You are here! But who was before? Discover history on your doorstep using Cheshire Tithe Maps Online

This blog explains how to get started using our Cheshire Tithe Maps Online website to explore the history of your house, a plot of land or another place of interest.

As you will soon see, delving into the history of a site can sometimes raise more questions than answers, but is still an absorbing activity!

What is Cheshire Tithe Maps Online?

Over 400 individual tithe maps from the 1830s and 1840s have been electronically stitched together to form a continuous and (more or less) seamless map of the whole of the ancient county of Cheshire, as well as a few townships in the Warrington area. 

On entering the website you can see the historic tithe maps on the left-hand side of the screen, and a modern map on the right. You can click anywhere on either map to move the coverage area around, or use the + and – buttons on the right to zoom in and out. Even more usefully, the site also opens with a search box, where you can tap in a postcode or street to zoom straight to a location on the map. 

How can I use the website to find the history of a building or plot of land?

We'll show you how we use the Cheshire Tithe Maps Online website to learn more about the history of a building. 

In this case we are interested in the site of the Neuromuscular Centre (NMC) on Woodford Lane West, Winsford. We have a postcode for this site, CW7 4EH, which we can insert into the location box:

Clicking and dragging on the circle between the 19th century tithe map and the modern day map allows you to directly compare the two maps, revealing what was on the site of the NMC in 1846... Nothing! 

This is disappointing, but the plot does have a number on it... What does this mean? 

The tithe maps show numbered plots, which correspond to an accompanying book (called an "apportionment" - literally how the land was portioned out), which identified the owners, occupiers, and area, and what the land was used for. This last category might just say "House and buildings", or it could be a field name, for example. 

This particular plot is number 438, and by clicking on it we can view the names of the owners, occupiers and the description given in the apportionment:

We now know that the owner was Richard Dutton, the occupier Martha Hodgkinson and the land use … mowing! Nowadays the land surrounding the site is still known as The Meadow.

We can enter these names into the 'Search Tithe Maps By Person' field to see if they own or occupy any other land. 

In Martha’s case she is shown as occupying a few more plots for mowing/pasture, and we can see the full extent of Richard Dutton’s ownership in the area. 

Where next?

If want to find out more about an owner or occupier, the census returns, available for every ten years from 1841 to 1911, are an extremely useful source. They can be searched online through Ancestry and Find My Past.

The small window in the bottom left hand corner of the tithe map website gives the year that particular map was drawn, so the map for Over (one of the historic townships that has become Winsford) was drawn in 1846. A search on the 1841 and 1851 census would be our next step. 

Unless we are very lucky with some very unusual names, we will probably have to make some educated guesses using birth year, occupations and geography to narrow the results down to the likeliest suspects.

The most likely local Richard Dutton appears to reside in Stanthorne Hall and is listed as being a farmer of 172 acres:

The most likely Martha Hodgkinson is more tricky. There is one living at Thurlwood, Odd Rode married to Matthew who is an Agricultural Labourer, but is this a bit too far away? She was born in 1810 and is the only Martha of the right age. 

We probably have to rule out whether another Martha Hodgkinson married or died between 1846 and 1851 using indexes of marriage and death registration online. We probably also need to know more about how far the rural workforce travelled to tend to meadow or pasture. 

If we are interested in verifying these people and knowing more about them we can go down more of a family history route. A search for named individuals or properties on the Cheshire Archives and Local Studies online catalogue may also be useful. Our collections cover a lot of estate, solicitors and institutional records, though unfortunately owners are more likely to appear than occupiers, obviously!

If you are more interested in property or land history you can go back to the maps again. On the Cheshire Tithe Maps Online website click 'Change Maps' and you'll be presented with a list of nine other options you can look at. 

As well as the default options of the Tithe Map and latest Ordnance Survey maps, you can also see the first, second and third Ordnance Survey six-inch plans (published in the 1870s, 1890s and 1910s respectively), as well as aerial photographs taken in 1971-73, 1999-2003 and 2010. 

You can choose which to have as the left map or the right map, and change your selection at any time. Using these snapshots in time you can work out approximately when a plot was first built on, or when a building was demolished. 

The National Library of Scotland have an even more extensive range of Ordnance Survey maps from the 19th and 20th centuries. These can be especially helpful in filling the gaps in the Cheshire Tithe Maps site after 1900.

Interested in historic maps and mapping we have a Walk Through History video

You never know where a quick search might take you - check out the NMC History Project here

Fauna and flora of Cheshire

In 1900, Thomas Coward described the county of Cheshire in his book Birds of Cheshire (Ref: 011889) as consisting of three distinct areas; The Central Plain, The Hill Country of the East, and the Wirral Peninsula and Marshes of the Dee, all varying greatly in character, and providing maritime habitats for wildlife as well as a farmed landscape. The county has changed much in the century since Coward wrote his work. This blog uses items from our collections to explore the fauna and flora of Cheshire, both past and present.

Like many other areas of the United Kingdom, local names for wildlife developed in Cheshire, including an “urchin” (hedgehog), a “mouldywarp” (mole), “spadgers” (house sparrows) and a “gil-hooter” (owl). What animals do you think the below are local words for?! Answers can be found at the bottom of the blog post! Many more local names for wildlife can be found in Vertebrate fauna of Cheshire and Reptiles and amphibians, both by T. Coward (Ref: 011896).

