North Craven Heritage Trust

Summer Outing 2020

Cheshire for a Change

A plea - do read all this to the very end!

The Summer Outing for 2020 – David’s eighteenth – is scheduled for Wednesday 10 June. There will be three venues: Tabley House (near ), Lion Salt Works (Northwich) and Old St Werburgh’s Church (Warburton). North , for those who don’t know it, is basically rural, with large areas of woodland and forest, lots of meres, lots of stately homes and parkland, and quiet little villages.

Bookings for the Outing will remain open until 31 March 2020, though early booking is recommended and preferred. The minimum number of participants for this Outing is 20 owing to the way the two main venues charge for group visits.

The outbound journey

The obvious way to go from Settle would be along the A59 to the M6 at Preston (33 miles in total) and follow the M6 to Jt 19 (37 miles on the motorway). Then take the A556 (westbound, signposted Northwich). On the recce, observing speed limits at all time and meeting no hold-ups, it took us 1 hr 20 from Settle to Jt 19. Take the A556 for only a very short distance and turn LH at the traffic lights to take the A5033 (signposted Knutsford) where a brown tourist sign indicates Tabley House. After about a quarter of a mile turn RH at the next brown sign through the park gates and down the very long driveway to the gravel car park at the end. Do NOT take the driveway to the nursing home! In the far corner of the car park a path takes you over the ha-ha and through a narrow shrubbery to the tea room within which we will congregate for tea/coffee and cake. Hopefully, we will all be there by about 10.00. If slightly delayed, don’t worry as our tour won’t start until 10.30. (Satnav addicts, key in WA16 0HB.)

Tabley House

After refreshments, we will have a guided tour of the chapel and the state rooms of the House which will last between 60 and 75 minutes depending on your level of interest and the number of questions. There will be some time afterwards to wander around its west and south frontages for those who wish.

The de Leycester family built a hall on an island in one of the meres on the estate, called the Moat, in the early 1380s and lived at Tabley until they became extinct in 1975. The main line failed in 1742 but by legal requirement the husband of the then female heir assumed the Leicester name. It was this pairing that began construction of the present Tabley House in 1761 to replace the old hall. In 1826 the family was ennobled as Barons de Tabley. Before his demise in 1975, the last of the family tried to bequeath the house to the National Trust but they refused; as there was by that time a boarding school in the House, and as he wished to keep an educational link, he bequeathed it instead to Manchester University. They still own it but it is on a long lease to a health and nursing care company and much of the buildings is used as a retirement home, with the fine stable block now private housing. The

1 state rooms and their collections, plus the chapel, are run by the Tabley Collection Trust, our hosts.

The (© The Tabley Collection)

The house (Grade II listed) was designed by John Carr and is in his recognisable style, with its Doric and curving external stone staircases. It is the only 18th-century Palladian mansion in Cheshire. The south front, with the staircases, was the formal entrance until alterations were effected 1840-45 when the main entry point was moved to the north face, within a large courtyard.

Tabley House: south front (DSJ)

Tabley House: north front (DSJ)

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The house is mainly built of brick with red Triassic Sandstone embellishments. In 1826 the two large side service blocks were added. The park, with its two meres, was designed by John Webb (1754-1828) whose work usually incorporated major water features.

The private chapel stood next to the old hall on the island and was built 1675-78 with the tower added in 1724. Over time salt extraction caused severe subsidence and the by-now ruined hall and the chapel were under serious threat of total collapse so the chapel was dismantled brick by brick and rebuilt next to the House in 1927, though everything in the chapel is original to its initial construction. The twenty rather nice roof trusses in Old Hall Room – now the tea room – were rescued from the old hall.

Tabley House chapel (DSJ)

On our tour we will be shown the chapel and the state rooms on the middle floor with their collections of furniture – Gillow of Lancaster, George Bullock, and Thomas Chippendale – and a fine array of paintings by many artists including JMW Turner, Sir Peter Lely, Sir Joshua Reynolds, William Dobson and John Martin.

Of local interest to us, the 4th Lord Ribblesdale was a cousin of one of the Leicesters; and Thomas Lister Parker of Browsholme was appointed guardian to the young Leicester sons after their father died in 1827.

