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History scrapbook - from Delamere and Oakmere News

Contents

Issue 1 June 2005 What do you call the steep hill? Firbobs Another Delamere School Outing.

Issue 2 August 2005 Black Bank Sixty Years Ago World War Two Ended The Delamere School Outing.

Issue 3 October 2005 Sixty Years Ago continued Delamere Infants 1959

Issue 4 Christmas 2005 Cheshire Born and Cheshire Bred Delamere Infants 1959

Issue 5 February 2006 And More Cheshire Talk Delamere Church Choir 1942 Delamere School Summer 1949.

Issue 6 Apr/May 2006 John Bradbury. A Violinist Remembers Delamere School Summer 1949.

Issue 7 June/July2006 Cheshire Born... continued...

Issue 9 Oct/Nov 2006 The Quest A Tale of a Fern

Issue 10 Christmas 2006 The Quest

Issue 11 Feb/Mar 2007 The Quest Pre-War Cricket

Issue 13 June/July 2007 The Quest

Issue 14 Aug/Sept 2007 The Strange Story of Whistlebitch Well

Issue 15 Oct/Nov 2007 Eddisbury Hill

The Hill The Delamere Meridian

Issue 17 Feb/Mar 2008 The Quest continues....

Issue 18 Apr/May 2008 How the Bettleys Came to Delamere.

Issue 19 Oct/Nov 2008 The Quest ends

Issue 23 Nov 2010 Is there anything there? The Hillfort Excavations

Issue 24 Spring 2012 Past Rectors of Delamere

Issue 25 Oct/Nov 2012 Eddisbury archaeology

Issue 26 December 2012 Habitats and Hillforts

Issue 28 July 2013 Minerals rights

Issue 30 Spring 2014 Views from the past

Issue 33 Spring 2015 Memories of Parish Councils past

Issue 34 Summer 2015 Delamere Forest Golf Club

Issue 35 Autumn/Winter 2015 The Night of the Air Raid

Issue 36 Spring 2016 History in the pipeline

Issue 38 Autumn/Winter 2016 Two Hundred Years of Worship The Forest of the Meres

Issue 39 Spring 2017 The boggy forest High politics at Crabtree Green

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Issue 1 June 2005

What do you call the steep hill that runs up from Station Road towards the Old Pale? Newcomers call it Eddisbury Hill, for the very good reasons that it leads to Eddisbury Hill itself and also to the farm of that name. What's more, there's a sign at the bottom that leaves no doubt. Local people, though, still call it Black Hill. Does anyone know why we do? And while we're on the subject, who knows where Black Bank is?

Firbobs

Natives of Delamere used to be called "Delamere Firbobs". Firbobs in turn called their neighbours "Norley Gorbies". In days gone by it was common to give nicknames to people from nearby villages. My great grandfather called people from Little Budworth "Bud'orth Dusters". Does anyone know of any more of these old names?

Another Delamere School Outing.

This time in 1952, probably to Liverpool. Some of the last of the seniors to attend the school, together with Headmaster Norman Ackerley (on the right) and the "new" Rector Howard Huggill (on the left).

How many can you identify?

Robin Ackerley

Issue 2 August 2005

Robin Ackerley

Black Bank, as any "firbob" knows, and as several people got in touch to confirm, is the short hill on the A54 just after the end of Stoney Lane as you head towards the Fishpool. David Rutter of Rectory Farm tells me that the field next to it, when it was part of Rectory Farm, was known as Black Bank Field because the soil there was very dark, unlike that of the neighbouring fields. Apparently years ago gipsies used to camp on the patch of waste at the bottom of the hill. I can remember them in later years stopping on the short stretch of Stoney Lane opposite the School. Up to five caravans would spend a few days there and then depart, the only sign of their stay being the remains of the fires that they'd cooked on.

When David told me the name of one of his fields I was reminded that all fields have (or used to have) names. The changing nature of so many local farms and their loss of identity means that

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many field names are in danger if disappearing. I have a map of the Old Pale with all the field names on it. Is it worth trying to make a collection of these before they are lost for ever?

Sixty Years Ago World War Two Ended

Robin Ackerley

Looking back it's hard to believe that World War Two should have had any serious impact on a quiet and peaceful area of Cheshire, but Delamere people who were around at the time can tell a different story. There were, of course, the inevitable casualties of war. A plaque inside the church commemorates the 13 Delamere parishioners who lost their lives, not as many as the 36 of World War One, but still a significant number out of a small population

The first name on the memorial is that of a civilian, Charles Ashbrook, who was killed in November 1940 when his home was destroyed by a bomb.

Enemy bombers flew over Delamere on their way to attack the docks at Liverpool. There was an anti-aircraft battery on Eddisbury Hill and someone in the War Ministry had the bright idea of putting decoy lights on the hillside. The result was many bombs landed in the area. On one particularly heavy night five hundred incendiaries and a land mine allegedly fell in the large field behind the school.

Three air-raid shelters were built in the field just beyond the school wall (where the playing field is today). When the siren sounded at Northwich local people gathered in the shelters until the all-clear was sounded. On the night of the tragedy Mr.Ashbrook had told his family he would follow them down Stoney Lane from his home (one of two cottages where The Paddock now stands) when he had changed his shoes. When he failed to arrive, a party went up to his home to find it had received a direct hit. Today Mr. Ashbrook's two grandsons live only a short distance away in Wailing Drive.

As was the case throughout the country there was a strong community spirit in the parish There were numerous fund-raising activities to help the war effort and in August 1940 a National Savings Group was formed (I still have the ledger recording the savings, as my parents kept the records). In November it was announced that the Fishpool Spitfire Fund had raised £127 in only three weeks. .In the May 1941 Parish Magazine the Rector was able to announce that the "miraculous figure" of £35,000 had been raised for the War Weapons Campaign, an astonishing figure even by today's standards, and that Delamere held the record for a Country district in Cheshire. The Rector, George Payne, kept a careful note of all parishioners serving in the Armed Forces. He would, of course, have known them all personally. In the February 1940 Magazine he recorded that 15 parishioners were serving; by September the number had increased to 34 and by December 1941 no fewer than 73 Delamere men and women were on active service. Many more were to follow over the ensuing years.

There were some poignant stories. Early in 1940 Flight Lieutenant Andrew Smith of New Pale Lodge had presented an RAF flag to the church. In the July Magazine he was congratulated on his promotion to Squadron Leader. On 27th July he was killed in action at the age of 33. At the end of March 1940 the Rector presented Tom Stretch with a fountain pen and a case of hair brushes, a present from the choir he had been a member of for many years before he left on active service. In a subsequent letter to the Rector Tom wrote, " I go to Church every Sunday. It reminds me of being in the Choir at Delamere". The death of Fusilier Stretch was reported in the Parish Magazine of November 1941.

There were hardships at home as well, not just the blackout and food shortages to contend with. January 1940 was bitterly cold with near record low temperatures. On Sunday 28th January there was 2 or 3 feet of snow and yet, so the Rector stated, "three heroines walked to morning service from Sandiway".

In the autumn of 1940 the Home Guard formed a branch "for the Parish of Delamere (which includes the Townships of Oakmere and Eddisbury)". On October 4* a Whist Drive and Dance was

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held in the school to raise funds for the new branch.

There were lighter moments. One story I've been trying to confirm but I was assured was true by my parents concerned the new Home Guard. In a top level military exercise the local branch was detailed to hold Delamere Station against an invasion by the Norley Home Guard. All surrounding parts of the forest were put under surveillance as was Station Road. No stone was left unturned. Unfortunately Delamere Home Guard failed to take the deviousness of their near neighbours into account. Norley came in by train and took the station without encountering any resistance.

Advertising a forthcoming Rummage Sale in May 1940 the Rector wrote "The sale was so brisk last year that practically everything was sold including the Rector's hat which was almost new and not for sale, and fetched sixpence". His monthly parish newsletters at this dark time were not only characteristically humorous but often a source of inspiration. In July 1940, not long after the fall of Paris, he concluded his letter, Every morning we can hear in the Broadcast just before 8 am some words of cheer and a thought for the day with the title "Lift up your hearts ". That means we must never get depressed or lose our faith or confidence in the ultimate achievement of justice, liberty and truth. To lose heart is to give a gift to the enemy which he is longing to receive. Our soldiers, sailors and airmen have displayed matchless courage and resolution, and we must show the same spirit. The price of victory is the courage to endure, and the secret of success is that unending and dogged resistance which is the tradition of our race.

In the latter years of the war the Lancashire Fusiliers left the artillery battery on land at Eddisbury Hill Farm, just above Rectory Farm and the site became a prisoner of war camp housing mainly Italian prisoners. Many of them worked on local farms and settled in happily to local life.

I can clearly remember the night a flying bomb passed over Delamere, its engine cutting near the Old Pale. It crashed on some greenhouses at the bottom of Kelsall, fortunately without causing any casualties.

One of the most memorable events in Delamere was the Salute the Soldier Week which ran from 20th to 27th May 1944. In the October edition there will be a full account of the activities that took place during the week. If any readers have recollections of this and/or any other wartime memories, please get in touch. In a few years this important part of our village history will be forgotten unless we record it now.

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The Delamere School Outing.

Robin Ackerley

This photograph, taken in 1952, aroused a lot of interest. Several people got in touch with some of the names, but it was Vera Page (nee Gore), who now lives in Chester, who supplied the complete list.

Back row: The Rector Joan Lovatt Elsie Hughes Mary Smith Mary Lyon Barbara Neild Brenda Wright Joyce Crane Norman Ackerley

Barbara Anglesea Ann Johnson Charlie Gregory Betty Crawford Ann Prince Vera Gore Glenda Brandon Elsie Davies Hazel Garner Margaret Lloyd Tony Prince Norman Wright Robert Vernon Lucy Lyon Glennis Ball Alice Astbury Elizabeth. Rutter Brenda Astbury

Ellis Jones Cyril Craven Roy Croxton Jim Spruce Ann Lloyd

Issue 3 October 2005

Sixty Years Ago continued

Robin Ackerley

Fund-raising in aid of the War Effort was a major preoccupation in the early 1940s. Everyone was encouraged to do their bit by contributing to National Savings and each village had its own National Savings Group. My parents ran the Delamere group and I recently found the ledger in which all the contributions for the war years were recorded.

February 7th-14th, 1942 was Warship Week. A four-figure sum was raised thanks to the efforts of the citizens of Delamere.

A year later came the Wings for Victory Week. In late February a committee was formed with the Rector in the chair. It was agreed that Delamere should go it alone and not as part of the Tarporley area as in the past. An ambitious target was set - £10,000, or two Spitfires. Various functions were planned - whist drives, dances and sports. The commanding officer from Wardle Aerodrome was invited to attend, but it is not certain whether he accepted: the records are incomplete at this point and it just could be that he was a little busy at the time.

There is much fuller documentation of events for the following year, however. May 20th - 27th 1944 was Salute the Soldier Week .An official eight-page programme covering all the events in Delamere was printed. On the back a soldier encouraged the readers,

"Come on - we're all in it together! I'll keep the front line safe, if you'll 'stand firm' behind me".

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When the programme was planned no one could have foreseen that, by the start of the week, D-Day was a fortnight old and the soldiers were well on their way into Normandy. Delamere's target was £5,000 as part of the £45,000 for the Tarporley District.

The week began with a parade led by an American Forces Band, stationed nearby, from the Abbey Arms to the school at 6.00 pm on the Saturday. The official opening was conducted by an American officer, Colonel H.G.Paullin. This was followed by a Rabbit Show, Fancy Dress for Adults and Children, best decorated Bicycle, best decorated Cart Horse, Cart Horse Race (open), and a Flower Decoration Competition

On the Sunday there was a Drum Head Service in the Rectory Field with an address by an American padre. The following evening the Americans held a boxing match and baseball exhibition in the Organsdale field diagonally opposite the school. On Wednesday evening there was an American forces concert in the school (admission 2/- adults, 1/6 children and forces). On Thursday the W.I. held a Whist Drive in the school and on Friday evening the Home Guard organised a dance with an American Forces Orchestra in attendance.

