No Man's Heath is a village in the unitary authority of

Cheshire West and Chester Cheshire West and Chester is a Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority with Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough status in the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. It was established on 1 April 2009 as part of the 2009 str ...

and the

ceremonial county The counties and areas for the purposes of the lieutenancies, also referred to as the lieutenancy areas of England and informally known as ceremonial counties, are areas of England to which lords-lieutenant are appointed. Legally, the areas i ...

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a ceremonial and historic county in North West England, bordered by Wales to the west, Merseyside and Greater Manchester to the north, Derbyshire to the east, and Staffordshire and Shropshire to the south. Cheshire's county t ...

, England. Its name has historically also been spelt Nomansheath and Noman's Heath, the latter being the version formerly favoured by the

General Post Office The General Post Office (GPO) was the state postal system and telecommunications carrier of the United Kingdom until 1969. Before the Acts of Union 1707, it was the postal system of the Kingdom of England, established by Charles II in 1660. ...

.''Postal Addresses'', October 1961, HMSO, p.159 It lies east of the village of Malpas and north-west of

Whitchurch, Shropshire Whitchurch is a market town in the north of Shropshire, England. It lies east of the Welsh border, 2 miles south of the Cheshire border, north of the county town of Shrewsbury, south of Chester, and east of Wrexham. At the 2011 Census, the ...

. Originally on the

A41 road The A41 is a trunk road between London and Birkenhead, England. Now in parts replaced by motorways, it passes through or near Watford, Kings Langley, Hemel Hempstead, Aylesbury, Bicester, Solihull, Birmingham, West Bromwich, Wolverhampton, ...

, there is now a bypass, which opened in July 2001. Bickleywood is a very small settlement about 1000 yards (1 km) to the east. The settlement of No Man's Heath was, historically, largely within the boundaries of

Macefen Macefen is a former civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire West and Chester and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. Its area is now part of the civil parishes of Tushingham-cum-Grindley, Macefen and Bradley and No Man's Heath ...

civil parish until 2015 boundary changes which created the civil parish of

No Man's Heath and District No (and variant writings) may refer to one of these articles: English language * ''Yes'' and ''no'' (responses) * A determiner in noun phrases Alphanumeric symbols * No (kana), a letter/syllable in Japanese script * No symbol, displayed � ...

.No Man's Heath & District
GENUKI There is no church in the village, due to the proximity of the church in Tushingham. However, there are The Wheatsheaf

Inn Inns are generally establishments or buildings where travelers can seek lodging, and usually, food and drink. Inns are typically located in the country or along a highway; before the advent of motorized transportation they also provided accommo ...

, a disused non-conformist chapel and a small

telephone exchange A telephone exchange, telephone switch, or central office is a telecommunications system used in the public switched telephone network (PSTN) or in large enterprises. It interconnects telephone subscriber lines or virtual circuits of digital syst ...

(which was called "Noman's Heath" in the days when exchanges had names) in close proximity to one another. The southern section of the 30-mile

Sandstone Trail The Sandstone Trail is a long-distance walkers' path, following sandstone ridges running north–south from Frodsham in central Cheshire to Whitchurch just over the Shropshire border. The path was created in 1974 and extended in the 1990s. ...

footpath passes just east of the village, while the 200-mile

Marches Way The Marches Way is a partially waymarked long-distance footpath in the United Kingdom. It runs for through the Welsh–English borderlands, traditionally known as the Welsh Marches, and links the cities of Chester in the north and Cardiff in th ...

footpath passes just south. The

Sustrans Sustrans is a United Kingdom-based walking, wheeling and cycling charity, and the custodian of the National Cycle Network. Its flagship project is the National Cycle Network, which has created of signed cycle routes throughout the United Kin ...

Regional Route 70 cycleway passes through the village, running out from Malpas. Just over two miles east of the village is the 19th-century

Cholmondeley Castle Cholmondeley Castle ( ) is a country house in the civil parish of Cholmondeley, Cheshire, England. Together with its adjacent formal gardens, it is surrounded by parkland. The site of the house has been a seat of the Cholmondeley family since ...

and gardens. Just to the north is the well-preserved

Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age (Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly appl ...

hillfort A hillfort is a type of earthwork used as a fortified refuge or defended settlement, located to exploit a rise in elevation for defensive advantage. They are typically European and of the Bronze Age or Iron Age. Some were used in the post-Roma ...

of Maiden Castle, spectacularly sited above the Dee valley. The

Whitchurch and Tattenhall Railway The Whitchurch and Tattenhall Railway was a line in Cheshire built by the London and North Western Railway in the 19th century. The branch, which was long, connected the North Wales Coast Line from with the Welsh Marches line and Oswestry ...

used to pass within a 1000 yards (a kilometre) of the village but the nearest station was

Malpas railway station Malpas railway station was a railway station that served the historic market town of Malpas, Cheshire on the Whitchurch and Tattenhall Railway or Chester-Whitchurch Branch Line. The station itself was located at Hampton Heath and was also kno ...

which was nearly three kilometres away and actually in Hampton Heath.

Name origin and documented listings

The placename was first recorded as early as 1483 in the form "Nomonheth" and as "No Mans Heath" in 1671.Dodgson (1997) ''The Place-names of Cheshire: Place-names of Broxton Hundred and Wirral Hundred'', Cambridge UP, p.9 In either case, the name refers to commonland outside specific ownership. The old parish of Malpas formerly had hundreds of acres of commonland, including some at No Man's Heath.Edwards, in ''Journal of the Chester Archaeological Society'', v.61 (1978), p.95 ''Kelly's Directory of Cheshire for 1896''
does not list No Man's Heath
and
makes no mention
under Hampton, which is listed under Malpas. ''Kelly's Directory for 1902''
shows No Mans Heath
merely as a sub-post office under Hampton. In their directory for 1914
the entry is very similar
except for the addition of a telephone and an apostrophe on Man's.

References

{{authority control Villages in Cheshire