By James Hall
Author of “A History of Nantwich,” “The Civil War in Cheshire,” &c.
CHESHIRE, in regard to its shape, has been said to resemble a bird’s wing, an axe-head, and a shoulder of mutton. The late Colonel Egerton Legh humorously compared it to a chicken with its head in Featherbed Moss, Macclesfield in its crop, and the tail formed by Wirral. Perhaps more seriously, but no less fancifully, it may be likened to a broad, ear-topped shield of the College of Arms type, divided palewise by a central line of hills, of which the isolated rocks of Halton and Beeston occupy respectively the chief point and the fesse point of the shield.
From the summit of Beeston Castle, or, better still, from the more elevated escarpment of the adjacent Peckforton Hill, marked on the survey map Stanner Nab—a name little altered from its original Saxon, Stan-es Nebb, literally “front of stone,” or stone head, and now commonly called Tanner’s Nob—nearly the whole county is spread out in fine panorama of plain; the view extending from the Wirral coast to the high moorlands of Macclesfield, a distance of about fifty miles; and from the Mersey to the Shropshire border, a little over thirty miles. A like distant and picturesque horizon is obtainable from eminences such as Alderley Edge, Cloud End, and Mow Cop on the east; Frodsham Hill, Helsby Tor, and Halton Castle on the north; Carden Cliff, Harthill, and Belvidere in Wirswall on the south border. From gentle uplands, the more circumscribed landscape presents the effect of a tree-covered plain, owing to the great quantity of hedgerow timber, chiefly oak, and the smallness of the fields. This illusion is perfect when the view is taken from the cupola on the roof of Doddington Hall; but in reality the county is almost destitute of woods, excepting spinnies, often hidden in dingles, and the rather modern plantations on the central hills. There are, however, extensive parks at Dunham, Tatton, Tabley, Arley, Lyme, Peover, Somerford, Oulton, Vale Royal, Eaton, Cholmondeley, Combermere, Doddington, and Crewe; although some mentioned in history have been disparked, as at Kermincham and Norbury Booths.
Cheshire is a county of large estates, many of which have descended by a long ancestry to the present owners. The greatest estates occur in the purely agricultural and sparsely populated districts of the south. In order of their extent comes first the Peckforton estate, 25,380 acres (Lord Tollemache); next Cholmondeley, 16,842 acres (the Marquis of Cholmondeley); then Eaton, 15,001 acres (the Duke of Westminster); Doddington, 13,832 acres (Sir Delves L. Broughton, Bart.); and Crewe, 10,148 acres (Earl Crewe); but this last estate does not include the railway town of that name. Other large landowners[47] (most of whose names are historic in the county, and whose estates vary between 5000 and 10,000 acres) are—
The Lords—Egerton of Tatton, Harrington, Stamford, Derby, Haddington, De Tabley, Delamere, Stanley of Alderley (Sheffield), Kilmorrey, Shrewsbury, and Combermere. Also Sir Philip Grey-Egerton, Mr. Legh [now Lord Newton] of Lyme, Mr. Legh of Adlington, Mr. Egerton-Warburton of Arley, Sir W. G. Shakerley, Mr. Bromley Davenport, and Colonel France Hayhurst.
[47] This list of names is taken from the published returns to the House of Commons of the “Owners of Land” throughout the United Kingdom, commonly called the Modern Domesday Book, of 1873.
These twenty-three gentlemen own collectively 203,533 acres, or a little over one-third of the whole county; but, according to the same authority, 2840 persons own lands varying from 10 to 1000 acres, also 3166 persons have holdings between one acre and ten acres, while 17,691 persons possess lands less than one acre in extent. The Crown lands amount to 3581 acres, and the commons or waste lands to 6704 acres, so that the total number of owners in Cheshire is 23,720, the total area of the county being 608,922 acres, or rather less than 1000 square miles.
Some houses of the gentry have from ancient times stood on the margin of a natural mere, as at Tatton, Tabley, Mere, Rostherne, Arley, Combermere, and Marbury; or beside an artificial pool, as at Crewe and Doddington. But Bagmere, which once reflected the stately mansion of the Breretons, has been drained, and Ridley Pool has long been “sown and mown,” in fulfilment, as credulous people have believed, of Nixon’s prophecy. Barmere is one of the few meres that have not been honoured by a gentleman’s seat.
Of modern mansions, both the magnificent palace at Eaton and the castle at Cholmondeley stand near ornamental sheets of water; while Peckforton Castle, perhaps the most remarkable house in all England, being built in close imitation of a Norman castle, is perched on a rocky eminence like an eyrie.
In no part of Cheshire are so many gentlemen’s seats clustered together as within a radius of a few miles around the old-fashioned town of Knutsford. They are as follows:—