In 1870-72, John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales described Crewe like this:
CREWE, a town and a chapelry in Monks-Coppenhall township, Coppenhall parish, Cheshire. The town stands on the Northwestern railway, at the junction of it with the Chester and Crewe, the Manchester and Birmingham, and the Shropshire Union railways, 22¾ miles ESE of Chester, and 44½ SSW of Manchester. ...
It is entirely a new place, due to the formation of the railways; occupies ground known formerly as Oak-farm, bought by a Nantwich attorney for £35 an acre, and sold to the railway companies for £500 per acre; forms a first-class depot for all matters connected with the rolling stock of the railways; has workshops, rolling mills, and locomotive factories, employing fully 3, 000 men; is largely constructed in the Tudor style of architecture; and has a head post office, ‡ a great central railway station, two chief inns, a fine town hall of 1847, an assembly-room in the town-hall, a corn exchange of 1857, a large ornate cheese-hall, a church of 1855, an English Presbyterian chapel of 1863, an Independent chapel of 1866, a Wesleyan chapel of 1867, eight other dissenting chapels, a Roman Catholic chapel, a mechanics' institution, handsome public schools for nearly 800 children, two masonic lodges, a fortnightly corn market, and numerous cattle and cheese fairs. Pop. in 1861, 8, 159. Houses, 1, 473. Pop. in 1865, upwards of 12, 000. -The chapelry was constituted in 1855. Pop. in 1861, 5, 961. Houses, 1, 051. The living is a vicarage in the dio. of Chester. Value, £300. Patrons, Trustees.
Crewe through time
Click here for graphs and data of how Crewe and Nantwich has changed over two centuries. For statistics for historical units named after Crewe go to Units and Statistics.
GB Historical GIS / University of Portsmouth, History of Crewe, in Crewe and Nantwich and Cheshire | Map and description, A Vision of Britain through Time.
URL: https://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/118
Date accessed: 19th April 2024
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