GREAT BUDWORTH

This parish contained one of the greatest number of townships of any parish in England and was one of the largest, by the nineteenth century it comprised some 35 townships and covered 26,676 acres.

Chapelries with varying degrees of independence were situated in the parish at Little Legh, Lower Peover, Nether Whitley, Stretton and Witton.

The church building was considered ‘one of the finest examples of ecclesiastical architecture remaining in Cheshire’ (Richards). Parts of the building date back to the fourteenth century, but there have been a number of subsequent alterations and extensions funded in part by bequests by parishioners. The tower, for example, is said to date from the sixteenth century.

A stone communion table and fifteenth-century font were discovered buried under the floor when the nave was lowered during extensive remodelling in the nineteenth century.

Prior to the dissolution of Norton Priory in 1536 the church belonged to the priory and canons of Norton were normally appointed to serve at Great Budworth. After the dissolution the parish was given by Henry VIII to his new foundation of Christ Church, Oxford.

The lax morals of the canon who held the vicarage prior to the dissolution were reported by Adam Beconsall to Thomas Cromwell in 1535. However, he continued to hold the parish until his death in 1551 when he was succeeded by the first cleric presented by Christ Church who was almost certainly not resident in the parish.

There was a school in the churchyard, founded in about 1600.

The production of salt was important in the parish which included the town of Northwich, and the transport of this commodity was facilitated by the construction of the Bridgewater Canal which passes through the parish.

Sources:

‘Henry VIII: April 1535, 1-10’, in Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 8, January-July 1535, ed. James Gairdner (London, 1885), British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/letters-papers-hen8/vol8/pp188-202 (vol. 8 no 496)

‘Bucknall – Buildwas’, in A Topographical Dictionary of England, ed. Samuel Lewis( London, 1848), British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/topographical-dict/england/pp424-428

George Ormerod, The History of the County Palatine and City of Chester (second edition, revised and enlarged by T. Helsby, London, 1882), vol. i, pp. 605-611

Raymond Richards, Old Cheshire Churches (Revised and enlarged edition, Didsbury, 1973), pp. 170-175

Dorothy Sylvester, ‘Parish and Township in Cheshire and north-east Wales’, Journal of the Chester Archaeological Society, 54 (1967), pp. 23-36

WEAVERHAM

The parish of Weaverham comprised the townships of Acton, Crowton, Cuddington, Onston, Wallerscote and Weaverham, together with parts of Hartford and Norley. It is probable that salt was extracted in the area from Roman times.

The patron of the living was the abbot of Vale Royal Abbey, following the dissolution of the abbey the rectory and advowson of the vicarage was granted to the bishops of Chester, although the first presentation to the parish after the dissolution was made by Sir Thomas Holcroft who had acquired a lease of Vale Royal.

It is thought that there has been a church on the site of the present parish church since Saxon times. The present church is built largely of sandstone and, apart from the addition of a south porch, the exterior remains much as it was following rebuilding in the late fifteenth century. Inside there was later alteration including the addition of linenfold panelling and a wooden ceiling, said to have come from Vale Royal Abbey church.

Several thatched timber-framed cottages survive around Weaverham village centre, mostly dating from the seventeenth century.

Sources:

George Ormerod, The History of the County Palatine and City of Chester (second edition, revised and enlarged by T. Helsby, London, 1882), vol. ii, pp. 113-119

Raymond Richards, Old Cheshire Churches, (second edition, Manchester, 1973), pp. 345-351