The closing event was at 4.30 on Saturday 27th May - children's sports, a draw and distribution of prizes, again held in the Organsdale field. Mr.Hardy of Castle Hill presented the prizes. I have a very clear memory of running in a race with Charlie Gregory the only other competitor. I came second.

The school was kept open every evening between six and eight o'clock for the sale of National Savings Certificates. Judging by the records just about everyone in Delamere contributed to the savings effort. Just to read the list of names is an exercise in nostalgia. Sadly no record survives of the final score, but it seems certain that the target must have been reached. What is equally certain is that the war brought the people of Delamere and Oakmere together, united in a common cause, as never before or since.

Delamere's celebration of VE Day was memorable for one rather strange reason. The school bell had until now regularly been rung to summon pupils to school in the morning. On V E Day it was rung with more than usual vigour with the result that the clapper fell out and the bell has never been rung since. When an attempt was made to restore it in the 1980s the bell tower was judged to be in a dangerous state and the bell was taken down. It now stands in the entrance hall of the school. Perhaps one day....

Delamere Infants 1959

Can you name these children?

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Issue 4 Christmas 2005

Cheshire Born and Cheshire Bred - A Dying Language

Robin Ackerley

Cheshire born and Cheshire bred, Strong in the arm and weak in the head. This rhyme always bothered me when I was little: why should we boast about being "weak in the head"? But then one day my mum told me of an old dialect word she remembered hearing when she was little, "wick", which meant sharp or quick-witted. Now the rhyme did make sense, and gave a much more accurate description of a Cheshire person - wick i 'th 'yed.

Not long ago I was talking to someone who was neither Cheshire bom nor Cheshire bred and seemed never to have heard the local language spoken, despite having lived some years in the area. Hardly surprising, though, when broad Cheshire is far less commonly heard than it was a few decades ago.

How many newcomers will have heard of a corf, a rot, a rappit or a tuwerdl (all animals, by the way), and how many bird-spotters can identify a yarn or a sheppy?

That last animal reminds me of a story of my dad's ( if only I could remember half of them!). A rather posh lady was paying a visit to the home of one of her tenants. She demanded that the little boy of the house sing her a song. Under pressure the little boy reluctantly agreed. This was what he sang:

A blackbird on a weshin' mug, A tuwerd on a stuw. I amner singin 'for me-sen, I'm singin'fer afuw.2

The lady, like Queen Victoria, was not amused.

It's not just words mat are different. Many Cheshire vowels are different too. 'a' often turns to 'o', usually before 'n' or sometimes 'm' (rather as it does in Scotland). So, for instance, bank becomes bonk (honestly!), man is mon (which gives us the adjective monny, for which there is no standard English equivalent), a hammer is a ommer (note the missing ' h ', a sound rarely heard in Cheshire). Can, of course, becomes con, can't is Conner, shan't shonner and haven't, sometimes, 'onner.

Meanwhile 'ay' and 'ee' swap places, so that a tree is for putting cups on, while a tray (an ook tray, for instance) grows laves (and also eacorns).

One of the most distinctive Cheshire sounds is ew, as in brewt (brought), thewt (thought) and bewt (bought), but not in taught. When I was at school in Winsford in the 50s the Headmaster told how shortly after his arrival at the school he saw a boy coming through the gate eating a bun and throwing the wrapper on the ground.

"Where's the bin?" he demanded. "I've bin to the shop, sir," the boy replied.

I tried telling that story to some schoolchildren in Kent - and nobody got it. As a piece of advice, never try explaining a joke that's failed; just cut your losses and move on. The point was lost on a class who'd never heard the old pronoun thou used and didn't believe it was still in use in parts of the North. We'd been reading a Shakespeare play and I was explaining (or trying to explain) how thou, thee and thy/thine were once commonly used instead of you when talking to a person you were on familiar terms with, in a manner not unlike that used in French and many European languages, where you, or its equivalent is just the polite form. The trouble with English is that over the centuries we have gradually become so polite to each other that we've stopped using thou altogether - except in dialect So here thou, or more usually the or tha, is used between friends, but not when you're trying to show respect to someone.

What's more - and this is something I've never heard outside Cheshire - you can still sometimes

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hear the old plural form ye as in Come on, ye lot!

In the past no Cheshire man worth his salt (and there's a lot of it in Cheshire) would call a woman she. It was always ew or oo. The only time I've ever seen it in print was in the poem "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight", supposedly written in Cheshire in the fourteenth century, where it appeared as ho. My uncle, who died twenty years ago, hardly ever used she, but how often do you hear the old form today?

1. Like a tommy frog, only bigger.

2. Translation next issue, but dunner ask me to sing. I Conner.

How many of these do you know?

[Send in your answers for the February edition].

Aller Baggin' Blart Blue i'the bushes Chats Chilt* Chopse Coss Chunner Davely Djed Donderin' Ew/Oo Feoff Get agate o' Hedgecop Key-pawed Lads come ar'ouse (a flower) Marefart Mester Mither/Maither Monny Nesh Nuwty/a Nuwt Okkert Pather Pissimote Rit Raungin' Scrike Scutch Scutch Shippon Skuw (a) Stale Stuws Thrippers Wesh Weyter Wick Yed Yokkerton

* Chilt (pronounced like child, but more specific).

If you get over half marks then you can truly say that you're Cheshire born and Cheshire bred, Strong i' th 'arm and wick i 'th 'yed.

Complaints, corrections, additions please to: robin.ackerley@btinternet.com or The Paddock, Stoney Lane, Delamere, (not Kelsall), Tarporlev or 01829 752723.

Delamere Infants 1959

Thanks to Brenda Astbury for the photograph and to Neil Johnson and Jean Sheen (Jean Fairclough) for helping to name the children. Can anyone help fill the gaps?

Mrs.Doreen Bradbury ?? ?? Rachel Gilbert Trevor Hignett ?? Kevin Nicholas ?? Neil Johnson

Stephanie Van Suchtelen Susan Walker Peter Martin (??) Andrew Walker ?? Peter Ankers Brian Hassall Chris Pugh ?? Jean Fairclough Prowse French ?? Kevin Duxbury

?? Peter Curry Peter Astbury ?? Philip Smith Janet Smith Peter Rutter

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Issue 5 February 2006

And More Cheshire Talk

Robin Ackerley

A number of readers have responded to the Cheshire Born and Cheshire Bred feature in the newsletter of "last backend". Nigel Nield (Frith Avenue) and Clive Robinson (Station Road) both wrote with answers to some of the words (Clive knew most of them) and also some new ones; some of them I'd heard before, some I hadn't.

I'd not heard marefart (posh word ragwort) called a fleadod before; nor had I heard a hedgecop called hedgebatter. Clive called this the grass verge of a hedge; I’d always known it as the small mound of earth and sometimes stone (sandstone round here) that a hedge was built on. I've a theory about this word.

Many of our words go back many centuries, often to other related languages. A famous battle in the Boer War took place at Spion Kop, (from Dutch ie from Afrikaans kopje, a small hill). In 1906 this gave its name to the famous stand at Anfield, later just called "the Kop". Our word possibly came over with the Saxons, but today it is shared by Liverpool fans (or was until 1994).

Noticing one day that I was left-handed, my gran said, "Ee lad, tha't keypawed!" Quite by chance several years later I came across this definition in a book: Kei ~ Old Danish for left. The Danes, of course, invaded and settled here eleven hundred years ago (place-names such as Helsby are of Danish origin). Many of their words survived, some, like key, presumably unwritten for all these centuries.

After writing the last article I kept thinking of other words I could have put in: one word I hated being called when I was little was mard (or should it be marred?). Next time, space allowing, I'll put in the answers to last time's list of words, together with some new words from Nigel. And one I heard only last week. Where does a jowyed come from?

It's getting a cock stride lighter every night now that spring's on its way.

Delamere Church Choir 1942

Back Row: 1 Betty Wilson (Bolland) 2 Margaret Hood (Jeffs )6 Colin Woods 8 Cyril Walker 10 Marjorie Rutter 12 Pearl Stubbs (Nixon)

3 Gladys Walker 4 Derek Ashworth 5 Jim Yardley 7 Joe Gregory 9 Herbert Pixton (organist) 11 Mary Ford (Rutter)

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Front Row: 1 John Leathwood 3 Maurice Bettley 5 Rev.Paterson Morgan 6 Rev.George Payne 8 Neville Bettley 9 Jim Gore

2 Donald Wilcox 4 Vic Bettley 7 Alan Gore 10 Derek Betdey Absent on War Duty: Noel Billington Bob Jeffs Colin Jones Tom Stretch. Absent from photo:

Norman Ackerley (lay reader)

Delamere School Senior Boys. Summer 1949.

How many can you name? And who can remember the goat's name? As usual, there are no prizes.

Issue 6 Apr/May 2006

John Bradbury. A Violinist Remembers

Almost certainly Delamere School's most distinguished former pupil is the gifted professional musician John Bradbury. I hadn't spoken to John since 1956, not, that is, until I looked him up on the internet and then e-mailed him. A phone conversation followed and shortly afterwards he sent me the following reminiscences of his boyhood and after. John's mother was the school infants teacher in the late 50s and his grandmother, Mrs.C.A.Johnson, as she was always known, often came in to do supply teaching in the 40s and 50s.

Robin Ackerley

At about ten years old I was sent from Manchester to live with my grandparents (Mr & Mrs Arthur Johnson) in Delamere where they lived in a pretty bungalow called 'The Laurels 'perched at the top of a steep track behind the Post Office in Station Road The view from here was truly spectacular, and has remained undimmed in my memory over the years. Also very close to my heart are the memories of Delamere School where the headmistress, Mrs Ackerley, had the unenviable task of preparing me for the 11+ examination

I used to walk to school, turning right at the Abbey Arms, always in the hopes that the lovely Jean Crawford (a very self-contained young lady in my class) would one day smile at me as she came cycling past along the Chester Road. But this was to be one of life's unfulfilled dreams, although I did manage to put my arm round her once during the School Nativity play

Many of the schoolchildren were from farming families, and it didn't take long for me to appreciate the importance of tractors in Cheshire life as there was much rivalry between the sons whose fathers owned a Massey tractor and those who owned a Ferguson.

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Then came the day when the unthinkable happened; Massey and Ferguson merged to produce Massey-Ferguson tractors which temporarily put the whole school into a state of shock and disbelief.

Every Saturday morning I took the train (with proper steam engine, guard flag, whistle and stopwatch) from Delamere Station to Manchester Central and walked down Oxford Road to the Northern School of Music for my weekly music lessons. Afterwards my mother would take me to lunch at the Kardomah Cafe and put me back on the train to Delamere. It never occurred to me to ask where my father was!

My grandfather was a keen amateur violinist and he made sure I never skimped on daily violin practice. We spent a lot of time playing violin duets which certainly taught me some of the secrets of good ensemble playing. Around this time Aunt Dilys returned from London after a failed attempt to become a professional violinist and she took my violin practice very seriously indeed.

Meanwhile in the school playground I learned the noble arts of marbles and conkers, managed to avoid the macho worm-eating competitions and watched in awe as somebody's father demonstrated the correct way to milk goats and kill chickens, and to crown it all Mrs Ackerley's dedication culminated in me passing the 11+. This was just as well because my grandmother had told me that, although nobody would be cross if I failed 1 might like to bear in mind the disappointment that would be felt after all the sacrifices she and my grandfather had made on my behalf.

