Cheadle is first attested in the Domesday Book of 1086, in the forms Celle and Cedla. The first part of the name comes from the Common Brittonic word which survives in modern Welsh as coed ("woodland"), and was thus once a place-name meaning "wood". As Old English became the dominant language in the area, this place-name became the basis for a new one through the addition of the Old English word lēah ("clearing in woodland"), which thus meant "cleared land at Ced".[3][4]:334
History
Cheadle appears in Domesday Book as held by the lord of the manor, Robert of Stafford, at the time the area covered 6 miles by 3 miles and listed 9 families. In 1176 the Basset family acquired the manor of "Chedle" and in 1250 Ralph Basset was granted a market charter and annual fair by King Henry III.
Cheadle Market 2019
In 1309, 75 families are recorded as using a corn-grinding mill sited near Mill Road. Fifty years later, a new church was built in the village replacing a 12th-century structure and this church remained in use until 1837.
In 1606 a school was founded by the church, and in 1685 the then curate of the parish, Rev, Henry Stubbs, left an endowment to found a grammar school in Cheadle. The school was built at Monkhouse (behind the High Street) and was active until 1917. The endowment continues to this day. The Monkhouse is currently home to 3rd Cheadle Scout Group.
By 1676 Cheadle's population is recorded as just over one thousand, and a hundred years later (1772) as one thousand eight hundred. At this time the main source of employment was agriculture and farming. During the same period a new workhouse was built and opened. It was extended under the Cheadle Union an 1837. Part of the original building was demolished in 1909, renamed an infirmary. The whole complex was demolished in 1987 and a new hospital was built on the site, which was opened in 1989 by Princess Anne.
In 1798, 10 weavers houses were built. The weavers lived downstairs and the looms for the manufacture of tape were upstairs. By the 1820s the looms were transferred into a factory in Tape Street. This tape factory closed in 1972, and is now a shop. In 1851 silk and narrow fabric mills were built in Cheadle. They employed hundreds of operatives, and closed in 1981.
In the Brookhouses area of Cheadle in 1725, the Cheadle Brass and Copper Company started production, transferring to the Oakamoor area 100 years later under the company name Thomas Patten. It was bought in 1851 by Thomas Bolton of Birmingham. In 1890 Bolton's opened a factory at Froghall and the Oakamoor works were eventually closed in 1963.
St Giles' Catholic Church opened in 1846. Its 200 feet (61m) spire still dominates the town today.[5] It was built by Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin, who was commissioned by John Talbot, 16th Earl of Shrewsbury to create a church that "would have no rival". To achieve his aim, Talbot gave Pugin unlimited resources with which to build it.[6][7] The church is more commonly known as 'Pugin's Gem', and is the centre of a local tourist event known as 'Discover the Secret'. Cheadle Town Hall was completed in 1894.[8]
At the turn of the 20th century the first open air swimming baths were constructed at Brookhouses, and telephone installation began in 1904. In 1901 Cheadle was linked to the railway network by the Cheadle Railway, operated and later owned by the North Staffordshire Railway, with the building of a railway station at Majors Barn, giving access to further industries and movement of passengers. At a later period sand, gravel and aggregates used for building purposes were transported from the station as well as coal.
The first motor car arrived in Cheadle in 1903, and the first licensed omnibus service – Cheadle to Longton – commenced in January 1914.
One of the British Signals Intelligence Y-stations called RAF Cheadle was situated at Woodhead Hall, from land purchased by the Air Ministry playing a vital role in helping intercept German Luftwaffe radio communications during the Second World War.
The 200 feet (61m) spire of St Giles' Catholic Church dominates Cheadle's skyline.[5] Known as "Pugin's Gem",[9] it is considered to be the most complete expression of Pugin's beliefs about what a church ought to be, with everything in it having a practical and symbolic purpose.[5] The church featured heavily in local events celebrating the 200th anniversary of the birth of Pugin.
The town also has an Anglican church dedicated to St Giles. It was totally rebuilt in 1837–39 to the design of J. P. Pritchett, but incorporating fragments and furniture from the earlier church. There is also a strong Methodist tradition in Cheadle, and in the 19th century it was the various Methodist chapels around the Cheadle area which taught many of the young boys who worked on the farms or in the coal mines to read and write. There is a large modern Methodist church in the town.
South-west end of High Street, near the parish church.
Cheadle is a base for exploring the Peak District National Park area, which is popular with walkers and rock climbers. Surrounded by lofty hills, Cheadle is the gateway to the wooded Churnet Valley and the Staffordshire Moorlands. It is also around 4 miles (6.4km) from the Alton Towers Resort.
