Weston or Weston Village is a settlement in the Halton district, in the ceremonial county of

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Merseyside to the north-west, Greater Manchester to the north-east, Derbyshire to the east, Staffordshire to the south-east, and Shrop ...

, England. Formerly a separate village, it is now part of the town of

Runcorn Runcorn is an industrial town and Runcorn Docks, cargo port in the Borough of Halton, Cheshire, England. Runcorn is on the south bank of the River Mersey, where the estuary narrows to form the Runcorn Gap. It is upstream from the port of Live ...

History

Weston was formerly a

township A township is a form of human settlement or administrative subdivision. Its exact definition varies among countries. Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, this tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, Canad ...

in the parish of Runcorn. In 1866, Weston became a separate civil parish, and on 1 April 1936, the parish was abolished and merged with Runcorn. In 1931, the parish had a population of 3,783.

Geography

Weston overlooks the

River Mersey The River Mersey () is a major river in North West England. Its name derives from Old English and means "boundary river", possibly referring to its having been a border between the ancient kingdoms of Mercia and Northumbria. For centuries it h ...

, and the

Manchester Ship Canal The Manchester Ship Canal is a inland waterway in the North West England, North West of England linking Manchester to the Irish Sea. Starting at the River Mersey, Mersey Estuary at Eastham, Merseyside, Eastham, near Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, it ...

hugs the bank on the Weston side of the river; 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 1721 and the work, which included ...

joins the Mersey south of Weston. The village is separated from a large

Ineos Ineos Group Limited is a British multinational conglomerate headquartered and registered in London. it was the fourth largest chemical company in the world, with additional operations in fuel, packaging and food, construction, automotive, ph ...

chemical plant by the Weston Point Expressway. The Rocksavage area is named for the house of the same name which was built by the

Savage family Savage (, ) is an Anglo-Norman surname which was used by several English and Anglo-Irish knightly or gentry families, several of whom were politically important in England or Ireland. The ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' gives specif ...

in the 1560s and fell into ruin in the 18th century.

Notable buildings

The Grade II* listed St John the Evangelist's Church, built of sandstone in 1897, is described by Historic England as "a bold and original design".

Industry

ICI's Castner-Kellner Works made

trichloroethylene Trichloroethylene (TCE) is an organochloride with the formula C2HCl3, commonly used as an industrial metal-degreasing solvent. It is a clear, colourless, non-flammable, volatile liquid with a chloroform-like pleasant mild smell and sweet taste.

and perchloroethylene (

tetrachloroethylene Tetrachloroethylene, also known as perchloroethylene or under the systematic name tetrachloroethene, and abbreviations such as perc (or PERC), and PCE, is a chlorocarbon with the formula . It is a non-flammable, stable, colorless and heavy liqu ...

) and PVC.

Rocksavage Works Rocksavage or Rock Savage was an Elizabethan architecture, Elizabethan mansion in Cheshire, England, which served as the primary seat of the Savage family. The house lies in ruins, at in Clifton (now a district of Runcorn). Built in the 1560s ...

, built by ICI from 1938, made chlorinated methane products, and

fluorocarbon Fluorocarbons are chemical compounds with carbon-fluorine bonds. Compounds that contain many C-F bonds often have distinctive properties, e.g., enhanced stability, volatility, and hydrophobicity. Several fluorocarbons and their derivatives are ...

s for aerosol products, under the Arcton trade name. Now owned by Ineos, the works employed 6,000 in its heyday. Rocksavage Power Station, a gas-fired station opened in 1998, supplies power to the works and the local area.

References

Villages in Cheshire Former civil parishes in Cheshire Chemical industry in the United Kingdom Economy of Cheshire Runcorn {{Cheshire-geo-stub