Winsford
Winsford is a town and civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire West and Chester and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. It is on the River Weaver, south of Northwich and west of Middlewich. It grew around the salt mining industry after the river was canalised in the 18th century, allowing freight to be conveyed northwards to the Port of Runcorn on the River Mersey. At the 2021 census the built up area had a population of 32,530 and the parish had a population of 33,547.
Winsford is split into three areas: Over on the western side of the River Weaver, Wharton on the eastern side, and Swanlow and Dene.
History
Early origins
The name Winsford is of uncertain origin, but is thought to derive from a personal name Wain or Wynne and ford, referencing a crossing point of the River Weaver.The Norman Earls of Chester had a hunting lodge or summer palace at Darnhall in Over parish. There was an enclosed area where deer and wild boar were kept to be hunted by the Earl and his guests. King Henry III annexed the title and its lands, spending time at Darnhall. In 1270 at the behest of his son, Henry III gave the estate to the Cistercians, who built Darnhall Abbey in 1274. However, the land was not suitable for the grand scale of building envisaged, and the locals were not co-operative, 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. From this charter can be traced the origins of the market that is still held in the town.
Expansion
Winsford began to significantly expand after 1721, when Parliament gave permission for locks and other improvements on the River Weaver to go ahead which allowed sea-going vessels to reach Winsford from the port of Liverpool. At first, this was the closest that barges carrying china clay from Cornwall could get to the Potteries district of north Staffordshire. Locally produced salt was also transported to the Potteries, for use in the manufacture of salt-glazed stoneware. Finished ceramics from the Potteries were brought back to Winsford, for export through the Port of Liverpool. That trade ended in the 1780s when the Trent and Mersey Canal opened and carried the goods through Middlewich, bypassing Winsford. The canalised River Weaver was the inspiration for the Duke of Bridgewater's canals and later the engineer for the Weaver Navigation, Edwin Leader Williams, designed and built the Manchester Ship Canal.Railways came relatively early to Winsford, with the opening of Winsford station on the Grand Junction Railway in 1837. In his guide to the line, published that year, Arthur Freeling wrote: "There is so little worth attention in this village, that it is not even noticed in Parliamentary Population Returns."
From the 1830s, salt became important to Winsford, partly because the salt mines under Northwich had begun to collapse and another source of salt near the River Weaver was needed. 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. As a result, a new town developed within of the old Borough of Over which had been focused on Delamere Street. 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. Many of the buildings built in the 19th century were built using timber frame construction because of the risk of salt subsidence.
Winsford Urban District Council came into being in 1894, administering the areas of Over and Wharton.
20th century
By the Second World War, employment in the salt trade had declined as one company took control of all the salt works and introduced methods of manufacture that needed much less labour. 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. However, even in the 1960s, Winsford could be described as "one long line of mainly terraced houses from the station to Salterswall."The town experienced a major expansion in the late 1960s and 1970s, with its designation as an expanded town under the Town Development Act 1952 to take excess 'overspill' population from Liverpool. This saw the development of two new industrial areas on both sides of the town, new estates of council and private housing and a new shopping centre with a library, sports centre, civic hall and doctors' surgeries. However, the town's population did not grow as much as planned, so the new civic buildings were too large for the population.
Vale Royal Borough Council was formed in 1974, covering Winsford, Northwich and a large rural area of mid-Cheshire. In 1991, the council moved its main office from Northwich to a purpose-built headquarters in Winsford, which since April 2009 has been used by its successor authority Cheshire West and Chester Council. The same building also houses Winsford Town Council. Since then, both and have moved headquarters from the county town of Chester to Winsford.
Governance
There are two tiers of local government covering Winsford, at civil parish and unitary authority level: Winsford Town Council and Cheshire West and Chester Council. Both councils have offices at Wyvern House on The Drumber. For national elections, Winsford is part of the Mid Cheshire constituency.Administrative history
The settlement of Winsford historically straddled two townships. The part east of the River Weaver was in the Wharton township, which formed part of the parish of Davenham. The part west of the River Weaver was in the Over township and parish. In 1875, a local government district called Winsford was created, administered by an elected local board. The district covered the combined area of the Over and Wharton townships. Such districts were reconstituted as urban districts under the Local Government Act 1894. In 1936, the civil parishes within the district were also united into a single parish of Winsford matching the urban district, and there were various adjustments to the boundaries with neighbouring parishes.Winsford 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 Winsford covering the area of the former urban district was created, with its parish council taking the name Winsford 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.
Geography
A small area in the south of the civil parish falls within the Weaver Valley Area of Special County Value.Weather
Winsford's climate is temperate with few extremes. The average temperature is slightly above the average for the United Kingdom, as is the average amount of sunshine. The average annual rainfall is slightly below the average for the United Kingdom. On an annual basis, there are few days when snow lies on the ground, although there are some days of air frost.Economy
Rock salt
The United Kingdom's largest rock salt mine is in Winsford. It is one of only three places where rock salt is commercially mined in the United Kingdom; the others are at Boulby Mine, North Yorkshire, and Kilroot, near Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland.Rock salt was laid down in this part of North West England 220 million years ago, during the Triassic geological period. Sea water moved inland from an open sea, creating a chain of shallow salt lakes across what is today the Cheshire Basin. As the lakes evaporated, deep deposits of rock salt were formed.
Extraction began at Winsford in the 17th century. At first it was used only as salt licks for animals, and to strengthen weak brine. In 1844, Winsford Rock Salt Mine was opened and is claimed by its operator, Salt Union Ltd., to be "Britain's oldest working mine". Salt Union Ltd. is part of the US-owned group of companies Compass Minerals. Today, rock salt is quarried from a depth of more than 150 metres, producing salt for use as a de-icing agent on roads. The mine produces one million tonnes of rock salt annually and has a network of over of tunnels over several square miles underneath the area between Winsford and Northwich.
A worked-out part of the mine is operated by DeepStore Ltd., a records management company offering a secure storage facility. Confidential government files, hospital patient records, historic archives belonging to The National Archives and business data are stored in the mine, where the dry and stable atmosphere provides ideal conditions for long-term document storage.
Retail
Supermarkets Asda and Aldi are sited in the town centre, Morrisons, Home Bargains and Co-op are in Wharton and Tesco is in Over. There are branches of various national chain stores. The shopping centre is a 1970s design, with retail units and a multi-storey car park subsequently added. In 2018, Winsford Cross Shopping Centre was bought by Cheshire West and Chester Council for approximately £20 million.The Jiffy Bag has traditionally been manufactured in the town and sells to packaging businesses, as well as retail and post offices.
Infrastructure
have a large employment base in the town. The Winsford telephone exchange is a main handover point and provides fibre broadband services to Winsford, Moulton, Whitegate, Tarporley, Middlewich, Sandbach, Holmes Chapel, Lower Withington and Sandiway. It also provides the main critical national infrastructure circuits to Cheshire Constabulary HQ, plus hospitals in Leighton, Macclesfield, Chester, Warrington and Halton, as well as numerous telephone masts, schools and doctors' surgeries across Cheshire.The National Grid also have a main transmission station on Winsford Industrial Estate, which provides power to approximately 25,000 homes across the Winsford and Middlewich area.
An aqueduct maintained by United Utilities runs from Lake Vyrnwy, near Oswestry, to the outskirts of Winsford, where a large pumping station on Woodford Lane West provides water to Winsford, Middlewich and southern Northwich.