Haslington
Encyclopedia
Haslington is a village and civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East
Cheshire East
Cheshire East is a unitary authority area with borough status in the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England.The borough was established in April 2009 as part of the 2009 structural changes to local government in England, by virtue of an order under the Local Government and Public Involvement in...

 and the ceremonial county of Cheshire
Cheshire
Cheshire is a ceremonial county in North West England. Cheshire's county town is the city of Chester, although its largest town is Warrington. Other major towns include Widnes, Congleton, Crewe, Ellesmere Port, Runcorn, Macclesfield, Winsford, Northwich, and Wilmslow...

, England. It lies about 2 miles (3 km) north-east of the much larger railway town
Railway town
A railway town is a settlement that originated or was greatly developed because of a railway station or junction at its site.In Victorian Britain, the spread of railways greatly affected the fate of many small towns...

 of Crewe
Crewe
Crewe is a railway town within the unitary authority area of Cheshire East and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. According to the 2001 census the urban area had a population of 67,683...

 and approximately 4 miles (6.5 km) south of Sandbach
Sandbach
Sandbach is a market town and civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. The civil parish contains four settlements; Sandbach itself, Elworth, Ettiley Heath and Wheelock....

. It was originally situated on both sides of the section of the A534 road that links Crewe with Sandbach, however, this road has now been re-routed to bypass the village to the north-west. The village is also a close neighbour to a number of small towns and villages (including Alsager
Alsager
Alsager is a town and civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England, to the north-west of the city of Stoke-on-Trent, and east of the railway town of Crewe...

, Wheelock, Winterley
Winterley
Winterley and Wheelock Heath are two small, adjoining, villages in the civil parish of Haslington, Cheshire, England. A small part of Wheelock Heath is in the town and civil parish of Sandbach.-Geography:...

), and is approximately 6 miles (9 km) from the Elizabethan
Elizabethan era
The Elizabethan era was the epoch in English history of Queen Elizabeth I's reign . Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history...

 market town of Nantwich
Nantwich
Nantwich is a market town and civil parish in the Borough of Cheshire East and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. The town gives its name to the parliamentary constituency of Crewe and Nantwich...

.

History

Haslington is not mentioned in the Domesday Book
Domesday Book
Domesday Book , now held at The National Archives, Kew, Richmond upon Thames in South West London, is the record of the great survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086...

 of 1086, so it is presumed that either the village came into existence afterwards, or was insignificantly small.
The earliest mention of Haslington is in 1256, when it was called "Hesinglinton". The name is possibly derived from the phrase "tun among hazel
Hazel
The hazels are a genus of deciduous trees and large shrubs native to the temperate northern hemisphere. The genus is usually placed in the birch family Betulaceae, though some botanists split the hazels into a separate family Corylaceae.They have simple, rounded leaves with double-serrate margins...

s", or "enclosure amongst hazel trees". Often, with settlement names ending with "tun" or "ton", such as Haslington, this indicates origins of a farm enclosed with a moat
Moat
A moat is a deep, broad ditch, either dry or filled with water, that surrounds a castle, other building or town, historically to provide it with a preliminary line of defence. In some places moats evolved into more extensive water defences, including natural or artificial lakes, dams and sluices...

 or fence. Later variations of the name were 'Halinton'; (1292, 1536), "Hasillinton" (1280), "Haselin(g)ton(e)" (1293 to 1586), and "Hass(e)lyn(g)ton" (1307 to 1432). Alternatively it has been suggested the Haslington's name derives from Thomas de Heslynton, an archer in the King's Bodyguard and a resident of Haslington, however this version of events is often discredited due to de Heslynton's life being after the earliest mentions of the village.

In the reign of Edward I
Edward I of England
Edward I , also known as Edward Longshanks and the Hammer of the Scots, was King of England from 1272 to 1307. The first son of Henry III, Edward was involved early in the political intrigues of his father's reign, which included an outright rebellion by the English barons...

, the Barony of Wich-Malbank (now known as Nantwich
Nantwich
Nantwich is a market town and civil parish in the Borough of Cheshire East and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. The town gives its name to the parliamentary constituency of Crewe and Nantwich...

) was divided up between the heirs of the last Baron who held that title: William. Haslington was given to an Auda Vernon of Shipbrooke, whose descendants included the founder and early residents of Haslington Hall
Haslington Hall
Haslington Hall is a country house located in open countryside 1 km to the east of the village of Haslington, Cheshire, England. It has been designated by English Heritage as a Grade I listed building.-Early history:...

.

