, Little Waitrose, Sainsbury's Local, Olive & Sage and two Co-op stores.
Tesco used to have a small shop in the town centre, which closed many years ago. The retailer had hoped to open a larger store on the edge of the town on Mobberley Road, but councillors in Mobberley objected to the proposed development, thinking it might result in more cars travelling through their village.
In 2008, Aldi announced plans to open a superstore in Knutsford, but construction did not begin until September 2012. The store officially opened in July 2013.
Barclays has a large campus site at Radbroke Hall on Toft Road just outside Knutsford, employing approximately 3,000 staff in IT and support functions. Before Barclays purchased the site, it was owned by The Nuclear Power Group.

Religion

is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II* listed building. It is an active Anglican parish church in the located in the Church of England's Diocese of Chester built between 1741 and 1744. It is in the Conservative Evangelical tradition of the Church of England and it has passed resolutions to reject the ordination of women.
St Cross is an Anglican church recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II* listed building, built between 1880 and 1887. Unlike St John's, the church has had two female vicars since the Church of England approved the ordination of women.
St Vincent de Paul is a Catholic church in the Diocese of Shrewsbury. The current church opened in 1983, replacing an older church on the same site dating from the 1920s that was demolished due to subsidence. The first St Vincent de Paul church is still standing and has since been converted in to The Little Theatre. The current church includes a plaque blessed by Pope John Paul II on his visit to Manchester in 1982. The church was modified in 1999 to include an apse with a stained glass window, which had previously been installed at Cross and Passion Sisters convent chapel in Maryfield, Dublin. The church claims the window was designed by Harry Clarke, although other sources state the window is too modern to have been designed by Clarke himself but it can still be attributed to the Harry Clarke Studio.
There is a Methodist church; a Unitarian church dating from 1689, where the novelist Elizabeth Gaskell is buried; and a Gospel church, located in the old ticket office at Knutsford station.