Spurstow is a village and
civil parish
In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authorit ...
in the unitary authority of
Cheshire East and the ceremonial county of
Cheshire, England, which is located 6½ miles to the north west of
Nantwich
Nantwich ( ) is a market town and civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East in Cheshire, England. It has among the highest concentrations of listed buildings in England, with notably good examples of Tudor and Georgian architecture. ...
. The parish also includes the settlement of Spurstow Sketh and part of Radmore Green.
The total population is a little over 400 people. Nearby villages include
Bunbury,
Haughton and
Peckforton
Peckforton is a scattered settlement (centred at ) and civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. The settlement is located to the north east of Malpas and to the west of Nantwich. ...
. The parish is mentioned in the
Domesday Book
Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manus ...
of 1086 and contains a salt spring, which was formerly used as a spa.
History
Spurstow appears as "Spuretone" in the
Domesday Book
Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manus ...
of 1086; it was then held by Robert FitzHugh, and around 180 acres had been cleared for agricultural use.
[Cheshire Federation of Women's Institutes 1990, p. 203] Remains of a medieval village have been found somewhat to the north west of the existing village of Spurstow, which is believed to have subsequently contracted or moved.
William de Spurstowe held the manor of Spurstow in the 13th century, and it remained in the hands of the de Spurstowe family until 1685, when it was purchased by the Crewe family.
Lower Spurstow was owned by the Aldersey family from the mid-15th century; they lived in the half-timbered Lower Spurstow Hall, which was demolished in around 1891.
A silver-
gilt crucifix designed to be worn on a chain, dating from the late 14th to early 15th century, was found in the civil parish in 2000.
The area was historically important in salt extraction, with an 18th-century brine spa known as Spurstow White Water or Spurstow Spa, which was credited with health-giving effects.
The spa still existed in the mid-19th century, when it appeared in the ''Topographical Dictionary of England'' (1848) by
Samuel Lewis, who wrote "A mineral spring called Spurstow Spa was formerly much frequented, and baths were erected by
Sir Thomas Mostyn, for the accommodation of visiters; but the waters are not at present in repute."
A school was built by
Hungerford Crewe, Lord Crewe in 1872.
The village's shop and post office closed in the 1970s, and the school's closure followed in 1983.
Governance
Spurstow is administered by the Spurstow Parish Council. From 1974 the civil parish was served by
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 (2001 census) of 111,007. It contained 69 civil parishes and one unparished area: the town of Crewe. It now fo ...
Borough Council, which was succeeded on 1 April 2009 by the
unitary authority
A unitary authority is a local authority responsible for all local government functions within its area or performing additional functions that elsewhere are usually performed by a higher level of sub-national government or the national governmen ...
of
Cheshire East. Spurstow falls in the parliamentary constituency of
Eddisbury, which has been represented by
Edward Timpson
Anthony Edward Timpson, (born 26 December 1973) is a British Conservative Party politician who was elected as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Eddisbury in Cheshire at the 2019 general election.
He was previously MP for neighbouring Crew ...
since 2019, after being represented by
Stephen O'Brien (1999–2015) and
Antoinette Sandbach
Antoinette Geraldine Mackeson-Sandbach (born 15 February 1969), known as Antoinette Sandbach, is a former British politician who was elected as Member of Parliament for Eddisbury in Cheshire at the 2015 general election.
The following day, 8 ...
(2015–19).
Geography and transport
The majority of the civil parish is relatively flat, sloping gently upwards from north to south with an average elevation of around 70–80 metres; the south of the parish, towards
Ridley, slopes upwards more steeply, with a high point of around 120 metres.
Two brooks cross the parish running broadly east–west, and there is a saline spring within a small area of woodland named Spa Plantation or Bath Wood
in the south of the parish at . The
A49 runs north–south through the west of the civil parish. It connects to Long Lane which runs south east to
Haughton and Radmore Green, with two other lanes splitting from it: Bunbury Lane runs north to
Lower Bunbury, and Capper's Lane runs south east to the boundary with
Brindley. Additionally, Badcock's Lane runs east connecting the A49 with Long Lane and Capper's Lane, and Peckforton Hall Lane runs west connecting the A49 with
Peckforton
Peckforton is a scattered settlement (centred at ) and civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. The settlement is located to the north east of Malpas and to the west of Nantwich. ...
