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Coordinates: 52°59′06″N 1°59′11″W / 52.9849°N 1.9865°W
| Cheadle | |
  Cheadle
Cheadle shown within Staffordshire |
|
| Population | 12,158 (2001 census) |
|---|---|
| OS grid reference | |
| District | Staffordshire Moorlands |
| Shire county | Staffordshire |
| Region | West Midlands |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | Stoke-on-Trent |
| Postcode district | ST10 |
| Dialling code | 01538 |
| Police | Staffordshire |
| Fire | Staffordshire |
| Ambulance | West Midlands |
| EU Parliament | West Midlands |
| UK Parliament | Stone |
| List of places: UK • England • Staffordshire | |
Cheadle is a small market town near Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England, with a population of 12,158 according to the 2001 census. It is roughly 11 miles (18 km) from the city of Stoke-on-Trent, 50 miles (80 km) north of Birmingham and 50 miles (80 km) south of Manchester. It is also around 5 miles (8.0 km) from the Alton Towers leisure park.
Contents |
History
Cheadle is an historic market town dating back to Anglo-Saxon times, with its own reference in the Domesday Book[1]. It was (and still is, but not for administrative purposes) in the historic Staffordshire Hundred (administrative division) of Totmonslow; nowadays it is part of the Staffordshire Moorlands area.
Early Beginnings
Cheadle is entered in the Domesday Book (1086) as "Celle" held by the lord of the manor, Robert of Stafford, at the time the area covered 6 miles by 3 miles and listed 9 families.
In 1176 the Basset family acquired the manor of "Chedle" and in 1250 Ralph Basset was granted a market charter and annual fair by King Henry III (750 years this year 2000).
In 1309, 75 families are recorded as using a corn-grinding mill sited near Mill Road.
In 1350 a new church was built replacing a 12th-century structure and this church remained in use until 1837.
In 1606 a school was founded by the church, and in 1685 the then curate of the parish (Rev, Henry Stubbs) left an endowment to "found" a grammar school in Cheadle. The school was built at Monkhouse and was active until 1917. The endowment continues to this day.
In 1676 Cheadle’s population is recorded as just over one thousand, and a hundred years later (1772) as one thousand eight hundred. At this time the main source of employment was agriculture and farming.
1775 : A new workhouse was built and opened. It was extended under the Cheadle Union an 1837. Part of the original building was demolished in 1909, renamed an Infirmary. The whole complex was demolished in 1987 and a new hospital was built on the site, which was opened on the 26th June 1989 by The Princess Royal.
In 1798, 10 weavers houses were built. The weavers lived downstairs and the looms for the manufacture of tape were upstairs. By the 1820’s the looms were transferred into a factory in Tape Street. This tape factory closed in 1972, and now forms a part of the "B&M Store".
In 1851 silk and narrow fabric mills were built in Cheadle (by Arnolds) and these employed hundreds of operatives in their day, to be closed down in 1981. Between 1875 - 78 William Morris, founder of the Arts and Crafts Movement, made frequent visits to the silk works in Cheadle to experiment with organic dyes. Many of Cheadle's silk products featured Morris's designs.
In the Brookhouses area of Cheadle in 1725, the Cheadle Brass and Copper Company started production, transferring to the Oakamoor area 100 years later under the then company Thomas Patten, to be purchased in 1851 by Thomas Bolton of Birmingham. In 1890 Bolton’s opened a factory at Froghall and the Oakamoor works were eventually closed in 1963.
At the turn of the 20th century the first open air swimming baths were constructed at Brookhouses, and telephone installation began in 1904. In 1901 Cheadle was linked to the railway network by the Cheadle Railway, operated and later owned by the North Staffordshire Railway, with the building of a railway station at Majors Barn, this giving access to further industries and movement of passengers. At a later period sand, gravel and aggregates used for building purposes were transported from the station as well as coal.
The first motor car arrived in Cheadle in 1903, and the first licensed omnibus service – Cheadle to Longton –commenced in January 1914. Cheadle - Historic and Picturesque
In addition to Pugin, William Morris influenced much of the art and architecture of Cheadle and its recommended to take a guided walk or self-guided tour along the William Morris town trail.
Cheadle makes a good base for exploring the spectacular Peak District National Park area, which is very popular with walkers and rock climbers. Surrounded by lofty hills, Cheadle is the gateway to the wooded Churnet Valley and the natural beauty of the Staffordshire Moorlands.
The High Street of Cheadle has many old buildings and is little changed from how it looked in Victorian times. Of particular interest in the town are the Anglican and Roman Catholic churches both of which are dedicated to St. Giles.
The Catholic Church is one of the finest examples of its type in the Country, particularly for a small town such as Cheadle. This was due to the involvement of the famous Victorian architect and designer Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (1812–1852) (famous for his Gothic designs on the Houses of Parliament and his work on the Palace of Westminster). Through the generosity of John Talbot, the 16th Earl of Shrewsbury (the Lord of the Manor at Alton Towers - now one of the country's most famous theme parks and just up the road!), Pugin was commissioned to design and build a church that would have no rival. To achieve this, the Earl placed unlimited means at Pugin's disposal. This legacy has bestowed Cheadle with one of Pugins finest works. Known as "Pugin's Gem", St Giles' Church is the architect's own tribute to inner peace and serenity and a design wonder of the Gothic Revival.
