Sound is a hamlet (at ) 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 authority ...

in the unitary authority of

Cheshire East Cheshire East is a unitary authority area with Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough status in the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. The local authority is Cheshire East Council. Towns within the area include Crewe, Macclesfield, Co ...

and the ceremonial county of

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. The hamlet is located to the south 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 civil parish covers and also includes the small settlements of Newtown and Sound Heath,Genuki: Sound
(accessed 6 April 2010) with a total population at the 2011 Census of 239. Nearby villages include

Aston Aston is an area of inner Birmingham, England. Located immediately to the north-east of Central Birmingham, Aston constitutes a ward within the metropolitan authority. It is approximately 1.5 miles from Birmingham City Centre. History Aston wa ...

Ravensmoor Ravensmoor is a village in the unitary authority of Cheshire East and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England, located at . It is split between the civil parishes of Baddiley and Burland. It lies at an elevation of 65 m, around 2¼ miles sou ...

and

Wrenbury Wrenbury-cum-Frith is a village and civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East, and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. It lies on the River Weaver, around 8.5 miles south-west of Crewe. The civil parish of Wrenbury cum Frit ...

. The name is of

Saxon The Saxons ( la, Saxones, german: Sachsen, ang, Seaxan, osx, Sahson, nds, Sassen, nl, Saksen) were a group of Germanic * * * * peoples whose name was given in the early Middle Ages to a large country (Old Saxony, la, Saxonia) near the Nor ...

origin and means "a sandy place". The first record of the township is in 1310. It was raided by

Royalist A royalist supports a particular monarch as head of state for a particular kingdom, or of a particular dynastic claim. In the abstract, this position is royalism. It is distinct from monarchism, which advocates a monarchical system of governme ...

forces in 1643, during the

Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...

. The Methodist chapel was built in 1838, and a primary school on the boundary with Broomhall opened in 1876. Other historic buildings include a rare example of a

malt kiln A malt house, malt barn, or maltings, is a building where cereal grain is converted into malt by soaking it in water, allowing it to sprout and then drying it to stop further growth. The malt is used in brewing beer, whisky and in certain foo ...

. The

River Weaver The River Weaver is a river, navigable in its lower reaches, running in a curving route anti-clockwise across west Cheshire, northern England. Improvements to the river to make it navigable were authorised in 1720 and the work, which included ...

runs along the southern boundary and the

Welsh Marches The Welsh Marches ( cy, Y Mers) is an imprecisely defined area along the border between England and Wales in the United Kingdom. The precise meaning of the term has varied at different periods. The English term Welsh March (in Medieval Latin ...

railway line crosses the parish. The area is mainly agricultural, with

dairy farming Dairy farming is a class of agriculture for long-term production of milk, which is processed (either on the farm or at a dairy plant, either of which may be called a dairy A dairy is a business enterprise established for the harvesting or ...

predominating. The flat terrain has an average elevation of around 60 metres. There is a small

Site of Special Scientific Interest A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle of ...

and Local Nature Reserve named Sound Heath, which forms an important habitat for

freshwater Fresh water or freshwater is any naturally occurring liquid or frozen water containing low concentrations of dissolved salts and other total dissolved solids. Although the term specifically excludes seawater and brackish water, it does include ...

invertebrate Invertebrates are a paraphyletic group of animals that neither possess nor develop a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''backbone'' or ''spine''), derived from the notochord. This is a grouping including all animals apart from the chordate ...

s and breeding birds. Nationally scarce species observed here include the

mud snail A MUD (; originally multi-user dungeon, with later variants multi-user dimension and multi-user domain) is a Multiplayer video game, multiplayer Time-keeping systems in games#Real-time, real-time virtual world, usually Text-based game, text-bas ...

great raft spider The great raft spider or fen raft spider (''Dolomedes plantarius'') is a European species of spider in the family Pisauridae. Like other ''Dolomedes'' spiders, it is semiaquatic, hunting its prey on the surface of water. It occurs mainly in neutr ...

, a species of

water scavenger beetle Hydrophilidae, also known colloquially as water scavenger beetles, is a family of beetles. Aquatic hydrophilids are notable for their long maxillary palps, which are longer than their antennae. Several of the former subfamilies of Hydrophilidae ...

and the beautiful snout moth.

