Descriptive Gazetteer Entry for MIDDLEWICH

MIDDLEWICH, a small town, a township, and a subdistrict in Northwich district, and a parish partly also in Nantwich district, Cheshire. The town stands on the Grand Trunk canal, at the junction of the Middlewich branch, on the river Dane, at the influx of the Wheelock or Croco, and on the Sandbach, Middlewich, and Northwich branch of the Northwestern railway, 2 miles E of Winsford station on the main line of the Northwestern, and 21 E of Chester; took its name from being a middle one of the "wiches ''or salt towns of Cheshire; and is built on a bed of Roman remains. The town retains an antique appearance; its streets, till lately, were badly paved; has recently undergone considerable im provement; is a seat of petty sessions; and has a head post office, ‡ a railway station, a town hall, a police station, a church, Independent, Wesleyan, and Roman Catholic chapels, a literary and scientific institution, a temperance society's reading-room, a grammar school, national schools, a new ultra-mural cemetery, and charities £ 11. The townhall is a neat modern edifice; the lower part fitted as a market-house, the upper part containing a public hall, a court-house, a news-room, and the meeting-place of the literary institution. The church is large, handsome, and has been recently repaired and beautified. It consists of chancel, and nave divided from the aisles by five arches. The pillars are octagonal, of the decorated period, but the pillar and respond next the chancel are semi-Norman. The aisles are terminated by two chapels, the north anciently belonging to the Venables-Barons of Kinderton, but now the property of the Rev. Thomas France. The south has been a Lady chapel. The patronage belongs to I. Moreton Wood, Esq., whose ancestors purchased the advowson from Sir. W m. Brereton, a. d. 1663. The Roman Catholic chapel was rebuilt in 1865. The national schools adjoin the church; were erected in 1854; and are a handsome and commodious structure, in the pointed style. A weekly market is held on Tuesday: fairs are held on the last Tuesday of Feb., April, and Oct.; business is done in salt-works, not on any great scale; and there is a silk-mill. The limits of the town are understood to comprise all Middlewich township, and parts of Newton and Kindertonwith-Hulme townships. The town is governed, 1870, by a local board. Pop. in 1861,3,146. Houses, 7 1 7. Pop. of the Newton portion, 1,659; of the Kinderton portion, 384. Real property of Middlewich township, £2,316. Pop., 1,203. Houses, 279.

The sub-district contains eleven townships of Middlewich parish, seven of Davenham, one of Great Budworth, and one of Sandbach. Acres, 15,140. Pop., 5,644. Houses, 1,150.—The parish contains the townships of Middlewich, Newton, Kinderton-with-Hulme, Sutton, Occlestone, Sproston, Ravenscroft, Croxton, Stublach, Mooresbarrow-with-Parme, and Byley-with-Yatehouse, in Middlewich sub-district, the townships of Weaver, Wimboldsley, and Clive, in another section of Northwich district, and the township of Minshull-Vernon, in Nantwich district. Acres, 13,110. Real property, £27,81 1; of which £110 are in gas-works. Pop. in 1851,4,498; in 1861,4,752. Houses, 978. The manors of Middlewich, Kinderton, Stublach, and Croxton, belong to Rev. Thomas France; that of Byley-with-Yatehouse, to Sir Charles W. Shakerley, Bart.; those of Clive and Weaver, to G. Wilbraham, Esq.; that of Occlestone, to E. Vernon, Esq.; that of Wimboldsley, to John Chapman, Esq.; that of Minshull-Vernon, to L. Loyd, Esq.; and that of Newton, to W. R. Court, Esq., Newton Manor. A party of royalists under Aston was beaten at Middlewich, in 1642, by a party of parliamentarians under Sir W. Brereton. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Chester. Value, £150. The rectory of Byley-cum-Lees is a parish, and in the gift of the Vicar. Minshull-Vernon, another separate benefice taken out of the parish, is in the gift of the Bishop of Chuster; an Independent chapel is at Cross-Lanes; United Free Methodist chapels are in Clive and Weaver: and a national school is at Brad field-Green. T. Lindsey, the Unitarian writer, was a native; and also the Rev. J. Hulse, who left his estates in this parish to the University of Cambridge, to found the Hulsean lectureship., and was buried here in 1790.


(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))

Linked entities:
Feature Description: "a small town, a township, and a subdistrict"   (ADL Feature Type: "cities")
Administrative units: Nantwich RegD/PLU       Cheshire AncC
Place: Middlewich

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