Portal:Cheshire/Selected article/Archive
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[edit] Archive for Selected article
The following articles have featured as the Selected article at the Cheshire Portal:
[edit] Halton Castle
Halton Castle is a ruined castle situated on the top of Halton Hill, a sandstone prominence overlooking the former village of Halton, now part of the town of Runcorn. It is a Grade I listed building and a scheduled ancient monument.
The seat of the Barons of Halton from the 11th century until the 14th century, the castle passed to the Duchy of Lancaster when the 15th baron ascended the throne as King Henry IV. King Edward II visited in 1323. It was used as a prison, administrative centre and court of law during the Tudor period, but had already fallen into disrepair by the early 17th century. The castle was besieged twice during the Civil War, after which its structure deteriorated further. In the 18th century a new courthouse was built on the site of the previous gatehouse. The castle now lies in ruins apart from the courthouse which has been converted into a public house.
[edit] Churche's Mansion
Churche's Mansion is a timber-framed, black-and-white Elizabethan mansion house at the eastern end of Hospital Street in Nantwich. The Grade I listed building dates from 1577, and is one of the very few to have survived the Great Fire of Nantwich in 1583. Nikolaus Pevsner considered the mansion to be among the best timber-framed Elizabethan buildings in the county, describing it in The Buildings of England: Cheshire as "an outstanding piece of decorated half-timber architecture."
Built for wealthy Nantwich merchant Richard Churche and his wife by local craftsman Thomas Clease, it remained in their family until the 20th century. In 1930, it was rescued from being shipped to the USA by Edgar Myott and his wife, who began restoration work.
The building has four gables to the front; the upper storey and the attics all overhang with jetties. The upper storeys feature decorative panels and the exterior has many gilded carvings, including portraits of Richard and Margerye Churche. The principal rooms have oak panelling, some of which is Elizabethan in date. As well as a dwelling, the mansion has been used as a school, restaurant, shop, and granary and hay store.
[edit] Anderton Boat Lift
The Anderton Boat Lift (pictured), near the village of Anderton, provides a 50 foot vertical link between two navigable waterways: the River Weaver and the Trent and Mersey Canal. It is one of only two working boat lifts in the United Kingdom, the other being the Falkirk Wheel in Scotland.
Constructed in 1875, the boat lift was designed by Edward Leader Williams and Edwin Clark. It originally used water-filled hydraulic rams to support a pair of water-filled caissons, which could each accommodate two narrowboats or a single barge. Corrosion proved a problem with the hydraulic rams, which were replaced in 1908 by electric motors with a system of counterweights and overhead pulleys, designed by J.A. Saner.
The boat lift remained in use for over 100 years until it was closed due to corrosion in 1983. Restoration started in 2001 and the boat lift was re-opened in 2002. The lift and associated visitor centre and exhibition are operated by British Waterways.
[edit] Runcorn
Runcorn is an industrial town and cargo port in the borough of Halton. It stands on the southern bank of the River Mersey where the estuary narrows to form Runcorn Gap, spanned by the Silver Jubilee Bridge (pictured). The Manchester Ship Canal runs between the town and the Mersey, and is joined by the Bridgewater Canal.
A small, isolated village until the coming of the Industrial Revolution, various industries developed in Runcorn during the 19th century, in particular, soap and alkali manufacture, quarrying, shipbuilding, engineering and tanning. Only the chemical industry remains important, and diversification has been driven by close links to the motorway system. A new town was built to the east of the existing town in the 1960s and 1970s which, together with later developments further east, has resulted in the population doubling to around 60,000.
[edit] Jodrell Bank Observatory
The Jodrell Bank Observatory, near Goostrey and Holmes Chapel, is part of the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics at the University of Manchester. The observatory has four active radio telescopes; the main Lovell Telescope (pictured) is the third largest steerable radio telescope in the world. It is also the base of the Multi–Element Radio Linked Interferometer Network (MERLIN).
Established in 1945 by Sir Bernard Lovell, the observatory has played an important role in the research of meteors, quasars, pulsars, masers and gravitational lenses, and was heavily involved with the tracking of space probes at the start of the Space Age.
[edit] Middlewich
Middlewich is one of the Wich towns in Cheshire, England.
Middlewich lies on the confluence of a number of natural and man made features: the Rivers Dane, Croco and Wheelock; the Shropshire Union and Trent and Mersey Canals; and the A533, A54 and A530 roads. It is an important location for salt manufacture, and has also been known for Cheshire cheese. The parish church for Middlewich is St. Michael and All Angels, which dates back to the 12th century.
In common with other towns within mid-Cheshire, the good motorway and road links have seen a large influx of people in the last thirty years, doubling the population of Middlewich since 1970. Events such as the annual folk and boat festival, and the Roman and Norman festivals have also helped to boost tourism into the town.