Lunchtime

I would recommend a sandwich or soup-and-roll lunch in Tabley House’s tea room, as we will have it to ourselves and the quality is very good. For the 2019 Outing I asked everyone to tell me with their booking if they wanted to book a sandwich lunch and, by your own admission, many of you either forgot or didn’t read that bit so do let me know when you book if you want this or not. Sandwiches or soup-and-roll, with ‘bottomless’ drinks, costs £7.50 per person, payable to me with your final payment.

Onwards

We need to be at the second venue by 13.30. The drive from Tabley House to the Lion Salt Works is only 6 miles or so and should take no more than 15 minutes. From the entrance gates to Tabley turn LH to return to the A556 and follow that (to the LH) to a major junction, bearing right there onto the A559. Follow this into Lostock Graham and turn RH again at the traffic lights (with a Chinese takeaway on the corner) continuing to follow the A559 along Hall

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Lane. There is a brown tourist sign here to the Salt Works. Stay on the A559 until you reach a small cross-roads at Four Lanes filling station where another brown sign directs you to turn LH. Very shortly you will reach traffic lights at the bridge over the Trent-Mersey Canal; the entrance to the Salt Works is almost immediately on the left, opposite the Salt Barge pub. We will convene in the car park (satnav CW9 6ES.)

Lion Salt Works

Our guided tour of this excellent and unique site – a scheduled monument – starts at 13.30. It will take about 90 minutes after which you can wander at will, have a look inside the manager’s office in the car park and/or the Cheshire Buddleia Collection and Butterfly Garden at the back of the car park and/or take the short walk to the canal wharf, passing the timber remains of the salt store on the way, but don’t dally too long.

It is well known that this part of Cheshire was an important centre for salt from Roman times when open brine pits were used. From the 17th century underground mines exploited rock salt but most of these were exhausted by c. 1850 when many salt works either folded or turned to pumping up brine through shafts. Lion Salt Works was opened in 1894 using the open-pan method and it worked until 1986. It is the only surviving open-pan works in the country.

The site entrance (DSJ)

The salt works and canal in juxtaposition (DSJ)

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In 2015 it opened as a museum after a £10m pound restoration project; in 2016 it was designated the UK’s “Best Heritage Project” and it has won a number of awards since then. Our tour will look at the various processes and the site’s history.

Inside the pan house (© Lion Salt Works)

Onwards

The drive from the Salt Works to the final venue is about 20 miles and should take 25 minutes or so. From the Salt Works, retrace your ‘steps’ along the A559 and A556, continuing on the latter road beyond the M6 and under the M56. At the point where the A556 becomes a motorway, bear left to a roundabout close by and take the first exit along the A56 (signposted Lymm). When you get to Broomedge, turn RH at the traffic lights onto the B5159 (signposted Partington); when you come to a T-junction turn RH onto the A6144 and, very soon after, LH back onto the B5159 (signposted Warburton). Warburton isn’t much more than 1 mile from this junction but beware – Warburton folk are secretive and there is no village name sign. As you approach what looks like a (scattered) settlement slow right down and look out for a small five-way junction on a slight bend. If you miss it you will have to go miles before you can turn round. At the five-way junction take the first turn LH – Wigsey Lane – at the remains of the village’s medieval cross and follow the short lane to the far end, left round the corner, to park outside the church.

St Werburgh’s Old Church

Unlike so many medieval churches that were “renovated” in Victorian times, with much of their earlier fabric destroyed, Warburton’s benefactors took a different course by deciding to build a completely new church elsewhere in the area, in 1880, and to leave the old church intact. I think we have seen some lovely churches on the previous 17 Summer Outings but this one is surely a real gem. Since 1971 it has been in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust so I hope you will leave a donation in the church. You can spend as much time here as you desire.

