01) middlewich, a potted history
One of the oldest of Cheshire’s towns, and possibly amongst its smallest, but just what makes Middlewich – Middlewich?
Visually, much is still Victorian and Edwardian… see Wheelock Street shopfronts, terraces and villa homes. Well worth peering up at is the Victoria Building exterior. Its remarkable frieze represents a noble tribute to industry. Undeniably distinctive are the inland waterways. Not one but two canals ensured the town’s place on the pioneering transport network. The Trent & Mersey put in its appearance in the late 18th century, whilst the Shropshire Union(Middlewich Branch) joined it in the early 19th. Middlewich became a key junction and goods-handling depot. Famous faces associated with this transformative shift in the fortunes of the town were James Brindley, Josiah Wedgwood, and Thomas Telford. That old warehouse on the wharf may have become derelict , but passing narrowboats animate the Middlewich scene daily – colourful reminders of a former commerce.
Already been and gone well before the Canal Age were the Normans. Their influx from the 12th century gave Middlewich its own aristocracy – by the very Normandy name of Venables. Then came a long line of medieval Barons of Kinderton whose mark in the landscape was made in the form of a hunting park (yes, traces remain). The architecturally impressive Parish Church, in a much simpler style, was founded about this time, and again the Barons’ high status is to be found there too. It was the Normans’ arrival that got the ‘new town’ going (including the layout of the main shopping street). Hence we have ‘Newton’ by the side of the ancient brine springs, or wych.
Yet before even that, the town cherishes its origin-story to the advancing Romans. Without their relatively brief but noticeable presence in the shape of military camp and fort, precious archaeological findings, salt-trading, and of course all-important route-ways in and out, there’d be no Harbutt’s Field. This Scheduled Monument pinpoints their legacy almost twenty centuries later.
A working Salt Town at heart, but really Middlewich is so much broader in two thousand years of varied settlement. And why does it matter? Because we are here now – and part of this continuum. Best of all, so much of the local past can be tracked down and experienced today. It’s a great place to rove around, stop and observe, and follow up on whatever historical ‘mysteries’ might appeal.
02) Wharf and Warehouse
Stalls, stands, traders … the annual Folk & Boat Festival is an enormously popular public occasion, and helps showcase our town and its waterways. Is ‘doing business’ especially new though, on our local section of the Trent & Mersey? Not really.
Picture Town Wharf. Not now… but as a proudly modern development in its 19th century heyday. Noisy and busy it is spread out just below the more tranquil Parish Church. Middlewich warranted its own Canal Office and agents on this substantial transhipping wharf ‘near the principal street’. Haulage cranes dominated the towpath, moving goods under the supervising eye of Thomas Pointon, first wharfinger to occupy the on-site cottage. In 1850, with that typical air of formality, the trades directory announced ‘commodious warehouses’ recently ‘erected for the transmission and reception of merchandise’. Almost genteel!
Businesses soon clustered around to take advantage of commercial opportunities. Need bricks and tiles for building? Town Wharf. Lime, or coal? There too. Of course, pubs were squeezed in, including The Navigation whose aptly-named premises stood right by the original, alarmingly narrow, canal bridge. By 1874 trades included a boat builder and timber dealer.
A handy innovation at this time was James Cockshott’s ‘fly boat’. This convenience provided an express service from Middlewich ‘to and from Derby daily’. And it wasn’t all heavy duty shopping. During the Great War, ladies would find a dressmaker’s shop down at Canal (Town) Wharf - incongruously near that of a less glamorous ‘sack and bag dealer’.
Today’s far quieter, emptier Town Wharf site is overlooked – still by Leadsmithy and Kinderton Streets - but also in terms of its important former commercial role. The wharfinger’s cottage and main warehouse lie in limbo. The toll office which completed this important little triangle however was demolished just twenty years ago.
Those early Victorian and Edwardian traders may have vanished, but new ones spring up on the canalside each June. And something Town Wharf probably never had even once a year - fabulous entertainment that helps keep the waterways alive in Middlewich.
J.E. Smalley