Crewe

Crewe () is a railway town and civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East in Cheshire, England. The Crewe built-up area had a total population of 75,556 in 2011, which also covers parts of the adjacent civil parishes of Willaston, Shavington cum Gresty and Wistaston.

Crewe is perhaps best known as a large railway junction and home to Crewe Works; for many years, it was a major railway engineering facility for manufacturing and overhauling locomotives, but now much reduced in size. From 1946 until 2002, it was also the home of Rolls-Royce motor car production. The Pyms Lane factory on the west of the town now exclusively produces Bentley motor cars. Crewe is north of London, south of Manchester city centre, and south of Liverpool city centre.

History

Medieval

The name derives from an Old Welsh word ''criu'', meaning 'weir' or 'crossing'. The earliest record is in the Domesday Book, where it is written as ''Creu''.

Modern

Until the Grand Junction Railway (GJR) company chose Crewe as the site for its locomotive works and railway station in the late 1830s, Crewe was a village with a population (c. 1831) of just 70 residents. Winsford, 7 miles (11 km) to the north, had rejected an earlier proposal, as had local landowners in neighbouring Nantwich, 4 miles (6 km) away. Crewe railway station was built in fields near to Crewe Hall and was completed in 1837.

The modern urban settlement of Crewe was not formally planned out until 1843 by Joseph Locke to consolidate the " railway colony" that had grown up since around 1840–41 in the area near to the railway junction station opened in 1837, even though it was called Crewe by many, from the start. Crewe was thus named after the railway station, rather than the other way round.

The new town of Crewe was founded next to the railway station in the township of Monks Coppenhall which, with the township of Church Coppenhall, formed the ancient parish of Coppenhall. The railway station was named after the '' township of Crewe'' (then, part of the ancient parish of Barthomley) in which it was located. Eventually, the ''township of Crewe'' became a civil parish in its own right also named, rather confusingly, Crewe. This civil parish changed its name to Crewe Green in 1974 to avoid confusion with the adjacent town, which had been made a municipal borough in 1877.

The railway station remained part of the civil parish of Crewe, outside the boundary of the municipal borough until 1936. So, throughout its history, the town of Crewe has neither been part of, nor has it encompassed first the ''township of Crewe'', later the ''civil parish of Crewe'', and later still the ''civil parish of Crewe Green'' adjacent to it, even though these places were the direct origin of the name of the town via the railway station which was also not part of the town before 1936. An old, local riddle describes the somewhat unusual states of affairs: "The place which is Crewe is not Crewe, and the place which is not Crewe is Crewe."

A new town grew up, in the parishes of Monks Coppenhall and Church Coppenhall, alongside the increasingly busy station, with the population expanding to reach 40,000 by 1871. GJR chief engineer Joseph Locke helped lay out the town.

The town has a large park, Queen's Park (laid out by engineer Francis Webb), the land for which was donated by the London and North Western Railway, the successor to the GJR. It has been suggested that their motivation was to prevent the rival Great Western Railway building a station on the site, but the available evidence indicates otherwise.

The railway provided an endowment towards the building and upkeep of Christ Church. Until 1897 its vicar, non-conformist ministers and schoolteachers received concessionary passes, the school having been established in 1842. The company provided a doctor's surgery with a scheme of health insurance. A gasworks was built and the works water supply was adapted to provide drinking water and a public baths. The railway also opened a cheese market in 1854 and a clothing factory for John Compton who provided the company uniforms, while McCorquodale of Liverpool set up a printing works.

During World War II the strategic presence of the railways and Rolls-Royce engineering works (turned over to producing aircraft engines) made Crewe a target for enemy air raids, and it was in the flight path to Liverpool. The borough lost 35 civilians to these, the worst raid was on 29 August 1940 when some 50 houses were destroyed, close to the station.

Crewe crater on Mars is named after the town of Crewe. Crewe was described by author Alan Garner in his novel '' Red Shift'' as "the ultimate reality".

Crewe was mentioned in 1984 as the setting of the 19th episode ''The Flying Kipper'', in the first series of ''Thomas & Friends''.

Governance

Crewe is within the United Kingdom Parliamentary constituency of Crewe and Nantwich. Crewe is within the ceremonial county of Cheshire.

Since April 2009 Crewe has been administered by the unitary authority, Cheshire East Council; at parish level, since 4 April 2013, local matters have been dealt with by Crewe Town Council, which is based at 1 Chantry Court, Forge Street, Crewe, CW1 2DL.