Armed with the 11+ I gained a place at Winsford Verdin Grammar School where the peripatetic violin teacher, Miss Ada Shaw, insisted on teaching me privately at her home in Northwich. This proved to be a turning point and led to gaining a music scholarship to the Royal Manchester College of Music as a Junior Exhibitioner with a further six years of full-time study with a star-studded selection of violin teachers.

My first job as a professional musician was at the back of the 2nd fiddles in the BBC Northern Orchestra and by lunchtime on the first day I was so fed up with the sound of a piccolo blasting away just two feet from my left ear that I applied for the job of Sub-Leader of the BBC Welsh Orchestra. Much to everyone's surprise I was offered the job and moved down to a Cardiff bed-sit on the Newport Road. This was to be another major turning-point as it was in Cardiff that I met my wife-to-be Eira West, who was a well-established solo pianist and a truly gifted teacher. We were married within six months and moved to Birmingham to enable me to take up my new position as Leader of the BBC Midland Light Orchestra. Then followed seven years as Co-Leader of the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and another seven years as Leader of the BBC Concert Orchestra in London - with recitals and chamber music involving Eira along the way.

During my time with the BBC Concert Orchestra we bought a large Arts & Crafts property in Harrow on the Hill. It was in such a bad state of repair that nobody else would touch it, but we loved it - not least because one of the rooms had a music stage complete with a little door to enter from stage right. It has taken 25 years of hard labour and the major portion of my earnings to retore this property to its original splendour, but we don't regret it for a moment.

I turned free-lance on my 40th birthday and since then I have worked with many superb musicians and have been able to realise many wonderful opportunities in music and it can all be traced back to those early formative days in Delamere.

My sister Rae achieved Head Girl status (after my time) and we recently took a nostalgic trip together to the school where we stood by the gate near the bus stop on the Chester Road with tears in our eyes - each of us so grateful for the good start we had been given.

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Delamere School Senior Boys. Summer 1949.

With help from Peter Powell I've managed to name all but one in this photo. The boy on the far left remains a mystery. Any suggestions? The goat's name, by the way, is Pet.

Back: Peter Powell Tim Bevan Maurice Bettley Herbert Craven David Langton Middle : Tommy Robinson George Smith Jimmy Whitfield Front: Tommy Davies Tony Prince Frank Powell Ken Pugh Doug Eaton Alan Mason Graham Rathbone Geoff Powell John Hassall

Issue 7 June/July2006

Cheshire Born... continued...

At last a follow-up to the articles in the December and February editions....

Aller... .daddy longlegs Baggin... .a snack taken to work (usually in a bag?) Blart... noise made by a cow/ talk loudly Blue i 'the bushes.. .twilight Chats... small potatoes Chilt... a (baby) girl Chopse/Coss/Chunner... grumble, tell off, etc. Davefy... I'm not sure, but I think it's bleak, lonely - of a place. Djed... .dead Donderin... rambling/confused (of an old person) Ew/oo... she Get agate o’... start doing something Hedgecop... base of hedge/ small mound hedge stands on Key-pawed.... left-handed Lads come ar'ouse... monkshood Marefart... ragwort Mester.. .mister (a mester= someone important) Mither/Maither...bother/pester or worry (ie. be anxious) Mithered... confused Monny... big-headed, often used of a little lad who's acting big (like a mon) Nesh... unable to stand the cold

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Nuwty... irritable A Nuwt.. .a badly-behaved child Okkert... Awkward Pather... Walk over a clean floor with muddy feet Pissimote... .an ant Bit... smallest one of a litter Raungin’... fidgeting, restless Scrike... cry Scutch... couch grass Shippon... cowshed Skuw... school Stale.. .handle of a rake, hoe or pikel Stuws.. sticks or branches out of a hedge Thrippers... ladder-like frame on front/back of a cart or lorry** to keep load on Wesh...wash Weyter... water Yarn... heron Yed...head Yokkerton... Utkinton

Congratulations to Clive Robinson, who got most of these and who added some more, as did Nigel Nield.

From Clive: Bass Brat Clemmed Crudle down Pikel Powsie Wome

From Nigel: Bing Cantin' Gawpm' Lozzack Mizzack Sel Wicks And the following saying: Here's me and me dog's at Fratsham In addition wome (see above) reminded me of the verb worn it and cruddle (or croodle) made me think of thrutch.

Answers to the above please.

** A lorry, or lurry is a 4-wheeled horse-drawn trailer (A cart has just two wheels). In Cheshire the motorised version now is a wagon.

Animals:

Corf..... calf Feof....flea Rappit.... rabbit Rot rat Sheppy starling Tuwerd toad

We're well on the way to producing our own Cheshire Dictionary. Please send in any words or sayings before mid-July.

Issue 9 Oct/Nov 2006

The Quest

Alan Knowles

Welcome to what I hope will be a regular feature of finds in our area. It was whilst watching a programme on metal detecting some years ago that I became hooked. What it must feel like to find a Roman Coin lost some 1800 years ago, I commented. Santa must have been listening because that

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Christmas he obliged with a detector and so began the quest Some 2 years on and many hundreds of hours and as many £'s spent on equipment. The search still goes on. In the meantime however as well as the bags full of junk uncovered there have been finds of interest and historical value. It is these items which I hope to share with you in future editions of this Newsletter.

Two views of the Roman Wirral brooch found in Delamere

The find highlighted in this edition is a Roman 'Wirral type' Brooch, so called because of the 40 or so finds to date 70% have been on the Wirral. The remainder have generally been found on Roman military sites along Hadrian's Wall. It is thought that the brooches were made on the Wirral by a local craftsman or migrant worker who may have sold them to Roman soldiers at what was the Roman harbour fort at Meols. They may then have been transported along the coast to the northern frontier. It is interesting to note that only 1 has been found in Chester. The item itself is made from a copper alloy and is decorated with a rectangular panel containing 3 long strips which were in filled with enamel, on this example only the orange and white have survived. Other brooches have included red, yellow, green and blue enamels. The Delamere brooch has been dated from 150-200 AD by the Northwest Finds Liaison Officer for the Portable Antiquities Scheme.

I would also like to note here my appreciation to the area landowners who graciously permit this local research. That Roman coin has to be out there somewhere.

A Tale of a Fern

Robin Ackerley

When I was young there grew in Delamere School garden an unusual fern, known because of its shape as the "Umbrella Fern".

It had been planted there, I remember being told, in the nineteenth century by the rector and had been taken from a plant in the Old Rectory garden.

The rector, the Rev. Fox, was born in Derbyshire in 1805 to a well-to- do family who shortly after his birth moved to Osmaston Hall in what is now Derby. As a young man Fox went up to Christ's College, Cambridge to study to become a clergyman. In 1829 he graduated and soon afterwards became Vicar of Osmaston.

Then, in the London Gazette of April, 1838 it was reported that

“The Queen has been pleased to present the Rev William Darwin Fox M.A. to the rectory of Delamere in the diocese and county of Chester”.

Fox was to remain Rector of Delamere, in name at least, if not always in practice, for the next thirty-five years.

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While at Cambridge Fox had formed a close friendship with his second cousin, a Shrewsbury man four years his junior, who, having spent two years in Edinburgh supposedly studying medicine, but having shown no more aptitude for study there than he had at school, had proceeded to Cambridge to prepare for a career in the church. The two cousins were united in their love of natural history and spent much of their time, so it appears, collecting beetles.

The two men evidently got on well together, the younger one describing cousin William as "a clever and most pleasant man". He stayed with the Foxes at Osmaston Hall and later he was invited to stay at the Rectory at Delamere. The name of the cousin was Charles Darwin.

Voyage of The Beagle

In 1831 the 22 year-old Darwin was invited to accompany the leader of an expedition to South America. The voyage was to last nearly five years and gave Darwin, already an enthusiastic amateur naturalist, the opportunity to collect a mass of specimens of exotic flora which he brought back with him to England. It was from this collection that the umbrella fern came which he later gave to his cousin to plant in his garden in Delamere. Another of the plants was donated to the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew. The discoveries Darwin made on his voyage and the conclusions he drew from them were to result over twenty years later in the publication of the Origin of Species, one of the most important and influential books on evolution ever to be written.

Rector Fox

Though he never achieved the eminence of Charles Darwin, William Fox also made a name for himself in his later years.

By his first wife Harriet, whom he had married in 1834, Fox had five children. Harriet, who died in 1842, is buried in Delamere churchyard. In 1846 Fox married his second wife, Ellen. She was to provide him with a further twelve children. Spacious though the Old Rectory was, it could hardly accommodate a family of seventeen children (large even by Victorian standards) plus servants, of course and it is said that the family overflowed into the neighbouring Rectory Farmhouse.

From 1861 onwards the Rector of Delamere seems to have spent more of his time on the Isle of Wight than in his Cheshire parish. Whether this was to escape from his huge family, or whether, as is more likely, it was so that he could indulge in his passion for collecting fossils is unclear. What is certain is that he began to establish a growing reputation as an amateur palaeontologist as he delved into the relics of dinosaurs on the island. It has been claimed that more species of dinosaur have been named after William Darwin Fox than after any other Englishman.

It is not easy to reconcile Fox's obsession with dinosaur fossils with his religious vocation, but it seems that many clergymen at the time were naturalists, justifying their interest by claiming that it was part of their duty to explore the wonders of God's creation. A contemporary put it more bluntly, stating that with the Reverend Fox it was "always the bones first and the parish next".

In 1873 he left Delamere and took up a curacy at Kingston on the Isle of Wight where he remained until his death in April 1880.

...And The Fern still survives in our garden and also in one or two other places in Delamere, though the one at the school disappeared some years ago.

I paid a visit not long ago to the Old Rectory to see if there were any traces of the original umbrella fern. The house has now of course become two dwellings. Both the families living mere were most helpful, as keen to find the fern as I was, but, though there were ferns aplenty in both gardens, of the original one there was no trace. Or was there? To be continued...

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Issue 10 Christmas 2006

The Quest

Alan Knowles

One of the things that I enjoy about this hobby is that when a find can be dated I like to look at what was happening at that point in history. I was not particularly interested in the subject at school and, apart from William the Conqueror and the present Queen, I couldn't tell you who ruled or when. However, the finds help to make it live. A recent find of an 1862 penny seems totally uninteresting, but when it was minted Abraham Lincoln was President of the USA and they were in the middle of a civil war.

The coin pictured below is from a considerably older time. It is a silver hammered groat of Henry VI minted between 1443 and 1445. Henry reigned from 1422 to 1471. He became King aged just 8 months old after the death of his lather Henry V, of Agincourt fame. Henry came to the throne King of England and most of France, but the year of 1429 saw Joan of Arc on the scene and this heralded the decline of English fortunes. Joan was eventually captured, sold to the English and had the misfortune to be burned at the stake.

Henry was to grow up subject to attacks of mental illness but he eventually married Margaret of Anjou and they did have a son Edward. Most of Henry's adult life saw many battles between the houses of Lancaster and York, eventually leading to the death of his son at 17 and his own execution in the Tower some months later. So ended the house of Lancaster.

The groat at today's value would be worth £10; although not a fortune, I'm sure its loss would have been keenly felt. Delamere at the time was a royal hunting preserve. One can only speculate whether the groat was lost by a poacher, forester or member of a royal hunting party. Found on the Roman road it would show that the road was still in use 1000 years after the Romans had left.

The Quest continues.