History

Sound, or Soond, is a name of

origin which means a sandy place. Sound is not mentioned in the

Domesday survey 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 manusc ...

. In 1200–1300, there is evidence for a hamlet named Fouleshurst, which is thought to have been located near Fouleshurst (now Fullhurst) Hall on Sound Lane, in the north of the modern civil parish. However, no traces have yet been uncovered of this settlement. Records exist of the township of Sound itself from 1310. The area of the modern civil parish was divided between two administrative units in the Nantwich Hundred: part fell within Wrenbury chapelry, which was served by

St Margaret's Church, Wrenbury St Margaret's Church overlooks the village green of Wrenbury, Cheshire, England. The church is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II* listed building. It is an active Anglican parish church in the di ...

, and part within the

ancient 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 authority. ...

Acton Acton may refer to: Places Antarctica * Mount Acton Australia * Acton, Australian Capital Territory, a suburb of Canberra * Acton, Tasmania, a suburb of Burnie * Acton Park, Tasmania, a suburb of Hobart, Tasmania, formerly known as Acton Canada ...

, which was served by

St Mary's Church, Acton St Mary's Church is an active Anglican parish church located in Monk's Lane, Acton, a village to the west of Nantwich, Cheshire, England. Since 1967 it has been designated a Grade I listed building. A church has been present on this sit ...

. The earliest landowners were the Sound family, but the manor had passed to the Chetwode family by the reign of

Edward IV Edward IV (28 April 1442 – 9 April 1483) was King of England from 4 March 1461 to 3 October 1470, then again from 11 April 1471 until his death in 1483. He was a central figure in the Wars of the Roses, a series of civil wars in England ...

(1461–1483) and by 1800, it was owned by the Cholmondeleys. In April 1643, during the

, Sound was one of several townships raided by

forces. The diarist Edward Burghall wrote: In 1831 there was a hopyard north of Sound Hall, which had a

. Two beerhouse keepers were recorded in Sound in 1850, and one of the cottages adjacent to Sound Hall is believed to have been an alehouse. Broomhall and Sound Chapel

The

Crewe and Shrewsbury Railway The Crewe and Shrewsbury Railway was a railway company which was previously owned by the London and North Western Railway (LNWR), built to connect Crewe with the Shrewsbury and Hereford Railway which was jointly owned with GWR. Authorised in 1 ...

was approved in 1853. Construction employed engineers

Joseph Locke Joseph Locke FRSA (9 August 1805 – 18 September 1860) was a notable English civil engineer of the nineteenth century, particularly associated with railway projects. Locke ranked alongside Robert Stephenson and Isambard Kingdom Brunel as one ...

and

John Edward Errington John Edward Errington (29 December 1806 – 4 July 1862) was an English civil engineer, particularly noted for his work on railway construction in the United Kingdom. Biography Errington, eldest son of Captain John Errington and Harriet – of ...

and contractor

Thomas Brassey Thomas Brassey (7 November 18058 December 1870) was an English civil engineering contractor and manufacturer of building materials who was responsible for building much of the world's railways in the 19th century. By 1847, he had built about o ...

, and the line opened on 1 September 1858. It passed through Sound with no station. Broomhall Church, a Methodist chapel, was built in Newtown in 1838 by Joseph Cartlidge.Latham, p. 71 A Primitive Methodist Chapel was constructed in 1875 at Sound Heath, and a Sunday School was added in the late 1930s. This chapel closed in 1973, when the congregation united with that of Broomhall Church, which was renamed Broomhall and Sound Church. Sound School (on the boundary with Broomhall) opened in 1876, with 58 pupils in its first year.Latham, p. 91 During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, the school served as an emergency rest centre for evacuees. It was expanded with mobile classrooms in the late 20th century.

Governance

Sound is administered by Sound and District Parish Council, jointly with the nearby civil parishes of

Austerson Austerson is a civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England, lying immediately south of the town of Nantwich and north of the village of Audlem. Predominantly rural with scattered farms, th ...

Baddiley Baddiley is a scattered settlement and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. The civil parish also includes the north-western part of the village of Rave ...

Baddington Baddington is a civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England, which lies immediately to the south-west of Nantwich and north of Audlem. Predominantly rural with scattered farms, the civil ...

, Broomhall and

Coole Pilate Coole Pilate is a civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England, which lies to the north of Audlem and to the south of Nantwich. The area is predominantly rural with scattered farms, and ...