St Werburgh was a daughter of the Mercian King Wulfhere and an abbess of some note. It is believed the church has Saxon origins (this part of Cheshire, the Mersey to be precise, was the boundary land between Saxon Mercia and Anglian Northumbria). Some of the timbers have been dendro dated to the late 12th century when this was a short-lived aisled priory, and this church is one of 27 timber-framed churches in England: the roofing timbers are truly awe-inspiring and the gravity-defying 12th-century north wall with its and wattle and daub infill is a sight to behold. The churchyard is surrounded by a medieval ditch

5 and bank. The church was slightly enlarged in the 13th century; had a tower added in about 1575; has an Elizabethan bell; and pulpit and rails of c. 1600; the south nave wall was rebuilt in stone in 1645 (there’s a datestone); in 1711 the tower was replaced with the present brick edifice; in 1811 the vestry and south chapel were built in brick and the box pews were installed in 1813, though to me they look much older than that.

St Werburgh’s Old Church form the north-east (DSJ)

The north wall (DSJ)

I hope you will agree with all my superlatives when you see it. I think part of what I have become in life originates in this church, which was out of use even in my childhood. On occasion, we used to walk the half mile or so from home specifically to look inside the church: I was just as blown away by it then as I still am now.

Homewards

Go back to the five-way junction and turn left. After no distance at all you come to a toll gate on the bridge over the pre-Ship Canal dried-up bed of the River Mersey. You must have the princely sum of 12p cash to hand to the toll-gate keeper.

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An unlimited-journey day ticket for Warburton Bridge

The tolls were levied to pay for the high-level bridge over the Ship Canal (where as a lad my mate and I used to spend hours watching ships laden with Canadian grain passing below, exchanging greetings with whatever crew were on deck – it was exciting, believe me). (By the way, you can book a 5-6 hour cruise all the way along the canal, on a proper ship, for only £44 – better than a Rhine cruise!)

After the high bridge you come to a T-junction on the A57. Little more than 200m across the field opposite the junction is the tiny cottage in the still-tiny dispersed ‘settlement’ of Rixton where I was born and raised. Rixton in my day had a smattering of cottages, a Methodist chapel, a RC church and, best of all, two working both with Hoffmann kilns, one works still being operational (now, that must explain a lot about my life course!). By the time you get here, you cannot possibly have failed to notice all the (to me) wonderful dark- coloured brick-built farms and houses on your travels today; they were all made with the very distinctive Cheshire Brick now only made at Rixton.

Anyway, at the A57 junction you have two options:

1. Turn LH along the A57 back to the M6 – this route is about 75 miles to Settle, or

2. Turn RH along the A57 past Hollins Green (where I went to primary school and where, since the BBC moved to Salford, house prices have rocketed to ridiculous levels), Cadishead (where we used to sit in my Nana’s front room mesmerised by the really smelly tar works on the Canal banks opposite), Irlam (where my Grandad was a shop steward in a really smoky steel works next to the massive but derelict railway viaduct over the Canal), to Eccles (it of the cakes: “Mum, why are they called cakes?”) then along the M60, M66, A56 and M65 back to Settle via Barrowford and Gisburn. This route is 60 miles.

Costs

Until I know final numbers, I can’t fix an absolute price for the Outing. What I can say is that it should be no more than £25 all in, including tea/coffee/cake on arrival at Tabley House and refreshments at the end of our Salt Works tour, but not lunch (if booked).

Note

On the recce our total mileage was 154 ... less than that to Naworth and Lanercost in 2016.

Enquiries to David Johnson 27 Ingfield Lane, Settle BD24 9BA. [email protected]

01729 822915 (evenings only please but, please, no answerphone messages)

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Previous Summer Outings, led by DSJ

2003 Great Asby and Maulds Meaburn Hall

2004 Coverdale and Jervaulx Abbey

2005 Slaidburn and Whalley Abbey

2006 Penrith pele towers

2007 Kiplin Hall and Bedale

2008 West Tanfield and Markenfield Hall

2009 Aske Hall, Easby Abbey and Richmond Castle

2010 Preston Patrick Hall, Beetham Hall and Leighton Hall

2011 Appleby and Howgill Castle

2012 Barnard Castle castle and Kirby Hill

2013 Little Salkeld and Yanwath Hall

2014 Dacre and Norton Conyers

2015 Lancashire Gems – Great Mitton, Ribchester and Stydd

2016 Lanercost Priory and Naworth Castle

2017 Clifton Hall, Dacre Church and Johnby Hall

2018 Along the A59

2019 Westmorland’s Limestone Country – Great Asby and Gaythorne Hall

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