The Church itself was opened and consecrated on the 31st August 1846. The very next day the First Solemn Mass was celebrated amid great pomp and splendour. Historical records tell us that eight carriages bearing the Earl and Countess of Shrewsbury and their guests left Alton Towers (when it was a stately home) for the drive to Cheadle. Among the guests were eight Deacons, 53 Priests, 13 Bishops and two Archbishops.
The Anglican Church was totally rebuilt in 1837-9 to the design of J. P. Pritchett but incorporating fragments and furniture from the earlier church. There is also a strong Methodist tradition in Cheadle, and in the 19th century it was the various Methodist Chapels around the Cheadle area which taught many of the young boys who worked on the farms or in the coal mines to read and write. There is a large modern Methodist Church in the town.
Cheadle has had a varied and eventful history.[2] The town was mentioned in the Domesday Book and was a small and unimportant hamlet with a small population. The town grew steadily over the next few hundred years, with the development of industry and agriculture. The historic industries that the town has depended on have been coal mining, Silk, agriculture, brass making and the historic copper industry in nearby Froghall and Oakamoor. The town and the nearby village of Upper Tean also had a textiles industry in tape weaving.
Nowadays the old industry has passed into history and the new employers and industries are the large JCB factory, the several small industrial units on the site of the former New Haden Colliery and the nearby theme park of Alton Towers which employs a lot of people from the Cheadle area. More people now commute to the Potteries for work than in previous years.
Cheadle did have a railway station which was originally opened by the Cheadle Railway Company (purchased by the North Staffordshire Railway) in the early part of the 20th century, after years of petitioning for a connection. It was closed by British Rail in the 1960s for passenger traffic, and for freight traffic in the 1980s as the local sand and gravel quarries which used the station to transport their output to rail moved to road transport. One notable point of interest is that the stone which helped to construct the Thames Flood Barrier in London was quarried from around Cheadle and loaded on to trains at Cheadle station.
Cheadle today is a market town with a remarkable heritage. Surrounded on all sides by countryside, its a stepping stone into the Staffordshire Moorlands that warrants a closer look.
Cheadle In Bloom
Cheadle participates in the Britain in Bloom Competition. It is run by a group of volunteers from Cheadle, Staffordshire and the surrounding district. They plant floral displays in Cheadle with the aid of grants from Cheadle District Council, Staffordshire Moorlands District Council and sponsorship from local businesses and individuals. [3]
The Cheadle Coalfield
For hundreds of years the main industry in the Cheadle area was Coal Mining. The town and the surrounding area were once home to over 60 mines, but the Industry declined in the 20th century, and one by one the remaining larger pits were closed; Parkhall (now the JCB factory) and Hazlewall in the 1930s, New Haden in 1943 and Foxfield in 1965. However Opencast Mining and small scale adit mining carried on in Cheadle up until the 1990s.
Notable individuals
- Gareth Owen, professional footballer was born in Cheadle
- Herbert Chester, a prominent local historian who wrote two books, The history of the Cheadle Coalfield, and the Iron Valley concerning the Churnet Valley Iron Industry.
- Major Cecil Wedgwood.1863-1916. Partner in the Wedgwood Pottery firm. Won the Distinguished Service Order during the Boer War.Killed in 1916 during the Battle of the Somme.
Schools
- Painsley Catholic College [1]
- Cheadle High School [2]
- Bishop Rawle C.E. (Aided) Primary School [3]
- St.Giles Roman Catholic Primary School [4]
- Cheadle Primary School
- St Thomas' Primary Catholic School (Tean) [5]
- Great Wood Primary School (Tean)
Transport
Cheadle used to be served by a branch line opened in 1901 from Cresswell which was a station on the North Staffordshire Railway Crewe to Derby Line. It took almost thirty years of petitioning by the local coalmasters and notables in the town for the Cheadle Railway Company to build the small branch line and station. Even though the branch was only about four miles (6 km) long it was difficult to build as a tunnel had to be constructed under the huge Bunter Sandstone Hill at Huntley. The tunnel was very wet and plagued by problems with its roof. In the 1930s the LMS Railway, which had taken over the North Staffordshire Railway, built a diversion line around Huntley tunnel and abandoned it. Interestingly the tunnel survives to this day due to the fact that it was used as a coal mine in the 70s and 80s, and the western portal remains; however the eastern portal has long been filled in. With the opening of the branch line to Cheadle it meant that New Haden Colliery and Parkhall Colliery now had connections to the rail network, and Cheadle in general had its long-awaited rail connection to the outside world. The line closed to passenger traffic in 1963 but remained open to serve local gravel quarries until 1982.
Bus services to Cheadle were provided by PMT until it was bought out by First Group, now operating under the name First PMT. Such service include bus number '32 Hanley - Uttoxeter', every twenty minutes and '32A Hanley - Uttoxeter via Alton Towers', every two hours (one hour during the summer).
See also
References
- ^ Plant, Robert (1881). History of Cheadle, in Staffordshire, And Neighbouring Places. Leek: William Clemesha. p. 317 + xvi. ASIN B00088XLDW.
- ^ F J Johnson (ed), ed (1991). Victorian Cheadle 1841 - 1881. Keele University.
- ^ http://www.cheadleinbloom.co.uk Cheadle in Bloom
Further reading
- Pevsner, Nikolaus (1974). Staffordshire (Pevsner Buildings of England). Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0300096460.
External links
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