Cecilly Brook Local Nature Reserve is near the centre of town. It is one of the most important breeding sites for water voles in Staffordshire.[10] There are 42 acres of landscaped lakes at the JCB factory. Local leisure facilities are at Cheadle Recreation Ground and South Moorlands Leisure Centre.
The High Street of Cheadle has many old buildings and is little changed from how it looked in the Victorian era.
Economy
JCB Earthmovers factory
Cheadle is mentioned in Domesday Book as a small and unimportant hamlet with a small population. The town grew steadily over the next few hundred years, with the development of industry and agriculture. The historic industries that the town has depended on have been coal mining, silk, agriculture, brass making and the historic copper industry in nearby Froghall and Oakamoor. The town and the nearby village of Tean also had a textiles industry in tape weaving: the mill has since been converted into flats.
For hundreds of years the main industry in the Cheadle area was coal mining. The Cheadle Coalfield was part of the much larger North Staffordshire Coalfield. The town and the surrounding area were once home to over sixty mines, but the Industry declined in the 20th century, and one by one the remaining larger pits were closed; Parkhall (now the home to the JCB factories) and Hazlewall in the 1930s, New Haden in 1943 and Foxfield in 1965. However opencast mining and small scale adit mining carried on in Cheadle up until the 1990s.
Today the town's main employer is the large JCB factories. There are also several small industrial units on the site of the former New Haden Colliery and the local Alton Towers Resort employs many of its work force from the Cheadle area. A lot of people in the town commute to Stoke-on-Trent, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Uttoxeter and Derby.
Markets are held in the market place on Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays.[11]
Media
The Cheadle and Tean Times
Cheadle and Tean Times office
The Cheadle and Tean Times has been publishing newspapers weekly in the town since 1896. The only family run and independent newspaper in North Staffordshire, it is known by townsfolk as the Stunner.
Cheadle used to be served by a branch line opened in 1901 from Cresswell which was a station on the North Staffordshire Railway Crewe to Derby Line. It took almost thirty years of petitioning by the local coalmasters and notables in the town for the Cheadle Railway Company to build the small branch line and station. Even though the branch was only about four miles (6km) long it was difficult to build as a tunnel had to be constructed under the huge Bunter Sandstone Hill at Huntley. The tunnel was very wet and plagued by problems with its roof. In the 1930s the LMS Railway, which had taken over the North Staffordshire Railway, built a diversion line around Huntley tunnel and abandoned it. The tunnel survives because it was used as a coal mine in the '70s and '80s, and the southern portal remains; however the northern portal has long been filled in. With the opening of the branch line to Cheadle it meant that New Haden Colliery and Parkhall Colliery now had connections to the rail network, and Cheadle in general had its long-awaited rail connection to the outside world. The line closed to passenger traffic in 1963 but remained open to serve local gravel quarries until 1982.
Bus services to Cheadle were provided by PMT until it was bought out by First Group. The service 32, First Potteries operate an hourly service to Hanley. D&G Bus operate service 32X which also serves Hanley every hour and service E1 to Alton Towers. Town service 123 is operated by Bennetts while service 30 to Leek is operated by Aimee's, 3 times per day.
Notable people
Caricature of Henry Wiggin, published in Vanity Fair, 16 April 1892William Harris
Staffordshire is a landlocked ceremonial county in the West Midlands of England. It borders Cheshire to the north-west, Derbyshire and Leicestershire to the east, Warwickshire to the south-east, the West Midlands county and Worcestershire to the south, and Shropshire to the west. The largest settlement is the city of Stoke-on-Trent, and the county town is Stafford.
Leek is a market town and civil parish in Staffordshire, England, on the River Churnet 10 miles (16 km) north east of Stoke-on-Trent. It is an ancient borough and was granted its royal charter in 1214.
Uttoxeter is a market town and civil parish in the East Staffordshire borough of Staffordshire, England. It is near to the Derbyshire county border.
The River Churnet is a river in Staffordshire, England. It is a tributary of the River Dove.
Market Drayton is a market town and civil parish on the banks of the River Tern in Shropshire, England. It is close to the Cheshire and Staffordshire borders. It is located between the towns of Whitchurch, Wem, Nantwich, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Newport and the city of Stoke on Trent. The town is on the Shropshire Union Canal and bypassed by the A53 road.
Biddulph is a town in Staffordshire, England, 8.5 miles (14 km) north of Stoke-on-Trent and 4.5 miles (7 km) south-east of Congleton, Cheshire.