Issue 11 Feb/Mar 2007

The Quest

Alan Knowles

As a new year begins, just maybe this will be :e year that turns up that elusive Roman Coin and so the quest continues. That said it seems that finding the first one is the trick. Georgian coppers and the odd old sixpence turn up on a fairly regular basis but no three penny bits. One afternoon recently turned up 3 in a couple of hours but that's the way it goes. The coin shown in fig l. is a George III silver half sovereign dated 1817. Oh did it shine in the sun when it came out of the ground, well silver lip did. It soon became apparent that it was indeed a forgery. 1817 mad King George on the throne, the battle of Waterloo had been only 2 years before, the country was broke after the Napoleonic wars and forgery was rife. Apparently in order to stop the forgers anyone found making or trying to pass on the coins could find themselves being deported to Australia or

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hanged. I have seen told by one archaeologist that there are written accounts of the activity still continuing aboard the deportation ships. The culprits hanged from the yardarms. Some might prefer that option to the eventual destination even today.

So what of the coin itself? Did someone genuinely lose it walking, working or riding across the fields of Delamere? It would have been quite a loss in its day. Or were they returning from a day at the market or local fair when they realised what had been passed to them and quickly disposed of it As a forgery it has a more interesting history other than just an everyday loss. Alas we will never know the true nature of its loss.

Genuine Gold guineas of George ITJ dating 1787-1799 displayed the royal coat of arms on a pointed spade and hence acquired the description "spade guineas". The item in fig2 is known as an Imitation Spade Guinea. Although dated 1789 it is a deliberate error to avoid a trip to Oz, or worse. They were actually used as gaming counters and were struck in brass with a gilt finish to make them look genuine. However, they weighed a lot less than their gold counterparts. They also usually had inscriptions which made it obvious and were never really meant to be counterfeit pieces. Scores of varieties were produced to make announcements or advertise. This particular one has, In Memory of the Good Old Days on it. Ironically it was found on the old Roman Road in Delamere and again an archaeologist has told me that there are examples of Roman forged coins with the same inscription.

Pre-War Cricket

Robin Ackerley

How many readers of this newsletter can remember when there was a Delamere Cricket Club?

The club ceased playing in 1939 with the start of World War U and, sadly, never restarted after the war.

The other day I called on Denis Gore of Frith Avenue to find out more about the club. Denis played for Delamere in his early teens and is now the only surviving player.

The ground was on the opposite side of the main road from Delamere Church on land owned by the Cleggs of Abbey Wood and the pavilion was still standing long after the war.

Denis recalls matches against Cote Brook, Cuddington, Kelsall, Oulton Park and Weaverham ( all "friendly" matches: league cricket hadn't arrived at village level in those days). Delamere players in the 30s included: Bill Bragg, John Cork, Cliff Edwards, Bill Everett, Denis Gore, Bob Jeffs, Frank Jones, Albert Leech, John Leech, Raymond Lightfoot, Jack Povey, Norman Roberts and Philip Rutter. Teas were provided by Mrs Goulboume and Mrs Lewis.

If anyone has any more memories of Delamere Cricket Club - fixtures, results, photos -please let me know. Two Clubs in Delamere

Incidentally, one other club played in Delamere in the 1930s. Kelsall Cricket Club's ground was just off Morrey's Lane alongside the main road. Like Delamere C.C. the Kelsall club was disbanded in 1939 and the field ploughed up to help with the war effort. It now forms part of Morrey's Nursery. A picture of the ground and a c.1936 team picture appear in Harold Hockenhull's excellent Kelsall & Willington-A Personal Collection (see ad. on p.7) Another Club is Born

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Nine years after the war ended a group of local enthusiasts from Cuddington and Delamere got together to form a new club. The first games were played in 1954 and Denis Gore was elected captain, a post he was to hold for the next nineteen years. Over the years Oakmere Cricket Club has become one of the most active and successful in the county.

And what of Kelsall? The club was re-formed in 1989 and continues to play to this day.

Unlike in pre-war days, though, Kelsall no longer has its own ground. Many of its home fixtures in recent times have been played at Oakmere's ground in Overdale Lane.

Issue 13 June/July 2007

The Quest

Alan Knowles

These are pictures of two Roman Brooches found last year in Delamere. The first one is a Polden Hill brooch made of a copper alloy the spring having long gone. The other brooch again made of a copper alloy is a Roman trumpet brooch but is in poor condition. Both of these brooches are early Roman and date circa 75AD-174AD, which is about 100 years earlier than the Wirral type which was shown in an earlier article of this newsletter. To date I have now found 3 Roman brooches but I still endeavour to find that elusive Roman coin.

Golden Brooch (top) Small Brooch (bottom)

I will be showing these finds and many others at the Church Garden Party on July 7*.

Alan Knowles.

Issue 14 Aug/Sept 2007

The Strange Story of Whistlebitch Well

Robin Ackerley

Just off Tirley Lane, on the borders of Delamere and Utkinton, is a small well whose water comes from a spring nearby. Unless you know what you're looking for, it's not easily found; even if you were to come across it by chance you might easily dismiss it as just a muddy pond and think no more of it.

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What remains of the once famous well

Four hundred years ago, however, it was a different story. In the spring of 1600, so the story goes, a certain John Greenway of Utkinton, who had been suffering from fits, consulted a learned Phisition of Chester. The doctor advised him to find out some good pure spring water, to drink of it, to bathe and wash himselfe with it and he would quickly recover.

Acting on the doctor's advice, Mr Greenway found a pretty purling fountaine and by drinking, washing and accomplishing what he was commaunded in verie shorte time he was of his Ague thoroughly cured.

Understandably news of Greenway's rapid cure spread quickly throughout the locality and further afield. People flocked to the well, coming not only from Cheshire but also from Lancashire, Derbyshire, Staffordshire, Shropshire, Flintshire and Denbighshire and even further. Tales abounded of the miraculous cures as a result of the water from the well, of how one, Robert Bradley, who came out of

Darbishire the 24.of July, being borne at Chappell in the Frith, was led hither blind hath here reouered sight, and the fourth of august is gone home without leading...

There were instances of cures for all sorts of ailments, stories of how people had arrived at the well lame and had departed leaving their crutches behind as evidence of their cure. News of the well's healing powers spread throughout the country and at the height of its fame, so was claimed, as many as two thousand people would arrive daily.

Sadly the beneficial effects of the waters were not to continue. As part of Delamere Forest the site was on crown land and it was claimed that the huge numbers of visitors were causing damage to the Queen's forest. The well was closed to the public and before long its miraculous properties were largely forgotten, though it has continued to feature in local legend until the present day.

The name Whistlebitch Well is itself something of a mystery. It first appeared in 1813 in a Plan of Delamere Forrest, though there is no record of its having had such a name two hundred years earlier.

Today water from the well runs a few yards down to a holding tank which is used to supply water to Primrose Hill, the former keeper's cottage in the middle of the wood.

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Issue 15 Oct/Nov 2007

Eddisbury Hill

Robin Ackerley

Eddisbury Hill, with its ancient history, has long been the home of strange stories and unexplained mysteries - from the Iron Age dwellers, whose ramparts can still be seen, to the Romans, whose road passed nearby, to Alfred the Great's daughter, whose castle stood on the site of the hill fort, to the mediaeval Chamber in the Forest and the strange tale of how it came to be abandoned and more recently to the communications towers on Pale Heights and dark rumours about how they have been used for secret surveillance

The Hill

Kay George

Big skies, Vistas and panoramas, Images from holidays in wild places.

Views all around – Liverpool’s cathedrals, Jodrell Bank, Jubilee Tower on Moel Famau Close to Offa’s Dyke.

Our village nestles At the foot of Eddisbury Hill, with its traces of Neolithic and Bronze Age burials.

Then came settlers with the latest technology, People of the Iron Age, centred on the hill fort, Their ramparts still visible.

But Romans destroyed this fort Too close to their road, still discernible, Skirting the southern slopes.

The tenth century saw Aethelflaed, Lady of the Mercians, rebuilding, holding the line Against the Danes in the north.

A few centuries on, Normans hunted in Delamere, In the King’s Forest, the Forester’s Chamber Cut into the hill’s flank.

Later, land was taken for farming, Creating the Old Pale, by the millennium’s end Host to steel masts and ravens.

The twenty-first century dawned, but not for us Houses, factories or supermarkets.

We wander on gorse-clad ramparts Imagining people from millennia past.

No more ploughing, a few cattle and sheep, A mosaic of habitats, open to us all.

Will generations to come Marvel at the stones that now top the hill And wonder at their meaning?

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Wildflower meadows, trees, a stream, Ponds and marshes, larks, buzzards, goldfinches, And a big sky.

The Delamere Meridian

Malcolm Mclvor

[The following article was sent in recently by Barry Barnes of Station Road. The author, a friend of Barry's, having heard about the proposed creation of a viewing point on Pale Heights, is anxious that the historic trig point is not interfered with. The site where it stands is now owned by United Utilities!]

The 'trig point' at the top of the Old Pale is one of the most significant of all those used in the early map making by the Ordnance Survey. It was constructed initially in around 1840 as part of the triangulation programme that would enable the OS to accurately determine heights and distances of prominent land features and as such it had the status of a 'primary triangulation station'. Following this, a vast series of secondary triangulation points were set up in order that the making of large scale maps could be done with greater precision and these relied on the position of all the primary stations being correct.

The 'trig point' at Delamere became unique to the production of Ordnance Survey map making when in the 1860's it was decided to use the 'meridian' through Delamere Forest as the one on which the 'sheetlines' of all the large scale maps produced by OS would be based.

The Greenwich Meridian very quickly led off into the North Sea and so could only be used with reliability for maps south of the Wash. 3 Degrees West was tried but was not sufficiently central when mapping of Scotland was needed to standardize with that of England & Wales so the Delamere Meridian was chosen, even though its coordinates hardly rolled off the tongue at 53°i3'i7"274N, 2°4i'o3"562W, and stayed as the OS map standard meridian until the National Grid system was introduced with the 7th Series of maps in the 1940s.

This makes this structure on of the most historic in the area and every effort should be taken to retain and maintain it.

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Issue 17 Feb/Mar 2008

The Quest continues....

Alan Knowles

Once more we come to the end of another year and that Roman coin still eludes us so we look forward to success maybe this year. Interesting finds overall have been a bit scarce in general due to both work commitments and availability of suitable sites to search. Just recently, though, I was contacted by our esteemed editor to help find a very important lost family heirloom. Fortunately Gloria had marked an area on a nearby footpath where the item was thought to have been lost in the grass. After a few minutes of searching the item was found and returned. The item? Robin and Gloria's grandson's toy car which looks just like grandad's big car.

It's nice to have had at least one success last year.

Most of the written history of Delamere appears to start with the Iron Age Hillfort and then the Romans came etc. This is due to the fact that there are not many documented finds that pre-date this and without evidence you can only make assumptions. Until now that is. Whilst out walking some local fields detecting, I picked up a number of interesting stones. During a trip to the museum a couple of years ago with a collection of finds the archaeologist took one particular piece from the bottom of the box and informed me that it was a piece of flint from a Neolithic knife. During the last couple of years I have found in excess of 140 pieces, mainly flakes and chips but there are some actual tools.

The high number of finds has prompted a visit by archaeologists to the find sites. They are now in the process of writing a full report which I hope to write about later this year, though it has been 2 years in the making already. Initial thoughts are that the items are both Neolithic and Mesolithic and could have belonged to groups of nomadic tribes who went from site to site in search of food. This would date some of the items as old as 5000BC. Attached are a few pictures that make up just a small part of the collection. This should provide proof of the first residents of Delamere.

Issue 18 Apr/May 2008

How the Bettleys Came to Delamere. A Family History

Marjorie Bettley

Family History, as a hobby, is both fascinating and addictive and you find yourself inflicting snippets of historical knowledge on to your family and friends whether they want to hear it or not! Following an exchange of anecdotes, activated by articles in the 'Delamere and Oakmere News', the Editor has asked me to write a few words about the Bettley family and their 19th century

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connections to Oakmere.