Crewe applied for City status as part of the Platinum Jubilee Civic Honours in 2022, however this application was denied and Crewe remains a town.

Climate

Like most of the United Kingdom, Crewe has an oceanic climate, with warm summers and cool winters and relatively little temperature change throughout the year.

Economy

The railways still play a part in local industry at Crewe Works, which carries out train maintenance and inspection. It has been owned by Bombardier Transportation since 2001. At its height, the site employed over 20,000 people, but by 2005 fewer than 1,000 remained, with a further 270 redundancies announced in November of that year. Much of the site once occupied by the works has been sold and is now occupied by a supermarket, leisure park, and a large new health centre.

There is still an electric locomotive maintenance depot to the north of the railway station, operated by DB Cargo UK. The diesel locomotive maintenance depot, having closed in 2003, reopened in 2015 as a maintenance facility for Locomotive Services Limited, having undergone major structural repairs.

The Bentley car factory is on Pyms Lane to the west of town. As of early 2010, there are about 3,500 working at the site. The factory used to produce Rolls-Royce cars, until the licence for the brand transferred from Bentley's owners Volkswagen to rival BMW in 2003.

There is a BAE Systems Land & Armaments factory in the village of Radway Green near Alsager, producing small arms ammunition for the British armed forces.

The headquarters of Focus DIY, which went into administration in 2011, was in the town. Off-licence chain Bargain Booze is also Crewe-based. It was bought-out in 2018 by Sir Anwar Pervez' conglomerate Bestway for £7m, putting drinks retailing alongside its Manchester-based Well Pharmacy.

Several business parks around the town host light industry and offices. Crewe Business Park is a 67-acre site with offices, research and IT manufacturing. Major presences on the site include Air Products and Chemicals, Barclays and Fujitsu. The 12 acre Crewe Gates Industrial Estate is adjacent to Crewe Business Park, with smaller industry including the ice cream van manufacturer Whitby Morrison. The Weston Gate area has light industry and distribution. Marshfield Bank Employment Park is to the west of the town, and includes offices, manufacturing and distribution. There are industrial and light industrial units at Radway Green.

The town has two small shopping centres: the Victoria Centre and the Market Centre. There are outdoor markets throughout the week. Grand Junction Retail Park is just outside the centre of town. Nantwich Road provides a wide range of secondary local shops, with a variety of small retailers and estate agents.

The Market Centre is the largest shopping centre in Crewe. It is situated in the heart of the town centre with a few national retailers, including Wilko, Argos and Iceland. There are three large car parks nearby and Crewe bus station is a five-minute walk from the shopping centre. It has a weekly footfall of approximately 100,000 visitors.

Developments

A planned redevelopment of Crewe's town centre, including the current bus station and main shopping area, was abandoned because of "difficult economic conditions" during 2008.

There were also plans to revamp the railway station which involved moving it to Basford. This was pending a public consultation by Network Rail scheduled for autumn 2008, but no such public consultation was done. The plan was abandoned and maintenance work was carried out on the current station instead.

Cheshire East Council developed a new regeneration master plan for Crewe, which included the opening of a new Lifestyle Centre, with a new swimming pool, gym and library.

After a £3 million refurbishment, the Crewe Market Hall re-opened its doors on 19 May 2021, the start of many new developments in Crewe.

Crewe has been proposed as the site of a transport hub for the new High Speed 2 line, with development planned for completion in 2027.

Transport

Crewe railway station and a major interchange station on the West Coast Main Line. It has 12 platforms in use and has a direct service to London Euston (average journey time of around 1 hour 35 minutes), Edinburgh, Cardiff, Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow, Derby, Stoke-on-Trent, Chester, Wrexham and Holyhead for the ferry connections to Dublin Port. Many other towns and cities also have railway connections to Crewe.

Crewe is on the A500, A530 and A534 roads, and is less than from the M6 motorway.

The main bus company in Crewe is D&G Bus following the reduction of funding given to Arriva North West, who still run longer distance services to Chester, Northwich, Macclesfield and Winsford. BakerBus formerly ran buses in Crewe, but their operations were sold to D&G in December 2014. First Potteries operate a single service (route 3) running to Stoke-on-Trent via Kidsgrove.

The closest airport to Crewe is Manchester Airport, which is away. Next closest is Liverpool John Lennon Airport, away.

Culture

Crewe Heritage Centre is located in the old LMS railway yard for Crewe railway station

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