During the First English Civil War
First English Civil War
The First English Civil War began the series of three wars known as the English Civil War . "The English Civil War" was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations that took place between Parliamentarians and Royalists from 1642 until 1651, and includes the Second English Civil War and...

, on 27 December 1642, there was a skirmish between the Royalists and the Parliamentarians that took place on the southern outskirts of the village at a place called Slaughter Hill. The, Parliamentarians—also known as the Roundheads—won the battle. Local legend says the battle caused the brook
Brook
-Places:*In the United Kingdom:**Brook, New Forest, Hampshire**Brook, Test Valley, Hampshire**Brook, Isle of Wight**Brook, Kent**Brook, Surrey**Brook, Carmarthenshire*In the United States:**Brook, Indiana-People:...

 nearby to turn red from the blood spilt. A sword was found embedded in the bank of Valley Brook. Although the seemingly macabre
Macabre
In works of art, macabre is the quality of having a grim or ghastly atmosphere. Macabre works emphasize the details and symbols of death....

 name Slaughter Hill suggests it may be named after this skirmish, it may alternatively be more likely a corruption of "Sloe Tree Hill". Blackthorn
Blackthorn
Prunus spinosa is a species of Prunus native to Europe, western Asia, and locally in northwest Africa. It is also locally naturalised in New Zealand and eastern North America....

 (Prunus spinosa), the fruit of which are sloes, can still be found in the hedgerows down the lane named Slaughter Hill, which adjoins with the neighbouring civil parish of Crewe Green
Crewe Green
Crewe Green is a small village and civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. The village lies 1½ miles to the east of the centre of Crewe...

.

Governance

Haslington was originally a chapelry within the ancient parish
Ancient parishes of Cheshire
The Ancient Parishes of Cheshire refers to the group of parishes that existed in Cheshire, roughly within the period of 1200–1800. Initially, the ancient parishes had only an ecclesiastical function, but reforms initiated by King Henry VIII, developed by Queen Elizabeth I and expanded by...

 of Barthomley
Barthomley
Barthomley is a village and ancient parish, and is now a civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. According to the 2001 census the parish had a population of 202. The village is situated near junction 16 of the M6 motorway and by the...

. It was made a separate civil parish in 1866. The parish council has 15 councillors, split between three parish wards: Haslington, Winterley, and Oakhanger
Oakhanger, Cheshire
Oakhanger is a village in Cheshire, England, within the civil parish of Haslington and the Borough of Cheshire East, located off the B5077 road between Alsager and Crewe.-Oakhanger Moss:...

. Haslington is the largest of the three wards.

From 1974 the civil parish was served by Crewe and Nantwich
Crewe and Nantwich
Crewe and Nantwich was, from 1974 to 2009, a local government district with borough status in Cheshire, England. It had a population of 111,007...

 Borough Council, which was succeeded on 1 April 2009 by the new unitary authority
Unitary authority
A unitary authority is a type of local authority that has a single tier and is responsible for all local government functions within its area or performs additional functions which elsewhere in the relevant country are usually performed by national government or a higher level of sub-national...

 of Cheshire East
Cheshire East
Cheshire East is a unitary authority area with borough status in the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England.The borough was established in April 2009 as part of the 2009 structural changes to local government in England, by virtue of an order under the Local Government and Public Involvement in...

. Haslington falls in the parliamentary constituency of Crewe and Nantwich
Crewe and Nantwich (UK Parliament constituency)
Crewe and Nantwich is a county constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament by the first-past-the-post system of election. For 25 years since its creation in 1983, the constituency had elected the Labour MP Gwyneth...

, which has been represented by Conservative
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...

 MP Edward Timpson
Edward Timpson
Anthony Edward Timpson is a British Conservative Party politician. He became a Member of Parliament in 2008 after winning a by-election in the constituency of Crewe and Nantwich.-Biography:Timpson was born in Knutsford, Cheshire, in 1973...

 since a by-election in May 2008
Crewe and Nantwich by-election, 2008
The Crewe and Nantwich by-election, 2008 was a parliamentary by-election held on 22 May 2008, for the British House of Commons constituency of Crewe and Nantwich, in Cheshire, England...

 following the death of the long-standing Labour
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...

 MP Gwyneth Dunwoody
Gwyneth Dunwoody
Gwyneth Patricia Dunwoody was a British Labour Party politician, who was the Member of Parliament for Exeter from 1966 to 1970, and then for Crewe from 1974 to her death in 2008...

, a seat which she had held since the constituency's creation in 1983.