Early records show a number of Bettleys in the Nantwich area and then a gradual movement towards the Tarporley district, the results of my research start with George Bettley who was born in Bunbury in 1786. Some time in the early 1800's he married a Mary from Little Budworth and they moved to the small 16 acre farm close to the Winsford road crossroads in Oakmere. They had two sons, George (1838) and Ralph (1840), both of whom could have been amongst the first pupils at Delamere School.

About the same time Thomas Bettley (1811) also from Bunbury, who could have been brother, cousin or nephew to George, married Harriet (1808) and came as a farm labourer to the farm on the opposite corner. So in the first recorded census in 1841 there they were, the two Bettleys.

Mary died in 1851 and young Ralph died aged 13 in 1853. Old George soon found himself a young Irish girl, Mary Blayne, who he married in 1851 not long after losing Mary. He was 64 and she 21. They went on to have 5 children the last of which was born when old George was 74!

Thomas became landlord of the 'beerhouse' opened on the corner, eventually to become the 'Fishpool Inn'; the couple had no children and both lived there until their death, Thomas going back to working on the farm when he was older.

In the 1871 census the Enumerator has recorded the address for both families as Bettley's Corner, was this how it was known to locals at the time, I wonder?

Old George died in 1875, aged 88 and the first son from his second marriage, Abraham, who had been working in St Helens making glass, and at Winnington, came back to the farm. He had married Mary Gleave and when she died in 1890, Mary Rutter, both local girls. He had 8 children and lived until 1930. His grave is easily found in Delamere churchyard but I have yet to find that of old George, I think it must be where there are brambles and long grass.

George (1786) and his son Abraham (1853) both had two wives called Mary! George's 2nd wife went to live with her youngest son in St Helens and Abraham's two Marys are in the grave at Delamere.

George (1838) married Eliza Price and they lived at Whitegate where they had 5 children. Their son George (1880) married Mary Hitchin and went to live in Crewe and Liverpool before returning to Delamere between the World Wars with their children thereby starting the Bettley family you may know today.

Issue 19 Oct/Nov 2008

The QUEST Ends

Alan Knowles

Sometimes we search for things that have been there all along. One of the key things in metal detecting is never to throw anything away because you never know. One such item a small smooth disc about the size of a 5p sat in a bowl on a shelf for many months and nearly went in the bin on more than one occasion. It eventually ended up in a bag of bits that found its way to Liverpool Museum. Some time later I received a telephone call from them asking where I had found the item. They then informed me the worn disc was in fact a Mark Anthony silver Denarius (Galley Type) minted in Patraea in Egypt (32-31 BC).

After the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44BC a power vacuum existed and eventually three parties agreed to share power, Octavian, Lepidus and Mark Anthony, the Triumvirate. Lepidus took control of the western provinces, Octavian stayed in Italy and Mark Anthony went to Egypt were he met Cleopatra in 41BC. The usual political in fighting went on for many years and by 32BC another civil war was beginning. These Galley type Denarius coins were used by Mark Anthony to pay the

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legions who were loyal to him with his fight against Octavian. In Sept 31 BC the great sea battle of Actium took place and Anthony and Cleopatra's navy was destroyed by Octavian's Admiral Agrippa. Anthony and Cleopatra fled to Egypt and the following year Octavian invaded Egypt. With nothing else to live for Anthony committed suicide and a few days later Cleopatra killed herself.

Below is a copy of one of the coins in fine condition. Unfortunately the original find is too badly worn to be shown. On one side is a Roman Galley and on the reverse would have been the details of the legion the coins were issued to. These go from the 1st to the 23rd legion and were minted by the thousands. So how did the one I found end up in a field in Delamere when you take into account it was over 70 years old before the Romans invaded Britain and it travelled all the way from Egypt? Well mostly they turn up worn smooth as they stayed in use for a couple of hundred years.

Mark Anthony was a well-liked general by the legions and many of the coins were kept as keepsakes or lucky charms and handed down. One of the Legions was the 20th which was the main legion in Chester for many decades.

That's the thing about this hobby: you can speculate as to how it travelled here, how was it lost. To be the first to pick up and handle a coin that was lost 2,000 years ago is quite an experience but to eventually end the Quest with such history attached is unbelievable.

Issue 23 Nov 2010

Is there anything there?

Robin Ackerley

When I was young my parents told how one evening in the late 1930s they were walking back from church with a lady who lived at Organsdale cottages. As they were about to turn into the schoolhouse their companion said, "Just come with me until I'm past the school".

"Why?" asked my mum.

"On account of the Grey Lady," she replied. "I never like walking past here on my own."

It was not to be the only time my mum and dad - and later I myself - were to hear talk of the Grey Lady. Some said she haunted the school; others that she walked the pathway between the school itself and the schoolhouse.

All I can say is that never once in the twenty-odd years I lived in the schoolhouse did I encounter any trace of this mysterious lady.

I got to thinking of the alleged haunting quite recently when I was talking to someone who's lived not far from the Old Pale for the past thirty years. We were chatting outside his home.

"Tell me," he said, "you were born near here - have you ever heard of any tales of ghosts in the area?"

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"Only the yarn about the Grey Lady down at the school," I said. "Why do you ask?"

"Well," he continued, "one summer night about twenty years ago I was walking down the lane not far from home [he pointed to an oak tree about a hundred yards from his house] when my dog suddenly stopped and refused to go an inch further. His hackles rose and he started trembling; the next moment he shot off home. Just then I felt the air change and, although it was a warm evening it suddenly turned icy cold. I felt a shiver run down my back and my hair stand on end.

"When I got into the house my wife could see something had happened to me and that the dog was still shaking."

He went on to say that he'd never suffered a like experience since.

A few days later I was recounting this to some neighbours who told me of a similar event more recently. An acquaintance of theirs was walking her dog along the footpath which leads from the top of Stoney Lane to Nettleford* Wood. She'd gone through the second gate and was by the bend near the pine trees when she heard a noise. At first she put it down to traffic on the main road, but then she heard voices and what sounded like carriage wheels. As in the previous instance the air turned cold and her dog was clearly very frightened.

With this still preying on my mind, I called on an old friend who was born and brought up at Old Pale Cottages over eighty years ago. She could throw no light on either of these stories, but she did tell me how, when they were young, she and her friends never liked going down Black Hill alone. All of them believed it was haunted.

Even the name Black Hill (the name by which the road called "Eddisbury Hill" is still known to us natives of Delamere) carries an air of mystery about it. It must have been much more dark and forbidding in the days when it was largely uninhabited

The whole of the Eddisbury hillside is of course steeped in mystery and legend, from the Iron Age hill fort (the object of so much recent investigation raising so many questions, many remaining unanswered), to the Roman soldiers passing along Watling Street to and from Deva, the home of the twentieth legion, to the Saxon fortress built by King Alfred's daughter iEthelflaed, to the mediaeval hunting lodge The Chamber in the Forest whose abandonment and decay is itself the stuff of local legend.

Little wonder, then, that our hillside still throws up the occasional unaccountable happenings...

*Nettleford Wood" is the name on all the maps of the area. Who remembers the other, local name "Timothy Wood"?

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The Hillfort Excavations

A report by Dan Garner, Project Officer Habitats and Hillforts

Eddisbury Hill Fort The hill fort as it may once have appeared. The gateway is the main area excavated this summer.

The drawing by kind permission of Philip Culver of Mold

This drawing shows the opposite view of Eddisbury Hillfort to that shown on the front page. Philip Culver produced the two sketches when visiting the site of the archaeological dig in August. This one looks north -eastwards. Anyone who visits the site can see what a wonderful vantage point it

must have been for the Iron Age settlers.

The main result of the excavation work was to expose and record one of the hillfort entrances and examine a section through the inner and outer defences of the hillfort. This has been entirely successful and we have recovered samples from the entrance way and the ramparts which we will be able to use for radiocarbon and OSL dating - providing a chronological framework for the monument that was hitherto unavailable.

There is a limit to what we can say about the results of our work until we have had our samples analysed and the radiocarbon dates have been produced - a process that will take several months to complete.

However in broad terms the key findings are:

• We found evidence for people occupying the hilltop since at least the Early Bronze Age, c.2000 BC

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• The original hillfort appears to have consisted of a single rampart (clay and stone bank) that probably had a timber revetment at the front and an outer counter-scarp bank which would have created the optical illusion of a ditch. Dating one of these earliest hilltop defences will rely on radiocarbon samples but we expect an early Iron Age date, perhaps somewhere in the range of 600 to 500 BC.

• Subsequently, a ditch was dug between the rampart and the counter-work gangs had excavated different sections of the ditch.

• On the interior of the rampart there was a parallel cobbled track way which was interspersed with tips of rubbish which mainly consisted of charcoal and burnt stones that were probably derived from episodes of cooking within the hillfort.

• The entranceway belongs with the original rampart, but it is unclear whether it was always there or added when the ditch was excavated. The entrance made use of the natural topography and in part consisted of a narrow channel carved into the sandstone rock. The sides were flanked by two rows of massive timbers which would have formed the main structure of the entrance and also supported a timber tower above. The gaps between the timbers were filled with short sections of dry stone wall that still stand to about 5ft in height (perhaps the oldest upstanding walls in Cheshire?) A pair of 'guard chambers' flanked the entrance and the floor of the southernmost 'guard chamber' was covered with the remains of burnt timber and clay which probably represented part of the superstructure. Clearly there had been a fire in the entrance and perhaps it was deliberately started during an attack?

• A second outer ditch was added to the hillfort defences and the up caste from this was used to raise the original counter-scarp bank to a similar height as the first rampart, in effect creating a second outer rampart. The second ditch was a mammoth effort as it was excavated to a depth of approximately 1 Oft into the solid sandstone rock.

• Stray finds (including a Roman glass bead) from the hillfort and the surrounding slopes indicate that the site was still being occupied in the Roman period (specifically during the second and third centuries AD), but we cannot be sure whether this was a military garrison or a Romano-British civilian settlement or farmstead.

• A small clay oven was found built into the top of the inner rampart bank and this is unlikely to have been constructed while the hillfort defences were still in use. The oven is therefore likely to be either Roman or possibly Saxon in date - the results of the radiocarbon dating should clarify this.

We are now working with the Forestry Commission towards creating some permanent site interpretation in the vicinity of the entranceway - so watch this space....

Issue 24 Spring 2012

Past Rectors of Delamere

Rev. Roland Hill 1817 – 1827 Rev. J.Brocklebank 1827 – 1837 Rev. B.Moore 1837 – 1838 Rev W.D..Fox 1838 - 1873 Rev. R.C. Garnett 1874 - 1889 Rev.Dr S. Payne 1889 -1913 Rev G.S. Payne 1913 – 1951 Rev C.H.Huggill 1951 – 1965 Rev D. E. Marrs 1966 - 1969 Rev D. R Tassell 1969 – 1974 Rev B.D.A. Spurry 1974 - 1983 Rev J.E. Richardson 1984 - 1988

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Rev S.Winton 1988 - 1995 Rev P. Reynolds 1996 - 2000

Issue 25 Oct/Nov 2012

Eddisbury archaeology

Clive George

The Habitats and Hillforts project is running another volunteer training dig in the area in August, to excavate one of the Seven Lows bronze age barrows off Fishpool Lane.

This follows the excavations on Eddisbury Hill last summer, when the original postholes were unearthed and then re-used in a reconstruction of the hillfort entrance.

Project volunteers have also been busy waymarking footpaths on and around Eddisbury Hill and Kelsborrow Hill, as well as other Cheshire hillforts.