. Sound is represented by 4 councillors out of a total of 15. From 1974 the civil parish was served by

Crewe and Nantwich Crewe and Nantwich was, from 1974 to 2009, a Non-metropolitan district, local government district with Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough status in Cheshire, England. It had a population (2001 census) of 111,007. It contained 69 civ ...

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 ...

. Sound 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 Crewe a ...

since 2019, after being represented by

Stephen O'Brien Sir Stephen Rothwell O'Brien, (born 1 April 1957) is a British politician and diplomat who was the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator. O'Brien assumed office on 29 May 2015, succeed ...

(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, economy and transport

The civil parish has a total area of .Crewe & Nantwich Borough Council: Parish Statistics (downloaded fro

5 April 2010) The underlying geology is

Keuper marl Keuper marl is a former and now deprecated term for multiple layers of mudstone and siltstone of Triassic age which occur beneath parts of the English Midlands and neighbouring areas e.g. Cheshire, Nottinghamshire, Devon, eastern Worcestershire ...

, with glacial sand deposit providing light sandy soil at Sound Heath. The

and Edleston Brook form parts of the southern and northern boundaries of the parish, respectively. Several unnamed brooks also run through the parish, and many small meres and ponds are scattered across its farmland and woodland. The majority of the terrain is relatively flat, with an average elevation of around 60 metres; near the northern parish boundary and adjacent to the Weaver in the southwest the land is more undulating in character. There are several areas of woodland within the parish, including Sound Heath and Asphodel. The small scattered settlements of Sound () and Sound Heath () are centred on the junction of Sound Lane and Wrenbury Heath Road. The hamlet of Newtown () lies adjacent to the A530, between Newtown Road and Wrenbury Heath Road. Occasional farmhouses and cottages also lie along Sound Lane and Wrenbury Heath Road. The area is predominantly rural, with the major land use being agricultural.

Dairy farming Dairy farming is a class of agriculture for long-term production of milk, which is processed (either on the farm or at a dairy plant, either of which may be called a dairy A dairy is a business enterprise established for the harvesting or ...

predominates, but there is also sheep pasture, horse paddocks and some arable fields. There is an

abattoir A slaughterhouse, also called abattoir (), is a facility where animals are slaughtered to provide food. Slaughterhouses supply meat, which then becomes the responsibility of a packaging facility. Slaughterhouses that produce meat that is no ...

at Red Lion Farm in Sound Heath. A few small industrial and service enterprises operate within the parish, including television and video repairs (Sound Heath), metal fabricators (Sound Lane) and secretarial services (Newtown).Wrenbury Village Website: Commerce
(accessed 9 April 2010) Pasture Sound

The A530 runs along the south-east edge of the civil parish. Three unclassified roads run from the A530. Wrenbury Heath Road runs westwards towards Wrenbury Heath, where it joins the lane from

to Wrenbury. Sound Lane initially runs westwards, joining Wrenbury Heath Road at , and then turns northwards towards

, where it also joins the lane to Nantwich. Newtown Road connects the A530 and Sound Lane. The

railway line runs through the parish from the south-west to the north-east, crossing Wrenbury Heath Road at and Sound Lane at . Two further railway bridges serve Sound Hall () and Bridge Farm (), with no public right of way. The

National Cycle Network The National Cycle Network (NCN) is the national cycling route network of the United Kingdom, which was established to encourage cycling and walking throughout Britain, as well as for the purposes of bicycle touring. It was created by the cha ...

Regional Route 75 runs westwards from the A530 along Newtown Road and then follows Sound Lane.Cheshire East Council & Cheshire West and Chester Council: Interactive Mapping: Sound
(accessed 6 April 2010)

Sound Heath

The parish includes the

(SSSI) and Local Nature Reserve of Sound Heath, also known as Sound Common.Natural England: Local Nature Reserves: Sound Heath
(accessed 9 April 2010) The designated site comprises two distinct areas totalling 4.8 Ha, the larger centred at and the smaller at . The habitat is varied, with damp and dry lowland

heath A heath () is a shrubland habitat found mainly on free-draining infertile, acidic soils and characterised by open, low-growing woody vegetation. Moorland is generally related to high-ground heaths with—especially in Great Britain—a cooler ...

grassland A grassland is an area where the vegetation is dominated by grasses (Poaceae). However, sedge (Cyperaceae) and rush (Juncaceae) can also be found along with variable proportions of legumes, like clover, and other herbs. Grasslands occur natur ...