Geography

The area around Haslington is primarily arable land
Arable land
In geography and agriculture, arable land is land that can be used for growing crops. It includes all land under temporary crops , temporary meadows for mowing or pasture, land under market and kitchen gardens and land temporarily fallow...

, though also some dairy farms
Dairy farming
Dairy farming is a class of agricultural, or an animal husbandry, enterprise, for long-term production of milk, usually from dairy cows but also from goats and sheep, which may be either processed on-site or transported to a dairy factory for processing and eventual retail sale.Most dairy farms...

. The land to the east in Oakhangar consists of peat
Peat
Peat is an accumulation of partially decayed vegetation matter or histosol. Peat forms in wetland bogs, moors, muskegs, pocosins, mires, and peat swamp forests. Peat is harvested as an important source of fuel in certain parts of the world...

, whereas in the west, clay
Clay
Clay is a general term including many combinations of one or more clay minerals with traces of metal oxides and organic matter. Geologic clay deposits are mostly composed of phyllosilicate minerals containing variable amounts of water trapped in the mineral structure.- Formation :Clay minerals...

. There are two main areas of peat: White Moss and Oakhangar Moss, the latter of which being a Site of Special Scientific Interest
Site of Special Scientific Interest
A Site of Special Scientific Interest is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom. SSSIs are the basic building block of site-based nature conservation legislation and most other legal nature/geological conservation designations in Great Britain are based upon...

. The parish of Haslington features 110 miles of hedges, 10,000 trees and 60 public paths. There was an original Haslington Hall that pre-dated the current one, built around 1220, that was moated. The moat and Hall gradually crumbled away and became a mere
Mere (lake)
Mere in English refers to a lake that is broad in relation to its depth, e.g. Martin Mere. A significant effect of its shallow depth is that for all or most of the time, it has no thermocline.- Etymology :...

, which was only filled in 20th century. The mere was near what is now Mere Street, off Crewe Road. The nearby village of Winterley, within Haslington's parish, is home to Winterley Pool, a modest lake by the roadside of Crewe Road.

Haslington is situated 2 miles (3km) north-east of Crewe
Crewe
Crewe is a railway town within the unitary authority area of Cheshire East and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. According to the 2001 census the urban area had a population of 67,683...

, and 4 miles (6.5km) south of Sandbach. The route from Crewe to Sandbach used to be straight through the village, until the construction of a bypass
Bypass
Bypass may refer to:* Bypass , in effects units, a switch that allows sound* Bypass , in computing, circumventing security features in hacking, or taking a different approach to an issue in troubleshooting* Bypass * Bypass surgery...

 (A534) to the north west of the village. Transport links are good, with various bus routes from Crewe to Northwich
Northwich
Northwich is a town and civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire West and Chester and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. It lies in the heart of the Cheshire Plain, at the confluence of the rivers Weaver and Dane...

, Macclesfield
Macclesfield
Macclesfield is a market town within the unitary authority of Cheshire East, the county palatine of Chester, also known as the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. The population of the Macclesfield urban sub-area at the time of the 2001 census was 50,688...

 and Hanley
Hanley
Hanley, in Staffordshire, England, is one of the six major towns that joined together to form the city of Stoke-on-Trent in 1910. Hanley was the only one of the six towns to be a county borough before the merger; its status was transferred to the enlarged borough...

 all passing through the village. Haslington's close proximity to Crewe also means residents have access to Crewe railway station
Crewe railway station
Crewe railway station was completed in 1837 and is one of the most historic railway stations in the world. Built in fields near to Crewe Hall, it originally served the village of Crewe with a population of just 70 residents...

, which has frequent train services to cities such as Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...

 and London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

. Additionally, Haslington is rather near the M6 motorway
M6 motorway
The M6 motorway runs from junction 19 of the M1 at the Catthorpe Interchange, near Rugby via Birmingham then heads north, passing Stoke-on-Trent, Manchester, Preston, Carlisle and terminating at the Gretna junction . Here, just short of the Scottish border it becomes the A74 which continues to...

, with junctions 16 and 17 serving Crewe and Sandbach, respectively. A small section of the motorway does actually pass through a sparsely-populated area of the parish to the far east by its border. With its various transport links available, Haslington can be viewed as something of a dormitory village.

Demography

Haslington has undergone a large, rapid expansion over the last 25 years, thanks to the redevelopment of Crewe. The 2001 UK census gives the population as being 6,781, of which 3,319 are male, and 3,462 are female. They are living in 2,552 households.

Historically, the population was as given the following table:
Historical Population Figures for Haslington
Year 1801 1851 1901 1951 2001
Population 667 1153 1791 3223 6430

(source: UK and Ireland Genealogy Site).

