Northwich
Northwich is a market town and civil parish in the Cheshire West and Chester borough of Cheshire, England. It lies on the Cheshire Plain, at the confluence of the rivers Weaver and Dane, east of Chester, south of Warrington, south of Manchester, north of Birmingham, and south-east of Liverpool. The population of the parish was 22,726 at the 2021 census.
The area around Northwich was exploited for its salt pans by the Romans, when the settlement was known as Condate. The town had been severely affected by salt mining and subsidence was historically a significant problem. Mine stabilisation work was completed in 2007.
History
Early history
During Roman times, Northwich was known as Condate, thought to be a Latinisation of a Brittonic name meaning "Confluence". There are several other sites of the same name, mostly in France; in Northwich's case, it lies at the junction of the rivers Dane and Weaver.Northwich can be identified through two contemporary Roman documents. The first of these is the Antonine Itinerary, a 3rd-century road map split into 14 sections. Two of these sections, or Itinerary, mention Condate: Route II and Route X. The second document is the 7th-century Ravenna Cosmography; it refers to Condate between the entries for Salinae and Ratae, at the time the capital of the Corieltauvi tribe.
The Romans' interest in the Northwich area is thought to be due to the strategic river crossing and the location of the salt brines. Salt was very important in Roman society; the Roman word salarium, linked employment, salt and soldiers, but the exact link is unclear. It is also theorised that this is the basis for the modern word salary. Another theory is that the word soldier itself comes from the Latin sal dare. There is archaeological evidence of a Roman auxiliary fort within the area of Northwich, now known as "Castle", dated to AD 70. This, and other north-western forts, were built as the Romans moved north from their stronghold in Chester.
The association with salt continues in the etymology of Northwich. The "wich" suffix applies to other towns in the area: Middlewich, Nantwich and Leftwich. This is considered to have been derived from the Norse, wic for bay, and is associated with the more traditional method of obtaining salt by evaporating sea water. Therefore, a place for making salt became a wych-house; Northwich was the most northern of the -wich towns in Cheshire.
Medieval to early modern
The existence of Northwich in the early medieval period is shown by its record in the Domesday Book of 1086:The manor of Northwich belonged to the Earls of Chester until 1237, when the family line died out. Subsequently, Northwich became a royal manor and was given to a noble family to collect tolls in exchange for a set rent.
The Cheshire archers were a body of élite soldiers noted for their skills with the longbow, who fought in many engagements in Britain and France in the Middle Ages. Battles at which there were sizeable numbers of Cheshire archers include Agincourt and Crécy; many of these archers hailed from the Northwich Hundred. Richard II employed a bodyguard of these yeoman archers who came from the Macclesfield Hundred and the forest districts of Cheshire.
That salt production continued throughout the centuries and can be seen through John Leland's description of the town in 1540:
Between 1642 and 1643, during the English Civil War, Northwich was fortified and garrisoned by Sir William Brereton for the Parliamentarians.
The salt beds beneath Northwich were rediscovered in the 1670s by employees of the local Smith-Barry family. The Smith-Barrys were looking for coal, but instead discovered rock salt, in the grounds of the family home, Marbury Hall to the north of Northwich.
19th century
During the 19th century, it became uneconomical to mine for the salt; instead, hot water was pumped through the mines, which dissolved the salt. The resultant brine was pumped out, from which the salt was extracted. This technique weakened the mines and led to land subsidence as they collapsed. Subsidence affected the town and the surrounding landscape. For example, collapses in 1880 formed Witton Flash as the River Weaver flowed into a huge hole caused by subsidence. Subsidence also allegedly accounts for many old timber-framed houses in the town centre, which were better able to withstand the movement of the ground. Some houses were built on a base of steel girders that could be jacked up to level the house with each change in the underlying ground. The town's historical link with the salt industry is celebrated in its the Weaver Hall Museum and Workhouse, which is now in the old workhouse.In 1874, John Brunner and Ludwig Mond founded Brunner Mond in Winnington and started manufacturing soda ash using the Solvay ammonia-soda process. This process used salt as a main raw material. The chemical industry used the subsided land for the disposal of waste from the manufacture of soda-ash. The waste was transported through a network of cranes and rails to the produce limebeds. This was a dangerous alkaline substance and caused the landscape to be abandoned as unusable.