. The
A534 runs north-west to south-east immediately south of the parish boundary.
Demography
According to the
2001 Census, the parish had a population of 394,
increasing to 413 in 164 households at the
2011 Census.
This represents a decline from the population in 1851 but an increase since 1951; historical population figures are 339 (1801), 562 (1851), 434 (1901) and 323 (1951).
The population density was 0.6 persons/hectare in 2011, well below the average of 3.2 persons/hectare for Cheshire East.
Landmarks
The
remains of a medieval village are present at near Haycroft, with six house platforms and evidence of medieval
ridge and furrow
Ridge and furrow is an archaeological pattern of ridges (Medieval Latin: ''sliones'') and troughs created by a system of ploughing used in Europe during the Middle Ages, typical of the open-field system. It is also known as rig (or rigg) and f ...
ploughing.
Bath House is a
half-timbered house at in Lower Spurstow, dating from the late 16th century, which might have housed visitors to the nearby saline spring. The oldest
listed building
In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...
in the civil parish, it is designated grade II*.
Several 17th-century farmhouses and cottages, many of which are also timber framed, are listed at the lower grade of II: Haycroft Farm, Dolphin Cottage, Lower Hall Cottage, Spurstow Hall Cottages, Talbarn (originally a barn), The Butlands and The Cottage in Spurstow village. All that is left of the demolished Lower Spurstow Hall are its grade-II-listed red sandstone gate piers, dating from the late 17th century, which are topped by pineapple-shaped
finials.
A former
Methodist
Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's ...
chapel in chequered brick, dated 1844, stands off Peckforton Hall Lane; it was originally
Primitive Methodist.
Two grade-II-listed buildings were erected by Hungerford Crewe in the early 1870s; the former Spurstow School was designed in the
Gothic Revival style by
Thomas Bower
Thomas Bower (1838–1919) was an English architect and surveyor based in Nantwich, Cheshire. He worked in partnership with Ernest H. Edleston at the Nantwich firm Bower & Edleston, which he founded in 1854.Pevsner & Hubbard, p. 288 He is pa ...
and is built in red and blue brick with the tiles forming red and blue stripes;
[Hartwell ''et al''. 2011, pp. 586–87] and Spurstow Smithy is a red-brick building with cast-iron lattice windows bearing the Crewe emblem. The 19th-century Spurstow Hall was a model farm on the Crewe estate.
Notable residents
One of the seats of the Aldersey family, Lower Spurstow Hall, was in Spurstow.
Notable members of that family who lived in the parish include the explorer
Laurence Aldersey (1546–97/8) and
Thomas Aldersey (1521/2–1598), a merchant, MP and philanthropist who founded
a grammar school in Bunbury.
Education
As of 2016, there are no schools within the civil parish. Spurstow falls within the catchment areas of
Bunbury Aldersey Church of England Primary School in
Bunbury and
Tarporley High School and Sixth Form College in
Tarporley
Tarporley is a large village and civil parish in Cheshire, England. The civil parish also contains the village of Rhuddall Heath. Tarporley is bypassed by the A49 and A51 roads.
At the 2011 census, the population was 2,614.
History
Tarporle ...
.
Cheshire County Council: Interactive Mapping: Tarporley High School and Sixth Form College
(accessed 5 October 2016)
See also
* Listed buildings in Spurstow
References
Sources
*Cheshire Federation of Women's Institutes. ''The Cheshire Village Book'' (Countryside Books and CFWI; 1990) ()
*Clare Hartwell, Matthew Hyde, Edward Hubbard
Edward Horton Hubbard (2 July 1937 – 31 May 1989) was an English architectural historian who worked with Nikolaus Pevsner in compiling volumes of the ''Buildings of England''. He also wrote the definitive biography of John Douglas, and played ...
, Nikolaus Pevsner
Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner (30 January 1902 – 18 August 1983) was a German-British art historian and architectural historian best known for his monumental 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, ''The Buildings of England'' (1 ...
. ''The Buildings of England: Cheshire'' (Yale University Press
Yale University Press is the university press of Yale University. It was founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day, and became an official department of Yale University in 1961, but it remains financially and operationally autonomous.
, Yale Universi ...
; 2011) ()
* Samuel Lewis.
A Topographical Dictionary of England
' (1848)
External links
{{authority control
Civil parishes in Cheshire
Villages in Cheshire