Haslington Hall

Haslington Hall is a mainly timber framed
Timber framing
Timber framing , or half-timbering, also called in North America "post-and-beam" construction, is the method of creating structures using heavy squared off and carefully fitted and joined timbers with joints secured by large wooden pegs . It is commonplace in large barns...

 building situated to the east of the village. Some of its structure dates back to 1480 but it is principally of 1545 with later additions. It was founded by the Vernon family and, in particular, Admiral Sir Francis Vernon who was involved in defeating the Spanish Armada
Spanish Armada
This article refers to the Battle of Gravelines, for the modern navy of Spain, see Spanish NavyThe Spanish Armada was the Spanish fleet that sailed against England under the command of the Duke of Medina Sidonia in 1588, with the intention of overthrowing Elizabeth I of England to stop English...

. Notable more recent residents include Air Commodore Dame Felicity Peake
Felicity Peake
Air Commodore Dame Felicity Peake DBE was the founding director of the UK's Women's Royal Air Force ....

, the first director of the Women's Royal Air Force
Women's Royal Air Force
The Women's Royal Air Force was a women's branch of the Royal Air Force which existed in two separate incarnations.The first WRAF was an auxiliary organization of the Royal Air Force which was founded in 1918. The original intent of the WRAF was to provide female mechanics in order to free up men...

 and the dairy millionaire Tony Vernon. It is now part of the TailorMade Venues collection, a group of exclusive venues for weddings and private functions.

Hawk Inn

The Hawk Inn is on the main road through the village, and dates from the 17th century; it is a Grade II listed building. The pub boasts carved woodwork both inside and out, including various carved faces and a number of engraved phrases on the exterior beams. The pub was once used for stabling horses and highwayman Dick Turpin
Dick Turpin
Richard "Dick" Turpin was an English highwayman whose exploits were romanticised following his execution in York for horse theft. Turpin may have followed his father's profession as a butcher early in life, but by the early 1730s he had joined a gang of deer thieves, and later became a poacher,...

 supposedly once stayed there.

Old House

Almost directly across from The Hawk Inn is a house, formerly two houses which have had the shared wall demolished in order to form a single dwelling, also dating from the 17th century. It too is a Grade II listed building. While the building is 17th century, the date 1510 is inscribed on a board over the door.

Saint Matthew's Church


Saint Matthew's Church is a small Anglican church. It was built in two phases: the first phase which is the west part in 1810, and the second phase or east part in 1909.

The west part is a simple, brick built structure, with arched doorway and windows. It also has a small cupola
Cupola
In architecture, a cupola is a small, most-often dome-like, structure on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome....

 on the nave
Nave
In Romanesque and Gothic Christian abbey, cathedral basilica and church architecture, the nave is the central approach to the high altar, the main body of the church. "Nave" was probably suggested by the keel shape of its vaulting...

's gable. The east part is in the Decorated style, designed by Reginald Longden, and has incorporated into it, a seven-light east window.

Community facilities

Haslington Cricket Club which runs three senior and six junior teams, is situated on the outskirts of the village.

There is also a Christian Boys Brigade in the village; the company was founded in 1970 and operates from Haslington Methodist Church.

The village also contains two primary schools (The Dingle) and Haslington Primary), a village hall (The Yoxall Village Hall), St. Matthew's Church Hall and a community centre (The Gutterscroft Centre), a dentist, an NHS health centre, and four churches of various denominations. It also has The Millennium Rock, a commemorative stone which is situated on the village green.

The Croft Pre-School is an independent pre-school administered by a parents' committee. It opened in 1981 and operates in a single storey community centre building, sited within the village of Haslington.

Notable people

Admiral Sir Francis Vernon, active during the time of the Spanish Armada
Spanish Armada
This article refers to the Battle of Gravelines, for the modern navy of Spain, see Spanish NavyThe Spanish Armada was the Spanish fleet that sailed against England under the command of the Duke of Medina Sidonia in 1588, with the intention of overthrowing Elizabeth I of England to stop English...

, and who built Haslington Hall
Haslington Hall
Haslington Hall is a country house located in open countryside 1 km to the east of the village of Haslington, Cheshire, England. It has been designated by English Heritage as a Grade I listed building.-Early history:...

 in 1545 and William Broome
William Broome
William Broome was an English poet and translator. He was born in Haslington, near Crewe, Cheshire and died in Bath.He was educated at Eton and Cambridge, entered the Church, and became rector of Sturston in Suffolk, and later Pulham in Norfolk and Eye in Suffolk...

, poet and translator, born in Haslington on 3 May 1689.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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