Portal:Cheshire
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Cheshire (or, archaically, the County of Chester) is a county in the North West of England. The county town, and the location of the county council, is the city of Chester. Other major towns include Congleton, Crewe, Ellesmere Port, Macclesfield, Nantwich, Northwich, Runcorn, Warrington, Widnes and Wilmslow.
Cheshire covers a boulder clay plain (pictured) separating the hills of North Wales and the Peak District of Derbyshire. The county covers an area of 2,343 km² and has an estimated population of 993,200 with a population density of 424 people per square kilometre.
Cheshire is mostly rural and is historically famous for the production of Cheshire cheese, salt and silk. In the 19th century towns to the north of the county were pioneers of the chemical industry.
The Lovell Telescope is a radio telescope at the Jodrell Bank Observatory, near Goostrey. When it was constructed in the mid 1950s, it was the largest steerable dish radio telescope in the world at 76.2 m (250 ft) in diameter. It is now the third largest, after the Green Bank and Effelsberg telescopes. It forms part of the MERLIN and European VLBI Network arrays of radio telescopes.
Originally known as the 250 ft telescope or the Radio Telescope at Jodrell Bank, then as the Mark I telescope when future telescopes (the Mark II, III and IV) were being discussed around 1961, it was renamed the Lovell Telescope in 1987 after Bernard Lovell. Lovell and Charles Husband were both knighted for their roles in creating the telescope.
The Lovell Telescope became a Grade I listed building in 1988, and won the BBC's online competition to find the UK's greatest "Unsung Landmark" in 2006.
Built in 1799, Chester Shot Tower is probably the oldest remaining shot tower in the world and was used to manufacture lead shot for the Napoleonic Wars. Lead was exported via Chester during the Roman period and the lead industry flourished in the city during the 19th century.
Credit: Espresso Addict (3 February 2007)
Joseph Priestley (13 March 1733 – 6 February 1804) was a theologian, Dissenting clergyman, natural philosopher, educator and political theorist. He is usually credited with the discovery of oxygen, which he dubbed "dephlogisticated air", having isolated it in its gaseous state. He also discovered several other gases, invented soda water and wrote on electricity.
He served as a minister in Nantwich (1758–61), and also established a school where he taught natural philosophy. It was here that he wrote the seminal work, The Rudiments of English Grammar. He was also a tutor at Warrington Academy (1761–67).
Priestley's metaphysical writings attempted to combine theism, materialism and determinism; these works are considered to be one of the main sources for utilitarianism. Besides Rudiments, his contributions to pedagogy include the invention of modern historiography. He advocated equal rights for religious Dissenters and helped to found Unitarianism in England.
- ... that Runcorn Town Hall (pictured) was originally built as Halton Grange, a mansion for Thomas Johnson, a local soap and alkali manufacturer?
- ...that under the terms of the Bunbury Agreement, the English county of Cheshire would have remained neutral during the English Civil War?
- ...that the gates of Warrington Town Hall, Cheshire, erected in 1895, had been shown at the 1862 International Exhibition in London?
- ...that the Tegg's Nose Country Park in Cheshire has a collection of historical quarrying equipment (pictured) recalling its history of quarrying dating back to the 16th century?
- ...that while Peover Hall in Cheshire, England, is a Grade II* listed building, its stable block is listed Grade I because of its elaborate internal architecture?
- ...that Chorley Old Hall, the oldest inhabited country house in Cheshire, consists of two ranges, one medieval (c.1300), the other Elizabethan (mid-16th century)?
23 May: Conservative Edward Timpson takes the Crewe and Nantwich constituency from Labour at the byelection of 22 May with a swing of 17.6%, in the first Conservative byelection gain from Labour since 1978.
2 May: The Conservatives take control of both of the new unitary authorities after the 1 May council elections, with majorities of 37 councillors in Cheshire East and 38 councillors in Cheshire West and Chester. Elected members will form a "shadow" council until April 2009.
Towns: Deva Victrix • Middlewich • Runcorn • Widnes
Sights: Beeston Castle • Chester Cathedral • Churche's Mansion • Halton Castle • Jodrell Bank Observatory • Lovell Telescope • St Mary's Church, Acton
Transport: A500 road • M62 motorway
People: Thomas Brassey • Sir John Brunner, 1st Baronet • Daniel Craig • Joseph Priestley
"In the first place, Cranford is in possession of the Amazons; all the holders of houses above a certain rent are women. If a married couple come to settle in the town, somehow the gentleman disappears; he is either fairly frightened to death by being the only man in the Cranford evening parties, or he is accounted for by being with his regiment, his ship, or closely engaged in business all the week in the great neighbouring commercial town of Drumble, distant only twenty miles on a railroad. In short, whatever does become of the gentlemen, they are not at Cranford. ... The ladies of Cranford are quite sufficient. 'A man,' as one of them observed to me once, 'is so in the way in the house!'"
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