County in England
Cheshire
Home to a grinning cat, a telescope that listened to Sputnik, and a Roman city whose medieval shops have first floors you walk straight into.
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Key information
- County
- Cheshire
- Nation
- England
- Known for
- Cheshire cheese, the Cheshire Cat, Chester's Roman walls, Jodrell Bank, salt, silk and Crewe's railways
- What locals are called
- Cestrians for people from Chester; elsewhere, simply Cheshire folk
- Famous people
- Lewis Carroll, George Mallory, Daniel Craig, Elizabeth Gaskell
- Football clubs
- Crewe Alexandra, Chester FC, Macclesfield FC, Nantwich Town
About Cheshire
The cat that grinned out of Daresbury
Everyone knows the Cheshire Cat, the grinning creature in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland that vanishes until only its smile remains. Its creator, Lewis Carroll, was born Charles Dodgson in 1832 at Daresbury, where his father was the parish priest. Why the cat is a Cheshire one has been argued over for generations, but the phrase "grin like a Cheshire cat" was around before Alice. Daresbury remembers its famous son with a stained-glass window in the village church, with Alice characters among the scenes. Cheshire was also home for a time to Elizabeth Gaskell, who wrote about a thinly disguised Knutsford in Cranford.
A Roman fortress with shops on the first floor
Chester began as Deva Victrix, a Roman legionary fortress founded in the 70s AD. Its amphitheatre was the largest in Britain, and its walls are among the most complete city walls in the country, so you can walk the whole circuit. The medieval Rows are even odder: two-tier galleries of shops, with a second layer of walkways running above the street. Nobody is quite sure how they came about, which makes them a favourite argument among local historians. The Roodee, below the walls, has hosted horse racing since the 16th century, which makes Chester Racecourse one of the oldest in the country. The Earl of Chester is a title held by the heir to the throne, a reminder that Cheshire was once a County Palatine, where its earl had almost royal powers.
Salt, silk and the railway that built Crewe
Cheshire sits on ancient salt beds, and the towns ending in "wich" (Nantwich, Northwich, Middlewich) are old salt-making places. The Lion Salt Works at Marston preserves the last open-pan salt-making in the country. Northwich is dotted with ground that sank where brine was pumped out. The Anderton Boat Lift opened in 1875 to move boats directly between the River Weaver and the Trent and Mersey Canal, so cargo no longer had to be unloaded and reloaded between the two waterways. It raised boats 50 feet, and it is sometimes called the cathedral of the canals. Macclesfield was a silk town, with mills turning out cloth and buttons. Crewe has a different story. It was a tiny hamlet until a railway junction put it on the map in the 1840s. It became a major railway works town, and later built Rolls-Royce and Bentley cars.
The telescope that heard the space age
At Jodrell Bank, in the quiet Cheshire countryside, stands the Lovell Telescope, completed in 1957. Soon after, it tracked the rocket that carried Sputnik 1 into orbit, putting a Cheshire field at the centre of the space race. It is still working as a radio telescope, and Jodrell Bank was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2019.
Cheese, soul cakes and a pronunciation trap
Cheshire cheese is one of Britain's oldest named cheeses: crumbly, tangy and traditionally made from milk from the county's lush dairy pastures. Salty soil is often credited with its flavour. A stranger tradition is Souling. Around Hallowtide, groups of Soul Cakers, such as the Antrobus Soulers, go from door to door performing a folk play in return for soul cakes and beer. In Nantwich, Holly Holy Day in January remembers the Civil War Battle of Nantwich in 1644, with costumed re-enactors. And beware the place names. Cholmondeley is pronounced "Chumley", and plenty of visitors get caught out.
Mountaineers, Bond and big-house country
George Mallory, who vanished on Everest in 1924, was born in Mobberley. Daniel Craig, the sixth James Bond actor in the main film series, was born in Chester in 1968. The north-east of the county around Alderley Edge and Wilmslow is known for footballers' mansions and plush living. Elsewhere there are stately homes such as Tatton Park, and Little Moreton Hall, a black-and-white Tudor manor that leans so alarmingly it looks like it is melting. Chester Zoo is one of the country's biggest zoos, and Oulton Park is a long-standing motor racing circuit.