Issue 26 December 2012

Habitats and Hillforts

Clive George

The rural character of Delamere and Oakmere is strongly influenced by the past, through the Delamere forest (which was a royal hunting ground in Norman times), as well as three of the seven prehistoric hillforts in Cheshire (Eddisbury Hill, Kelsborrow Castle, and the smaller promontory fort on the edge of Oak Mere). Over the last four years the National Lottery funded ‘Habitats and Hillforts’ project has brought the past and the present together through a wide range of activities that have been greatly appreciated by the many residents of the area who have participated. The project has covered all of the Cheshire hillforts except Oak Mere (which is on private land). Sadly it is now coming to an end, but it leaves us with an ongoing legacy that includes two books:

‘Captured Memories’, compiled by local volunteers David Joyce and Barbara Foxwell, gathers memories of people living near the hillforts and presents them alongside many photographs (old and new) and artists’ impressions of what the hillforts may have looked like in prehistoric times.

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‘Hillforts of the Cheshire Sandstone Ridge’, by project archaeologist Dan Garner, describes the archaeological work and the prehistoric information it unearthed.

To request a copy email: habitatsandhillforts@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk

The Habitats and Hillforts website also has a wealth of other information, including a range of leaflets covering self-guided walks around Eddisbury, Kelsborrow and the other main hillforts, their archaeology, and each of the main types of habitat. Other resources include a ‘Hillfort Challenge’ children’s worksheet and a ‘digital flythrough’ video of what the region might have looked like in the iron age. (http://www.cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk/microsites/habitats_and_hillforts.aspx).

Issue 28 July 2013

Minerals rights

Clive George

In issue 26 we took a look at the letters many residents had received from the Land Registry, informing them that ‘The Queen’s Most Excellent Majesty’ had applied for registration of mines and minerals under their land. Since then there have been a few developments.

At least one resident has lodged a formal objection, with no success so far. In another case the deeds of the property include a copy of a 1930 conveyance which suggests that the mineral rights do not belong to the Crown, but to Salt Union Ltd, who operate the Winsford salt works. This may make little difference to residents, but it reveals an interesting turn in the story. The conveyance says that, for the sum of £71,030, the third Baron Delamere sold (to Salt Union) the rights to all the mines and minerals, except gravel, sand and ‘like substances’, within and under Over, Weaverham, Marton, Hartford, Delamere, Davenham, Eaton and Moulton. This would appear to blow a big hole in the Crown’s claim to the rights, but Land Registry are undeterred. They say that the 1930 conveyance means nothing, because it doesn’t prove that the third Baron Delamere actually owned the rights that he sold for £71,030. Are they accusing the good Baron of fraud?

Meanwhile, we noted in the previous article that, whoever owns the rights to the minerals, there is little chance of them ever getting planning permission to work them under residential property. This would probably be true for anything that requires surface working, but what about natural gas? There has been a lot of media excitement recently about proposals for hydraulic fracturing (‘fracking’) to extract shale gas from under Lancashire and Cheshire. In the previous article we concluded that the Crown is merely taking action to preserve the rights it has had for the past two hundred years. This may well be true. However, with the prospect of a whole new North Sea under Cheshire, it could just be that the value of those rights has suddenly shot up. Small wonder that Crown Estates are so determined to keep them.

Issue 30 Spring 2014

Views from the past

Clive George

The cover picture and several others in this issue come from Tom Esser and the relatives of his neighbours, Barbara and Sid Neile, who lived at 47 Station Road. Sid died a few years ago, and when Barbara died her relatives (who live in Wiltshire) found an album of old postcards when they were clearing out the property. They thought they should stay locally, which is a nice gesture to us all, and gave them to Tom.

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The Abbey Arms, postmark 1907 The Abbey Arms, postmark 1909

The Abbey Arms, postmark 1919 The Fishpool Inn, undated

Delamere Station, postmark 1912 Caravan in the forest, postmark 1929

Ashton Road, postmark 1909 The forest struck by lightning 1915

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The Camp, Delamere Forest. The card was postmarked 1907, but the picture may date from 1902/3, when mounted infantry of the Cheshire Yeomanry were camped on what is now the golf course (probably after

serving in South Africa during the Boer War).

Issue 33 Spring 2015

Memories of Parish Councils past

Clive George

The amalgamation of Delamere and Oakmere parish councils represents a new chapter in over 200 years of history. When the parish of Delamere was created in 1812, Oakmere was one of its four ‘townships’, with no distinction between the civil parish and the ecclesiastical one. Delamere and Oakmere became separate civil parishes in 1866, governed by parish meetings or ‘vestries’. In 1894 vestries were abolished throughout the country and replaced by parish councils. Delamere and Oakmere have each had a parish council ever since, until now. To mark the occasion we have asked some of our retired and longest serving councillors to share their memories.

Delamere

Pat Wheeler

When I was on the PC in the 70’s (!!!) the clerk was a lovely man called Tom Ashbrook, who lived by Delamere School. When he came into the meetings all he had was a large ledger, a couple of pens and some spare paper to make notes. Everything was hand written. Plans had to be sent for by post and discussed when he had received them. He didn’t have a telephone of his own, so to contact any member he walked to the telephone box by the school and rang people from there. The PC still met its requirements with little fuss, and the meetings were very enjoyable. There are many times when I wish that way of life was back.

Dave Goodwin

During my time on the Council in the 1980s one of my tasks was to be the ‘footpaths officer’, walking them every year and reporting any problems to the Mid-Cheshire Footpaths Society. Another of our frequent walkers, Robert ‘Chippy’ Wood, had way markers installed along the Sandstone Trail.

Other energetic councillors in my day included Roy Penk, who helped to plant daffodils in the field alongside Frith Avenue. It had been a waste tip until we got it cleared. The woodland at Abbey Hill on Chester Road was another area being used for fly tipping and dumping old furniture. After getting a grant to have it cleared we planted another 30 beech trees, and later we put up an owl box. Mary Carter, who was head teacher at Delamere school, got the children to plant it with wild flowers. There is a badger set there now, and it is regularly visited by foxes.

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Another project with the children from the school was to plant an avenue of trees on the A54 between the Fishpool and the school. We also laid the limestone path around the woodland on Eddisbury Hill, next to the Ridge. We set up a workgroup to put in the edging, lay the stone and install the bench. We could do more with the woodland now. Perhaps a bird table? Or make it a proper nature reserve, and put up a notice, like Oakmere’s Little Wood?

PC Chairman Anthony Goulty (1985/6) plants a tree by the A54, with Alex Goodwin holding it and Mary Carter hiding behind it

John Grimshaw

I joined Delamere PC when we moved to Willington 31 years ago. Before I arrived ‘The Green’ as you see it today was created from the village tip. It is now the scene of working parties organised by me, and an annual village picnic organised in the past by Michael and Isobel McIntyre. On the subject of ‘tips’ I organised the removal of loads of rubbish below the ‘German Wall’ on Rough Low, again aided by many villagers.

When I arrived in Willington we had a traditional black and white finger post on Willington Corner. A learner driver demolished it. I found another one buried in a hedge by Willington Hall. Highways removed it to my house where I cleaned and repainted it prior to installation, with new fingers paid for by the PC.

The Green at Willington Corner

We used to have a concrete bus shelter (yes we had a bus then!), like the one that has just been replaced by Delamere School (ghastly thing!). I arranged the construction of the brick and slate one that you see today, paid for by the PC. The PC also replaced and painted the Cheshire Railings on the corner of Willington Rd and Quarry Lane. Jenny Harrison, a past Clerk to the Council, was very active in this project in particular.

Craig Keating (Vale Royal Planning)

I had a role in the work at Willington Green when I worked in the Specialist Services section of the Vale Royal Planning Dept. In those ‘good old days’ we actually had an annual budget for carrying

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out landscape enhancement projects across the District. A clay pit had been dug on the Willington site, and this had been dumped in over the years, along with ad hoc lorry and vehicle parking. As rubbish tends to attract more rubbish it was only going to get worse. A proposal to level and landscape the area with grass and trees, with two parking bays, was drawn up and displayed in the corner shop for comments. Since then the saplings have obviously developed and some of the weaker ones thinned out. Being in a village centre location, The Green has been used on a regular basis for annual village picnics and other events. It is also used by children as a play area and for picnicking.

Had The Green not been created, there may well have been pressure to develop the land for housing, and Willington would not have had such an attractive and useful amenity. Similar projects were also carried out adjacent to Station Road in Delamere and on The Yeld near Kelsall.

Jeremy Weston

When I first went on it, some time in the early 1990s, the council was enlivened by the presence of Alan Howarth, who was getting towards the end of his 40 years’ service, and who really knew what he was talking about on all local issues. Another was Anthony Goulty, who had an encyclopaedic knowledge of nearly everything, and strong views about absolutely everything. Some people found this irritating. I found it stimulating, and we had some good old rows. His name could be pronounced in various ways, but he insisted it should rhyme with mouldy poultry.

The Council rubbed along happily, not doing anything much, not spending much, and not engaging much with the community, or vice versa, until Affordable Housing became an issue in 2009/10. A survey of the residents had shown a significant demand for houses to enable local people to get a toe on the housing ladder in the village where they had been brought up. Everyone, including the Council, thought this was a Good Thing. Two planning applications soon followed. It then turned out that everyone thought it was a Bad Thing. We had two Council meetings when the applications were on the agenda, each attended by more than 70 members of the public, all wanting to have their say. That didn’t result in any affordable housing, but it did perhaps get more of the community interested in local affairs, and some new faces on the Council after the next election.

Oakmere

Katherine MacVicker

I joined OPC 25 years ago in January 1990, which is more than a life sentence, enough time to forget! My husband was the target, but was far too busy with business travel to consider co-option. Reluctantly they turned to me and I'm still here! This has been the pattern through the years. Not a single councillor since then to the present day has fought an election. Every single one has been persuaded, co-opted, and stood unopposed at election time. Everyone has had many opportunities to volunteer for the council themselves, but may not have realised it.

When I first joined Mary Carter had already been Clerk for 2 years. She had been Head Teacher of Delamere Church Primary School for many years. We used to joke that she kept the councillors in order like naughty children! Over 24 years she became a fount of knowledge.

Joan Slater was Chairman in those days. She was Mayor of Vale Royal, a borough councillor, and seemed to know everything about planning. She was very keen on site visits and we went all over the place to ‘see for ourselves’. Our favourite visit was to the Fourways Quarry, where on a warm summer’s day we had a boat trip all around the lake. We were like kids out of school. On another occasion we were driven around Crown Farm Quarry . Christopher Allen, a long term councillor and ‘birdie’, was over the moon. The digger was exposing sand martins’ nests.

John Lynch came onto the council in the 90's and stayed till the Fourways was sold in 2005. Our meetings until then were held in the Oakmere room at the Fourways. John spoiled us with coffee and biscuits, and mince pies before Christmas. Those were the days!

In the past ten years OPC has had the benefit of a wide range of talents and experience. Tony Penny

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was succeeded after a gap by his stepson Alan Lewis. Eric Hodgson was followed by his wife Diane. Philip Cowap and Angela Ford worked hard and moved on. Sylvia Alexander was a fount of local knowledge. Ron Billows gave a valuable insight into local policing. Liz Houston gave us the perspective of a young mother and was instrumental in the creation of the Oakmere Community Led Planning Framework along with Diane Hodgson, Bill McGibbon and a planning consultancy firm.

Still with us are the wise heads of Tony Overland, Yvonne Billows and our current Chairman Bill McGibbon. Our newest member is Ceri Rothwell, who has children at the school.