Modern development
In 1975, Marbury Country Park was the first area to be reclaimed from dereliction and has become a popular recreational area. In 1987, more land was reclaimed to form Furey Wood and over later years, Cheshire County Council's Land Regeneration Unit reclaimed what is now known as Anderton Nature Park, Witton Flash, Dairy House Meadows, Witton Mill Meadows, and Ashton's and Neumann's Flashes. The area now extends to approximately of public space known as Northwich Community Woodlands.In February 2004, a £28 million programme to stabilise the abandoned salt mines underneath Northwich began. The work was funded by the English Partnerships through its Land Stabilisation Programme, introduced to resolve issues associated with unstable mines around England.
The four mines identified for work were Baron's Quay, Witton Bank, Neumann's and Penny's Lane. These mines were chosen because their subsidence was causing problems for the town centre. The stabilisation plan involved removing millions of litres of brine from the four mines and replacing it with a mixture of pulverised fuel ash, cement and salt. The project was completed in late 2007.
The old Magistrates Court and Memorial Hall have been demolished and been replaced by Memorial Court, a £12.5 million cultural and leisure centre, which offers a pool, dance studios and a gym.
The £80 million Barons Quay Development, a retail and leisure complex, opened in 2016 and has seen the creation of more than of shopping space, together with a large supermarket with a petrol filling station, cinema, restaurants, cafés, new public spaces and car parking. As of January 2023, roughly half of the retail space remains empty.
A major fire occurred at the Northwich Outdoor Market on 3 January 2020. The market's remains were quickly demolished and, so far, there are no plans to rebuild it.
Governance
There are two tiers of local government covering Northwich, at civil parish and unitary authority level: Northwich Town Council and Cheshire West and Chester Council. The town council is based at 78 Church Road. Cheshire West and Chester Council also has an area office at the Memorial Court building on Chester Way. For national elections, Northwich is part of the Mid Cheshire constituency.Administrative history
At the time of the Domesday survey in 1086, Northwich was in the hundred of Middlewich. By the 14th century, it had become part of the Northwich hundred. This probably happened during the reorganisation of the hundreds in the 12th century. Northwich was described as a borough in the late 13th century, but it had no municipal charter, and borough status for the town did not endure.The town formed part of the ancient parish of Great Budworth. The parish was subdivided into numerous townships, including a Northwich township of just at the confluence of the rivers Weaver and Dane, corresponding to the medieval core of the town. The neighbouring townships were Castle Northwich to the south-west, Winnington to the north-west, and Witton cum Twambrooks to the east, all of which also formed part of Great Budworth parish. To the south was the township of Leftwich, which formed part of the parish of Davenham.
St Helen's Church was built in 14th century at Witton to serve as a chapel of ease for the southern townships of Great Budworth parish. In 1723, St Helen's was assigned a parochial chapelry district and given its own clergy, effectively separating it from Great Budworth for most ecclesiastical purposes. The Witton chapelry initially covered the townships of Birches, Castle Northwich, Hartford, Hulse, Lach Dennis, Lostock Gralam, Northwich, Winnington, Witton cum Twambrooks, and part of Rudheath. The chapelry was gradually reduced in area as more churches were built. The ecclesiastical separation from Great Budworth was confirmed in 1900, at which point the chapelry was renamed "St Helen Witton, otherwise Northwich".
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 Great Budworth and Davenham, 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, which therefore diverged from the ecclesiastical parishes.
During 1863, the Northwich and Witton cum Twambrooks townships were each made local government districts, administered by separate local boards. The two districts were merged into a single Northwich district in 1875, which also took in the whole of the Castle Northwich township and parts of the townships of Hartford, Leftwich and Winnington. Such local government districts were reconstituted as urban districts under the Local Government Act 1894. Also in 1894, the parishes within the district were united into a single civil parish of Northwich matching the district.
Northwich Urban District Council took over the former Northwich Grammar School buildings on Church Road after the school relocated in 1908. The building was converted to become the council's offices and meeting place and renamed the Council House, opening in 1913. The urban district was enlarged in 1936 by the addition of parts of Winnington, Lostock Gralam, Barnton, Leftwich and Rudheath; then again in 1955, when parts of Davenham, Hartford, Rudheath and Whatcroft were added. The urban district council was granted a coat of arms in 1962, which features the Latin motto "Sal est Vita", meaning Salt is Life.
Northwich Urban District was abolished in 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972. The area became part of the new district of Vale Royal. A successor parish called Northwich covering the area of the former urban district was created, with its parish council taking the name Northwich Town Council. The former urban district council's coat of arms was transferred to the new town council.
In 2009, Cheshire West and Chester Council was created, taking over the functions of the borough council and Cheshire County Council, which were both abolished.
Between 1885 and 1983, Northwich gave its name to the Northwich parliamentary constituency.