Cheshire East: Silk, Railways and the Footballer Belt
Cheshire East covers the eastern half of the old county of Cheshire, from the Peak District fringes to the Cheshire Plain. It contains towns of genuinely different character — Macclesfield, once England's silk manufacturing capital; Crewe, built by and for the railway; Congleton, a market town with a bear-baiting past; Wilmslow and Alderley Edge, where Premier League footballers and their families have colonised the property market to the point where it has become a cultural shorthand for new money.
Alderley Edge is worth pausing on. The sandstone escarpment above the village, owned by the National Trust, is riddled with old copper mines and features in Alan Garner's novels The Weirdstone of Brisingamen and The Moon of Gomrath. The village below has been transformed by wealth pouring in from Manchester's football and entertainment industries — the restaurants, car dealerships, and property prices reflect this. Knutsford, nearby, has a different kind of wealth: older, quieter, the kind that does not need to display itself. Elizabeth Gaskell set Cranford there.
Crewe, at the southern end of the authority, is an entirely different world. The town was created by the Grand Junction Railway in the 1840s as a junction and locomotive works. Bentley Motors has its factory here, and Crewe remains a significant rail junction. Tatton Park near Knutsford, a grand country house with a deer park, Japanese garden, and working farm, is one of the most visited National Trust properties in the country. The population of Cheshire East is around 400,000.
Show more
Cheshire East covers the eastern half of the old county of Cheshire, from the Peak District fringes to the Cheshire Plain. It contains towns of genuinely different character — Macclesfield, once England's silk manufacturing capital; Crewe, built by and for the railway; Congleton, a market town with a bear-baiting past; Wilmslow and Alderley Edge, where Premier League footballers and their families have colonised the property market to the point where it has become a cultural shorthand for new money.
Alderley Edge is worth pausing on. The sandstone escarpment above the village, owned by the National Trust, is riddled with old copper mines and features in Alan Garner's novels The Weirdstone of Brisingamen and The Moon of Gomrath. The village below has been transformed by wealth pouring in from Manchester's football and entertainment industries — the restaurants, car dealerships, and property prices reflect this. Knutsford, nearby, has a different kind of wealth: older, quieter, the kind that does not need to display itself. Elizabeth Gaskell set Cranford there.
Crewe, at the southern end of the authority, is an entirely different world. The town was created by the Grand Junction Railway in the 1840s as a junction and locomotive works. Bentley Motors has its factory here, and Crewe remains a significant rail junction. Tatton Park near Knutsford, a grand country house with a deer park, Japanese garden, and working farm, is one of the most visited National Trust properties in the country. The population of Cheshire East is around 400,000.
Country selected
Region selected
Optional — select or proceed