The Little Wood was bought at auction soon after I started. It was paid for by public donation and a grant from Vale Royal. The Forestry Commission wanted rid of it, and the fear was that a local caravan sales company might acquire it. The lovely old trees needed urgent felling for safety reasons and many locals were angry with the PC for doing this. The consequent no-mans land was replanted with young trees by Air Force Cadets led by Sandy Henderson. I can remember Mary Carter and me toiling on our knees. After 10 years or so the Little Wood became a delightful place for people of all ages and their dogs. For some years the councillors took it in turns to do safety inspections at least once a month, but with the advent of a CWaC ranger that burden has been removed. More recently Liz Houston instigated the equipping of a Childrens Play Area with sturdy equipment and a short zip wire. OPC looked for funding and eventually a special grant was received for this project.

When I was Chairman, safety at the Abbey Arms was of great concern. We persuaded the police and the planners to meet us, and challenged the police car to emerge from Abbey Lane and turn right towards Northwich on the A556. They returned to the meeting white- faced. Not long after the 50mph limit was brought in. Accidents are still far too common but the speed reduction has improved the figures.

When housing on the Fourways site was mooted the developers met with OPC to discuss plans. When LPG tanks were included as part of the plan OPC asked ‘Why not bring in mains gas from Sandiway?’ To our surprise and at significant cost to the developer, this has happened.

Some years ago, on behalf of OPC, I persuaded the Forestry Commission to provide a Permissive Path alongside the railway, between the Whitegate Way and Stonyford Lane. With the more recent opening of the Oakmere Way from Stonyford Lane to Delamere station we now have a continuous route between the Whitegate Way and Delamere Forest. This was the vision of OP Councillor Tony Overland, albeit in his role as a member of Mid Cheshire Bridleways Association, and in conjunction with the Forestry Commission, Tarmac and Natural England.

The Oakmere Way

When housing on the Fourways site was mooted the developers met with OPC to discuss plans. Perhaps our most recent challenge has been to ‘Save the North’, that is all of Oakmere north of the

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railway, from being transferred to Norley in the Local Governance Review. Residents were canvassed and a significant majority preferred to maintain the status quo. We said we were ‘proud to live in Oakmere’. Now, as we amalgamate with Delamere, it is important that Oakmere Ward retains its particular character and identity while gaining strength from working together.

Issue 34 Summer 2015

Delamere Forest Golf Club

Clive George

Previous issues of the newsletter have featured the cricket club, the polo club and the equestrian centre at Kelsall Hill, but not, until now, the golf club. It’s about time we put that right, since Delamere Forest Golf Club has a proud history and is widely regarded as one of the finest traditional heathland golf courses in the country. It has been rated 62nd in the Top 100 Golf Courses in England, and the best inland course in Cheshire.

The club was founded in 1910 when eleven local businessmen got together to raise sufficient funds to design and build the course and clubhouse on land leased from the Crown (the freehold was purchased some 50 years later). The club’s first and only President was Hugh Grosvenor, the 2nd Duke of Westminster. One of the founder members was the prominent local architect Alfred Powles, who designed the stunning clubhouse with its traditional Cheshire black and white exterior. The original clubhouse, built over 100 years ago, has been substantially improved in recent years.

The celebrated golf architect Herbert Fowler was engaged to design the course, and a team of local farm workers was recruited to carry out the work. Fowler used the contours of the land to create a course that would test every aspect of a golfer’s ability, with rolling fairways interspersed with heather and gorse, and fast, subtle greens. As a result the course offers a fair but tough challenge to visitors and members alike.

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Since its foundation Delamere has built strong links with the County, hosting the inaugural Cheshire County Meeting in 1921. In addition the annual Doris Chambers Ladies County Competition and the County Boys’ Championship have been held at the club for over 30 years.

In 2012 the club took the momentous decision to strengthen the course and reinstate its original heathland character. The renowned golf architects Mackenzie and Ebert, who had recently completed the remodelling of Royal Lytham and St Anne’s for the Open Championship, were commissioned to carry out the task. The work commenced in late 2012 and is now complete. Every bunker has been returned to the original Fowler design and all of the greens have been increased in size to provide additional options and run-off areas.

As a result the century-old character of Delamere has been reinstated. and a new Blue Course of over 6600 yards including 8 new tees is available for County and National events.

Issue 35 Autumn/Winter 2015

The Night of the Air Raid November 1940

by Jeannie Ashbrook

This account of a night in the wartime history of Delamere was written for her daughter Lynn by Jeannie Ashbrook, shortly before her death at the age of 97 in August this year. Our thanks go to the Ashbrook family, who passed it on for the Newsletter.

Soldiers were billeted at The Fourways and Granny1, who had a heart of gold, invited any of them to come and share an evening just whenever they felt the need of a bit of home comfort – and they often did. They warned her that decoys had been set up on Eddisbury Hill and, if the sirens went, to get out quickly and go down to the air-raid shelter2. (The decoys were intended to attract the bombers from Liverpool).

It was my afternoon off. As usual I went home to Kelsall, did a bit of baking, had some tea and about 6.30 I went out to get my bicycle ready to go back to Delamere for my night on first-aid duty. A very low-flying plane came over, just seemed to fly over the garden. Dad pulled me back indoors. I waited until there was a quiet spell and then set off. I had a terrifying journey. I kept having to get off my bike and flatten myself against walls or hedges or dive into the forest. It was perilous, but somehow I got safely through to the Abbey Arms, which was the first-aid post.

Your dad3 was out with the ARP, but they all joined us and because the air-raids were so bad we all

1 Mrs Ashbrook, who lived at Old Pale Cottages and was Jeannie’s mother-in-law.

2 Three air-raid shelters had been built in the field just beyond the school grounds.

3 Jeannie’s husband, Fred.

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ended up in the Abbey Arms cellars, customers too, for no one dared venture out to go home. Just every now and again someone would just go out and check round. I don’t remember what time it would be but things quietened down, although I don’t remember the all-clear sounding, but by some instinct your dad and me just got our bikes and said we were going.

It seemed very quiet after all the noise of bombs going off and the planes zooming about. It was moonlight, seemed as light as day. As we came down the Black Hill I remarked to your dad that the moonlight made the two cottages look a queer shape, but as we got nearer we could see that they were practically demolished. One was flattened. There was no one about so we went off down to the shelters. Everyone was safely there except Grandad. He had stayed behind to change his slippers and Granny thought he had gone up to the farm to sit with Mrs. Frith as Mr. Frith4 was on ARP duty.

Some officials came to tell them about the cottage. When they found that Grandad was missing they went to find him and advised us to stay put as there were still some aircraft about, but we were not very easy sitting there numbed with shock, so eventually everybody went back to their homes and we set off back up the lane. The sight was just horrific; men were searching about in the rubble and we joined them crawling about on our hands and knees. I can’t describe it. Only if you have seen bombed cities on the telly can you imagine it.

We found the dog safely in his kennel and the canary in its cage. Then suddenly the local bobby said, “Here’s the old man”. Grandad was only 52. We went to someone’s cottage and stayed for a while. Then we all went to Uncle Tom’s5 house and we all stayed there until the funeral. How we slept in just two rooms, it all seems vague. I just don’t seem to remember much about it, only visitors. They had no clothes. Everything was smashed. After the funeral I went to the farm.

That Christmas in Delamere School Granny cooked a dinner for all the soldiers. I really don’t know how but I think the Army must have provided the food. I don’t see how we could have mustered it up.

Later Granny was given a house in Frith Avenue. She had some soldiers billeted with her and she used to have their families to stay at weekends. One of them, Amy, invited your dad and me to stay in London with them and I kept in touch with her until two years back.

Postscript

by Robin Ackerley

Where the two Old Pale Cottages stood remained a bomb site until 1967 when my parents were able to buy the land from Norman Frith and our bungalow – The Paddock - was built. The two houses that were destroyed were replaced in 1943 by 3 & 4 Old Pale Cottages; these were built by a Winsford builder, Billy Noden.

I remember my parents telling their account of what happened on the night that Jeannie has written about. When the sirens went all the people from the surrounding area made their way to the air-raid shelters. Granny Ashbrook said her husband would be following shortly. A little later three men who worked at the Old Pale farm with Mr. Ashbrook came into the shelter. They sat on their own and didn’t speak to anyone.

When after some time Mr.Ashbrook had not appeared, it was decided to go and look for him and his body was discovered. It was only then that the three men who had come into the shelter told what had happened. Passing by the cottages they decided to call and see if anyone was still there. They found Mr.Ashbrook lying dead outside the back door. Shocked by what they had seen they walked down the lane to the shelters, but couldn’t bring themselves to speak about what they had seen.

4 Norman Frith, owner of the Old Pale Farm.

5 Tom Ashbrook, one the three sons of the deceased.

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It seems that Mr.Ashbrook had been killed by the blast from a bomb that had fallen a little way from his home. Another bomb had subsequently fallen directly onto the cottages. Had the three men spoken up when they arrived at the shelter a party would have undoubtedly gone up to the site resulting in even more fatalities.

Note: The first name on the World War Two plaque in Delamere Church commemorating those who fell in the war is that of Charles Ashbrook. He is the Grandad mentioned as the bomb victim in this account.

Issue 36 Spring 2016

History in the pipeline

Clive George

Many readers will have looked along the railway line from the bridge at Delamere station, wondering what those huge pipes are.

Many others will know exactly what they are – Liverpool’s water supply. They bring the water all the way from Lake Vyrnwy, an artificial lake in Powys that was created for the purpose in the 1880s . The pipes are known as the Vyrnwy Aqueduct, which comes via Oswestry, Malpas and Tarporley to enter Delamere on the edge of Cotebrook, before heading off to tunnel under the Mersey and on to a reservoir at Prescot.

The aqueduct is only visible where it crosses the railway line, and you won’t find it on a current Ordnance Survey map, but its underground route is marked on the 1910 OS map (available at http://maps.cheshire.gov.uk/tithemaps/TwinMaps.aspx).

After feeding an underground reservoir to the west of Cotebrook the aqueduct passes under Stable Lane at the junction with Sadler’s Lane, then cuts across the fields to meet Fishpool Road at the

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bend by Ottersbank and Fishpool Lane Farm. From there it runs along Fishpool Road and the Oakmere side of Abbey Lane and Station Road until it veers east to cross the railway line. It re-joins the road a little further on in the forest, to follow it as far as the Hatchmere crossroads. Apart from the railway crossing the only visible structures are a series of air valves at summits in the undulating pipeline (to release trapped air) and sluice valves (to close sections of the aqueduct for maintenance work).

When the aqueduct was laid it cut through the Roman road from Chester to Manchester at the foot of Eddisbury Hill. The road is shown on the 1910 OS map, along with the aqueduct. It was recorded as being up to 13 metres wide with a gravel surface of considerable depth, mixed with broken stones. Other 19th century records report that another section of the Roman road was visible nearby where it passed Thieves’ Moss.

When the 68-mile aqueduct was opened in 1891 it was the longest in the world, supplying Liverpool with up to eighteen million gallons of water a day, flowing under gravity through a single 1 metre diameter pipe. It now carries nearly three times as much, through the addition of two extra pipes (in 1905 and 1938) and the introduction of booster pumps to increase the pressure. A phased programme of renovation is currently under way, to remove deposits from the inside of the pipes.

Photo Wikipedia

The creation of Lake Vyrnwy is a story in itself. The dam to retain the water broke another world record, the highest masonry dam that had ever been built (144 feet high, and 127 feet thick at the base). The Liverpool Corporation spared no expense from its corporate-funded coffers in building it, decorating the top with masonry arches and two small towers, and erecting a Gothic-style fairy castle to house the Water Bailiff's quarters above the water outlet system.

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Photo Wikipedia

When the reservoir was filled it submerged the village of Llanwddyn, including the church, the chapel, the post office, three inns, ten farmhouses, 37 houses and the country estate of Eunant Hall. A new village of Llanwddyn was built for the residents, further down the valley in front of the new dam. Deceased residents were re-housed in the new church cemetery. The old village can still be seen under the water in times of drought when the water level falls.