1. Snig

2. Rabbidge

3. Tummuz

4. Windhover

5. Dabchick

Cheshire is linked with several renowned naturalists. Charles Tunnicliffe (1901-1979) was an artist of natural history, born in Macclesfield. He illustrated Henry Williamson’s Tarka the Otter (see Ref: 112994), as well as Ladybird books and Brooke Bond tea cards, specialising in British birds and wildlife. A collection of his work can be found at Macclesfield Library. He also illustrated books by his friend “Nomad the Naturalist”, the alias of another local naturalist, Norman Ellison.

Ellison was born in Liverpool in 1893, and worked as a radio presenter and author, making programmes about nature and the countryside. His uncle, George Ellison, was also a local naturalist. “Nomad” wrote A Naturalist’s Notebook column for Cheshire Life magazine between the 1940s and 1970s.

 

In The Wirral Peninsula (Ref: 010568), originally published in 1955, Ellison embarks upon walks in the area, from Parkgate to Neston, describing the marshy grassland on the other side of the sea wall, looking out towards Wales. He describes the marsh as treacherous, with deep gullies and clinging mud. He also records wildlife he sees on a walk around the gardens at Ness; willow warblers, a great spotted woodpecker, martins and swallows, and a badger sett.

Ness Gardens was established by the Liverpool Cotton Broker and keen naturalist Arthur Kilpin Bulley in 1898. Bulley was interested in the “acclimatisation” of plants from abroad and opened his gardens to the public. A. K. Bulley died in 1942, and in 1948 his daughter presented the whole estate to the University of Liverpool, to be kept as a botanic garden, with the condition that public openings of the grounds continued.

Our next local naturalist to introduce to you is George Bramwell Evens (1884-1943), also known as “Romany”, who lived for a time in Wilmslow. He was a radio broadcaster and naturalist, writing on nature and the countryside, producing many Out with Romany programmes. His first book A Romany in the Fields was published in 1929 (see Ref: 401720, held at Willmslow Library along with several other items of his work).

And finally, we also hold the records of Arnold Whitworth Boyd (1885-1959) at Cheshire Record Office (Ref: D 5154), an ornithologist and naturalist born in Altrincham. Like Ellison, A. W. Boyd also wrote wildlife columns, including for the Manchester Guardian. A reprint of Boyd’s weekly nature notes from this newspaper can be found in The Country Diary of a Cheshire Man (Ref: 200208), published in 1946.

If you feel inspired by our Cheshire naturalists and some of the wildlife mentioned here, Cheshire is a fantastic county to explore, with many popular walking trails, including the Sandstone Trail and the North Cheshire Way.

The Sandstone Trail

The Sandstone Trail explores 55km (34 miles) of Cheshire’s central sandstone ridge from Frodsham to Whitchurch. The highest point is Rawhead, near Bickerton in central Cheshire, rising 227m (746 feet) above sea level. It is one of the earliest middle-distance ways in Britain and was conceived by the Cheshire County Council in the 1970s, officially opening in 1974. Along the way you may see peregrines, which have returned to nesting in Cheshire. Look out for mature deciduous woodland across the Peckforton and Bulkeley Hills. The marshland around Frodsham provides habitats for wildfowl such as teals, shelducks, redshanks and dunlins. The woodland paths of the trail are lined with wildflowers such as celandines, wood anemones and bluebells in spring and early summer. Delamere Forest is an ideal place for fungal forays during the autumn. The steep, wooded Peckforton Hills are home to a range of mammals and birds, with buzzards, ravens and sparrowhawks nesting in the woods, and an increasing number of polecats.

See Walking Cheshire’s Sandstone Trail by Tony Bowerman (Ref: 222267) to learn more about this route and the wildlife which can be found along it.

The North Cheshire Way

The North Cheshire Way is Cheshire’s longest long-distance footpath, running for 114km (71 miles) from Hooton Station to Disley Station, crossing the county from west to east. On the way you might see “herb Peters” (cowslips) or “paigles” (primroses).

For further information, see The North Cheshire Way, a slice of Cheshire (Ref: 219999), published by the Mid-Cheshire Footpath Society.

Whilst walking, keep an eye out for the following fauna and flora common to Cheshire: 

• Butterflies, such as the holly blue, red admiral and orange tips.
• Mammals, including common pipistrelle bats, hedgehogs and red foxes.
• Trees, including English oaks and holly.

• Wildflowers, such as bluebells in spring, wild garlic, and the common poppy.
• Reptiles and amphibians. Look out for adders, common toads and common frogs. Locally tadpoles of the common frog have been known as “bull-heads”.
• Birds such as robins and tiny wrens. We love this quote from Coward in Birds of Cheshire (Ref: 011889): “Mr. F. S. Graves saw a [wren’s] nest at Capesthorne in the spring of 1899, built in the head of a Brussels-sprout”! Coward also reports on a swallow, one of our migratory birds, seen flying in Delamere, completely white in colour.

ANSWERS: 1. Eel, 2. Rabbit, 3. Toad, 4. Kestrel, 5. Moorhen

View more images of Cheshire’s landscape online at www.cheshireimagebank.org.uk