, scrub and young

woodland A woodland () is, in the broad sense, land covered with trees, or in a narrow sense, synonymous with wood (or in the U.S., the ''plurale tantum'' woods), a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunlight and limited shade (see ...

. There are many permanent or seasonal pools, which originate from sand extraction.Natural England: Sound Heath
(accessed 9 April 2010) Sound Heath is one of the most important sites in Cheshire for

s.Latham, pp. 127–8 Pond-dwelling species that are rare in the UK which have been observed here include the

and a species of

. The beautiful snout moth is another nationally scarce species which has been recorded at Sound Heath. The area is also an important breeding site for a wide range of birds.

Places of worship

Broomhall and Sound Methodist Chapel is in Newtown at . Founded in 1838 as Broomhall Church, it belonged successively to the Wesleyan Methodist Association, United Methodist Free Churches and United Methodist Church. In 1973, it amalgamated with Sound Heath Chapel. It is a white rendered building with an

apse In architecture, an apse (plural apses; from Latin 'arch, vault' from Ancient Greek 'arch'; sometimes written apsis, plural apsides) is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault or semi-dome, also known as an ''exedra''. In ...

at one end, which was extended in 1980. It belongs to the Audlem section of the Nantwich Circuit.

Other landmarks

Sound Oak Farmhouse on Sound Lane () dates from the early 17th century and is listed at grade II. The two-storey,

timber-framed Timber framing (german: Holzfachwerk) and "post-and-beam" construction are traditional methods of building with heavy timbers, creating structures using squared-off and carefully fitted and joined timbers with joints secured by large wooden ...

building is on an H-shaped plan with a tiled roof. The two end bays are gabled and have small

jetties A jetty is a structure that projects from land out into water. A jetty may serve as a breakwater, as a walkway, or both; or, in pairs, as a means of constricting a channel. The term derives from the French word ', "thrown", signifying somet ...

. The grade-II-listed Fulhurst Hall, also on Sound Lane (), dates originally from the mid-17th century. The two-storey, T-shaped building is partly timber-framed with a 20th-century brick extension and a tiled roof. A former red-brick

stands opposite Sound Hall on Wrenbury Heath Road (). Such buildings were common in around 1800, but very few examples are still standing. A long low wing forms the former drying area, where

malt Malt is germinated cereal grain that has been dried in a process known as " malting". The grain is made to germinate by soaking in water and is then halted from germinating further by drying with hot air. Malted grain is used to make beer, wh ...

and

hops Hops are the flowers (also called seed cones or strobiles) of the hop plant ''Humulus lupulus'', a member of the Cannabaceae family of flowering plants. They are used primarily as a bittering, flavouring, and stability agent in beer, to whi ...

were dried; six sets of wooden shutters on each of the two floors were used to adjust the airflow. An adjoining wing with a higher roof was used for brewing. The building was substantially unaltered and in use as a barn in 2006,Lamberton & Gray, pp. 75–6 but was being converted into residential use in 2010.

Demography

In 2006, the total population of the civil parish was estimated as 220. The 2001 census recorded a population of 233, in 88 households.Neighbourhood Statistics: Sound CP
(accessed 6 April 2010) The historical population figures were 192 (1801), 261 (1851), 234 (1901) and 237 (1951).

Education

Sound and District Primary School is on the A530 at . It serves the civil parish of Sound, as well as

, Broomhall,

and Newhall. The school building dates from 1876 and is listed at grade II. A single-storey building of three bays with a bell turret forms the school, with an adjoining two-storey schoolmaster's house; both are in red and blue brick with a blue tile roof. The parish falls within the catchment area of Brine Leas High School in

.Cheshire East Council & Cheshire West and Chester Council: Interactive Mapping: Brine Leas High School
(accessed 6 April 2010)

References

Sources

*Lamberton A, Gray R. ''Lost Buildings around Nantwich'' (Landmark Publishing; 2006) () *Latham FA, ed. ''Acton'' (The Local History Group; 1995) ()

External links

Sound and District Primary School website
{{authority control Civil parishes in Cheshire Villages in Cheshire