The lake is now a popular tourist attraction whose water quenches thirsts further afield than Liverpool. It provides the main ingredient of Bombay Sapphire gin.

Issue 38 Autumn/Winter 2016

Two Hundred Years of Worship - the Bi-centenary of St.Peter’s Church, Delamere

Robin Ackerley

On 18th September a service was held in St.Peter’s to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the laying of the foundation stone. The Rector, the Reverend Elaine Ollman, took the service and the address was given by the Venerable Michael Gilbertson, the Archdeacon of Chester.

The original event took place on Tuesday, 3rd September 1816 and was reported in some detail in the following Friday’s edition of the Chester Chronicle. The account described how a party of dignitaries had foregathered at the Globe Inn, Kelsall (now, after several recent changes of name, known as the Lord Binning). From there they had processed two miles to the site of the new church. There the formal ceremony of the laying of the stone was performed by Sir John Grey-Egerton of Oulton Hall.

There is a plaque commemorating the occasion on the inside of the west wall of the church (near the font), but the precise location of the stone itself must forever remain a mystery…..

Fifteen months later the building was complete and on Thursday 27th November 1817 the service of consecration was held in the presence of the Archbishop of Chester.

Numerous events will take place over the months leading up to the anniversary. One, the restoration of the church clock, has already taken place.

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The new church clock

As Revd Elaine has reported in her letter above, the church clock has been refurbished as part of the St Peter’s bi-centenary celebrations. The results are quite spectacular!

Before After

During After

(photos Glyn Roberts)

The Forest of the Meres

Clive George

“As I advanced, the country became even more dark and dreary-looking, being, in fact, little more than a black, boggy waste—perilous to anyone who should attempt to cross it at night, from its numerous pitfalls, and treacherous quagmires and morasses. Whoso incautiously approached too near one of the latter would be infallibly engulfed in its oozy bed. This black and sterile waste, which of the vast woods that had once covered it could only now boast a few stunted trees, was, in fact, the famous Delamere Forest.”

This is not some gloom-monger’s vision of a dismal future, but how William Harrison Ainsworth described the forest in 1857, in his novel Mervyn Clitheroe.

“The meeting in Delamere Forest”, as illustrated in the novel Mervyn Clitheroe

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The atmospheric setting for Ainsworth’s story wasn’t entirely imaginary. It echoes what John Aikin wrote of his travels around Manchester in 1795: “the forest of Delamere, which in the time of Leland was a fair and large forest abounding with red and fallow deer, now is a black and dreary waste, composed of deep sand or sterile heath, and chiefly inhabited by rabbits”.

What went wrong? Aikin’s reference to abundant deer comes from John Leland’s Itinerary in England and Wales, published in about 1540. The forest was still in good shape when William Webb visited it a hundred years later, as described in his Itinerary of Eddisbury Hundred of 1656: “by Cuddington, wherein is divers pretty farms, we fall into the spacious forest of Delamere itself; ... which forest is a very delectable place for situation, and maintaineth not only a convenient being and preservation for his majesty's deer, both red and fallow, whereof there is no small store, but also a great relief to the neighbouring borders and townships round about it”.

Part of the answer to what went wrong can be found in George Ormerod’s 1819 History of Cheshire. He described Webb’s glowing description as representing the last stage of the forest’s existence as a royal hunting ground, which had been its status for over 500 years. William the Conqueror had assigned the whole of the Forest de la Mara (Delamere) and the adjoining Forest of Mondrem to the newly appointed Earl of Chester, as a reward for his father having contributed sixty ships to William’s invasion fleet. The new Earl adopted the twin forests as a hunting ground for deer and wild boar, and when the earldom lapsed in 1237 the title Earl of Chester was given to the heir to the throne and the forest rights passed to the Crown.

After the founding of Vale Royal Abbey by King Edward I most of Mondrem was cleared for agriculture, but the “Forest of the Meres” remained intact as a royal hunting ground until the Civil War and the execution of King Charles I. The next hundred years or so were all downhill. The deer were killed off, and clearance for agriculture progressively diminished the wooded area. Much the same happened to almost all the Crown forests, and in 1786 the Middleton Commission was appointed to review them. This painted a gloomy picture of neglect, with a large part of the royal forests lying treeless and idle, vast areas totally unproductive, and little being done to improve them. By the early nineteenth century Delamere Forest was essentially heathland, in the sorry state described by Aikin and Ainsworth.

The recovery towards the forest we know today began as a fortuitous by-product of the Napoleonic Wars. Timber was in great demand for building ships for the Royal Navy and also for making gunpowder. The government called on landowners to plant trees, and then through the 1812 ‘Act of Enclosure for Delamere Forest’ (which created the parish of Delamere) the Crown set aside half its landholding for the production of timber. Apart from the land allocated to the new parish’s new church (completed in 1817) and new school (in 1846), the rest was sold to raise funds. A century later timber production suffered another crisis through the demands of the First World War, resulting in the creation of the Forestry Commission in 1919. Producing timber remained the Commission’s top priority until the 1960s, when nature conservation and recreation began to play an increasing role.

The forest is now a lot smaller than it was, but if it weren’t none of us would be living here. Until 1812 Delamere existed only as the forest, and Oakmere only as one of the meres in the forest. The only significant habitation was a grand hunting lodge on Merrick’s Hill (the “Chamber in the Forest”) and a scattering of foresters’ cottages.

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from Christopher Saxton’s 1577 map of Cheshire

It was different back in the iron age, when Eddisbury Hill was an important defended settlement, and again when the Romans came and built their road across the side of the hill, and again in the time of Alfred the Great, whose formidable daughter Ethelfleda refortified it to help keep out the invading Danes. The forest of today has no deer or wild boar, but it offers more peace and quiet than it did then.

Issue 39 Spring 2017

The boggy forest

from Katie Piercy, Cheshire Wildlife Trust

Did you know the words ‘wood’ and ‘forest’ were once not as synonymous as they are today? Like many of our words they originated from languages from across the shore and were brought to Britain by settlers, traders and conquerors. The word ‘wood’ came originally from a Germanic language, having the same root as the modern German word ‘Wald’ and meant an area of trees, much the same as it does today. ‘Forest’ however, brought to England by the Normans, had quite a different meaning. Once, ‘Forest’ would have denoted an area beyond the enclosures, where deer and other wild grazing animals were allowed to roam. Literally translated it can mean ‘outside’. But why does all this matter?

Well where it starts to get interesting is where our modern notions of a forest, filled with thick stands of trees, butts up against the historic meaning of forest, an area for deer and game. This particularly applies to the ancient Royal Hunting Forests scattered across the country, from the New forest, to Sherwood Forest, to our very own Delamere Forest, which was once part of the Royal Hunting Forests of Mara and Mondrem. These forests were created by the Normans as areas for the hunting of large game by the royal family and aristocracy of the times. For common people the areas had strict laws preventing them from hunting game, enclosing the area, or even cutting down trees. However something which is often misinterpreted is that these areas were entirely wooded. In fact large areas of open heathland, grasslands and mosslands existed within these forests, ideal for the large grazing herds that inhabited them. Wooded areas were also common but not necessary for the area to be designated a Hunting Forest.

Today it is believed that the forest of Mara was only sparsely populated with trees, with Delamere in particularly possessing large open areas due to the presence of the meres and mosses. These boggy sites were mostly unsuitable for trees to take root in and had been present in the landscape

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since the end of the last Ice Age approximately 15,000 years ago. Created when a large glacial ice sheet began to retreat north due to the warming climate, the meres and mosses formed as sediment-filled water washed down from the melting ice sheet and resulted in a glacial lake being created, a delta within which became modern-day Delamere. Glacial moraines and kettle-holes (depressions in the landscapes where large blocks of ice were left stranded by the retreating glacier) created an undulated terrain ideal for the formation of the meres and mosses, which sprung up in their hundreds across this area.

A forest mossland. Photo by Andrew Walmsley.

Alongside the meres and mosses there were areas of lowland heathland. Over the last 100 years we’ve lost 84% of our lowland heathlands, which are important areas for all kinds of amazing wildlife from cuckoos to adders to a vast array of butterflies, spiders and other insects. Today little of this heathland remains, and many of the meres and mosses were lost due to drainage.

A grass snake in the forest. Photo by Chris Gilbert.

After the removal of forestry law, which protected it from enclosure, in 1812 Delamere drastically changed. Many of the meres and mosses were drained and large areas of oak and sweet chestnut were planted. Over the next few hundred years the forest was replanted with various tree species from Scot’s pine to Hemlock and today it is a commercial forest, managed for recreation and the production of timber. Although there are some small areas of ancient woodland remaining most of the trees we see today have been planted, or have naturally grown up, since forestry law was removed from the area. Today many species benefit from this large wooded area, but until recently those species which relied on the open areas, the heathlands, grasslands and meres and mosses, had dwindled or disappeared. However, since the 1990s restoration work has been ongoing to bring back some of these rare and valuable habitats into the forest, such as Great Blakemere moss which the Forestry Commission began restoring in 1998. For many this can seem like a big change in the character of the forest, however for the forest itself, which was once a mixture of trees and open spaces, it’s actually a step back in time, back to the days when Delamere was a place ‘outside’ the normal landscape, when it was a Royal Hunting Forest.

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High politics at Crabtree Green

Clive George

For one brief moment Crabtree Green (the patch of land around the junction of Stonyford Lane, Hogshead Lane, and the A556) played a somewhat inglorious but nonetheless significant part in British history. The date was 12th September 1682. The event was a horse race.

Horse racing was at the time the biggest spectator sport in the country (after football it is still the second biggest). One the craftiest political campaigners of the time, Thomas Wharton (eventually to become the first Marquess of Wharton), had mastered the art of using sporting heroics to woo the massed crowds. Their hero was King Charles II’s illegitimate son the Duke of Monmouth, the chief figurehead of Wharton’s campaign to keep Britain out of Europe. ‘Europe’ then meant Rome rather than Brussels, and popery rather than bureaucracy, but opinion for and against was even more sharply divided than it is now.

The two sides in Parliament labelled each other with two old terms of abuse, “Whig” (meaning horse-thief), for those wanting out, and “Tory” (meaning papist outlaw), for those wanting in. The Tories had never forgiven Henry VIII for breaking away from Rome in the original Brexit, and were hoping to get back in when the king’s brother James, who had converted to Catholicism, succeeded to the throne. The Whigs had other ideas, and fostered the suggestion that the Protestant Duke of Monmouth’s mother had secretly married Charles II, so that he was the legitimate heir. After a failed attempt to get James excluded from the succession through an Act of Parliament, Wharton intensified his campaign to stir up popular support for Monmouth.

Wharton was the owner of a horseracing stud, and Monmouth was an accomplished rider. As part of his campaign Wharton organised a race at Wallasey, and entered one of his best horses in Monmouth’s name. The Tories got wind of this, and sponsored a rival meet in Delamere Forest. The record doesn’t say exactly where this was, but it was almost certainly at Crabtree Green, which had been used as a racecourse since the middle of the century. When Wharton heard about this he muscled in on the forest event by entering another of his best horses, again in Monmouth’s name. The Monmouth horses won both races, with Monmouth himself in the saddle at Wallasey. When the news reached Chester bonfires were lit, church doors were broken open to ring the bells, and the streets were filled with cries of “Monmouth, Monmouth!”.

The young duke’s soaring popularity didn’t do him any good. Three years later he was dead. His attempt at a full scale rebellion failed and he was executed. But Wharton and the other Whigs still got the pro-Brexit monarch they wanted. They got two. Barely six years after the horserace at Crabtree Green, Charles II had died, the Catholic James II had fled the country, and his Protestant daughter Mary was sharing the throne with her husband William of Orange.

And Crabtree Green? It continued to have race meetings until the early nineteenth century.