Staffordshire Moorlands is a local government district in Staffordshire, England. Its council is based in Leek, the district's largest town. The district also contains the towns of Biddulph and Cheadle, along with a large rural area containing many villages. North-eastern parts of the district lie within the Peak District National Park.
BBC Radio Stoke is the BBC's local radio station serving Staffordshire and South Cheshire.
The Churnet Valley Railway is a preserved standard gauge heritage railway in the Staffordshire Moorlands of Staffordshire, England. It operates on part of the former Churnet Valley Line which was opened by the North Staffordshire Railway. The railway is roughly 10.5 miles (16.9 km) long from Kingsley and Froghall to Ipstones. The land from Leek Brook Junction to Ipstones was opened by Moorland & City Railways (MCR) in 2010 after they took a lease out from Network Rail. This has subsequently been purchased by the Churnet Valley Railway. The main stations along the line are Kingsley and Froghall, Consall, Cheddleton and Leek Brook. Work has begun to extend the line to the town of Leek which will act as the northern terminus of the line. The line between Leek and Waterhouses has also been reopened as part of the heritage railway as far as Ipstones.
Dilhorne is an ancient parish and village in Staffordshire, three miles from Cheadle and six miles from Stoke-on-Trent. The village is within the Staffordshire Moorlands area.
Froghall is a village situated approximately ten miles to the east of Stoke-on-Trent and two miles north of Cheadle in Staffordshire, England. Population details as taken at the 2011 Census can be found under Kingsley. Froghall sits in the Churnet Valley, a beautiful and relatively unspoilt part of Staffordshire. There are some excellent and challenging walks in the area, many of which encompass the area's historic development by the coal, ironstone, copper and limestone industries.
The Cheadle branch line was a railway line of just under 4 miles (6.4 km) in length that served the town of Cheadle, Staffordshire. It was in operation as a passenger line from 1892 to 1963, and closed altogether in 1986. It took 46 years from conception to completion and was notable in that part of the line had to be practically rebuilt partway through its existence.
St Giles' Church is a Roman Catholic church in the town of Cheadle, Staffordshire, England. The Grade I listed Gothic Revival church was designed by Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin and built between 1841 and 1846 for the Earl of Shrewsbury. It is in Decorated style, and is highly decorated on the outside and the inside, and has a tall steeple. The interior is painted throughout, and is floored with patterned tiles. Almost all the furniture and fittings were designed by Pugin, including the piscina, sedilia, a recess for an Easter Sepulchre, the reredos, font, font cover, pulpit, and screen. The spire is 200 feet (61 m) high and the church by far the tallest building in the town.
The Churnet Valley line was one of the three original routes planned and built by the North Staffordshire Railway. Authorised in 1846, the line opened in 1849 and ran from North Rode in Cheshire to Uttoxeter in East Staffordshire. The line was closed in several stages between 1964 and 1988 but part of the central section passed into the hands of a preservation society and today operates as the Churnet Valley Railway.
Weston Coyney is a suburb of the City of Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire. It lies on the south eastern edge of the city and borders the neighbouring Staffordshire Moorlands district.
Tean is a large village in the civil parish of Checkley in the Staffordshire Moorlands district, in the county of Staffordshire, England. It is around 15 miles (24 km) south-east of Stoke-on-Trent. The River Tean runs through the village, heading east towards Uttoxeter.
Totmonslow is a hundred in the county of Staffordshire, England. The hundred is in the north-east of Staffordshire and is named after the hamlet of the same name, which is a half mile east of Draycott in the Moors. The hamlet was the seat of the hundred court.
Leek railway station is the proposed and future terminus of the Churnet Valley Railway and is currently awaiting construction. It will be the second railway station in Leek.
The Biddulph Valley line was a double tracked line that ran from Stoke-on-Trent to Brunswick Wharf in Congleton. The line was named after the town of the same name as it ran via the Staffordshire Moorlands and covered areas of East Staffordshire and Cheshire.
Cheadle Rural District was a rural district in the administrative county of Staffordshire, England from 1894 to 1974, covering an area in the north of the county centred on the small town of Cheadle.
↑ Plant, Robert (1881). History of Cheadle, in Staffordshire, And Neighbouring Places. Leek: William Clemesha. p.317 + xvi. ASIN B00088XLDW.
↑ Watts, Victor, ed. (2004). The Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names, Based on the Collections of the English Place-Name Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN9780521168557., s.v. Cheadle.
↑ Coates, Richard; Breeze, Andrew (2000). Celtic Voices, English Places: Studies of the Celtic Impact on Place-Names in Britain. Stamford: Tyas. ISBN1900289415..
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