Portal:Cheshire
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The Cheshire Portal
Cheshire (or archaically the County of Chester) is a county in the North West of England. The county town is Chester, the administrative centre where the county council is based. Other major towns include Congleton, Crewe, Ellesmere Port, Macclesfield, Nantwich, Northwich, Runcorn, Warrington, Widnes and Wilmslow.
Cheshire occupies a boulder clay plain (pictured) which separates the hills of North Wales from the Peak District of Derbyshire. The county covers an area of 2,343 square kilometres (905 sq mi), and has an estimated population of 993,200, with a population density of 424 people per square kilometre.
Cheshire is mostly rural and is historically famous for the production of Cheshire cheese, salt and silk. During the 19th century, towns in the north of the county were pioneers of the chemical industry.
Selected article
Deva Victrix (also known as Deva) was a Roman legionary fortress and town on the site of the modern city of Chester. The fortress was built by the Roman legion Legio II Adiutrix in the AD 70s as the Roman army advanced north against the Brigantes. Covering 62 acres (25 hectares), it contained barracks, granaries, military headquarters, military baths, and an unusual elliptical building that might have acted as the governor of Britain's headquarters.
The fortress was rebuilt in stone at the end of the 1st century AD when it was occupied by the Legio XX Valeria Victrix, and again in the early 3rd century. The legion probably remained at the fortress until it fell into disuse in the late 4th or early 5th century.
A civilian settlement grew around the fortress and remained after the Romans withdrew. Peripheral settlements included Broughton, the source of the garrison's water supply, and Handbridge, the site of a sandstone quarry and the Minerva Shrine, the only in situ, rock-cut Roman shrine in Britain. Chester Roman Amphitheatre is the largest known military amphitheatre in Britain, seating 8,000 to 10,000 people.
Selected picture
The Church of St James and St Paul at Marton, founded in 1343 by Sir John de Davenport and his son Vivian, is one of the oldest timber-framed churches in Europe. Traces of an early medieval painting of the Last Judgement were discovered in 1930.
Recommended articles
Towns: Middlewich • Runcorn • Widnes
Sights: Beeston Castle • Chester Cathedral • Churche's Mansion • Crewe Hall • Halton Castle • Jodrell Bank Observatory • Listed buildings in Runcorn
• Lovell Telescope • Lyme Park • Norton Priory • St Mary's Church, Acton • St Mary's Church, Nantwich • St Mary's Church, Nether Alderley
Transport: A500 road • Bridgewater Canal • M62 motorway
People: Thomas Brassey • Sir John Brunner, 1st Baronet • Daniel Craig • Eddie Johnson • Joseph Priestley
History: Deva Victrix • Lindow Man
Quotes
- [Alice] went on. "Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"
- "That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.
- "I don't much care where –" said Alice.
- "Then it doesn't matter which way you go," said the Cat.
- "– so long as I get somewhere," Alice added as an explanation.
- "Oh, you're sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough."
Newest articles
Selected biography
Sir Adrian Cedric Boult (April 8, 1889 – February 22, 1983) was an English conductor. Born in Chester, he was educated at Westminster School, Christ Church, Oxford, and the Leipzig Conservatory, where he learned to conduct by watching the eminent Hungarian conductor Arthur Nikisch. He made his concert debut in 1918 and conducted the first performance of Holst's The Planets that same year.
Boult conducted the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra 1924–30 and 1959–60, and the BBC Symphony Orchestra for twenty years from its inception in 1930. After his controversial enforced retirement from the BBC Symphony, he became Principal Conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, a position he held until 1957. He continued to conduct and make recordings until 1981.
Particularly associated with 20th century British music, Boult's prolific recordings include the complete Vaughan Williams symphonies, as well as many works by Elgar and Holst.
Did you know...
- ...that much of medieval Chester Castle (pictured) was rebuilt in neoclassical style by architect Thomas Harrison around 1800?
- ... that Holy Trinity Church, Warrington, contains a brass chandelier which formerly hung in St Stephen's Chapel in the British House of Commons?
- ...that George Ormerod, an English antiquary and historian, was responsible for organising the restoration of the Saxon crosses in Sandbach in 1816?
- ... that Bridgewater House, Runcorn, was built for the Duke of Bridgewater when he was supervising the building of the Bridgewater Canal in the 1760s, and is now used as offices?
In the news
10 September: Prime Minister Gordon Brown apologises for the "inhumane" treatment of mathematician and code-breaker Alan Turing.
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- Participate in the WikiProject about Cheshire
- The Collaboration of the Month is Crewe
- Expand a Cheshire stub into a full article, adding images, citations, references and infoboxes
- Create requested pages: Missing civil parishes | Missing places | Archaeological sites of Cheshire | Public parks and gardens of Cheshire | Railways of Cheshire | Rivers of Cheshire | Roads of Cheshire | Silk industry of Cheshire
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