Portal:Cheshire

Deva Victrix (also known as Deva) was a Roman legionary fortress and town on the site of the modern city of Chester. The fortress was built by the Roman legion Legio II Adiutrix in the AD 70s as the Roman army advanced north against the Brigantes. Covering 62 acres (25 hectares), it contained barracks, granaries, military headquarters, military baths, and an unusual elliptical building that might have acted as the governor of Britain's headquarters.

The fortress was rebuilt in stone at the end of the 1st century AD when it was occupied by the Legio XX Valeria Victrix, and again in the early 3rd century. The legion probably remained at the fortress until it fell into disuse in the late 4th or early 5th century.

A civilian settlement grew around the fortress and remained after the Romans withdrew. Peripheral settlements included Boughton, the source of the garrison's water supply, and Handbridge, the site of a sandstone quarry and the Minerva Shrine, the only in situ, rock-cut Roman shrine in Britain. Chester Roman Amphitheatre is the largest known military amphitheatre in Britain, seating 8,000 to 10,000 people.

Mary Fitton (1578–1647) of Gawsworth Hall was maid of honour to Queen Elizabeth I. She is sometimes identified as the Dark Lady of Shakespeare's sonnets, based on her affair with William Herbert, Shakespeare's patron and a candidate for the Fair Youth.

Credit: Unknown (c.1595)

16 January: A stretch of Chester's Roman walls collapses due to excavations from adjacent building work.

12 January: A fire badly damages the late-19th-century mansion, Tilstone House, in Tarporley.

10 January: Ofsted rates Cheshire East Council's Child Protection services as requiring further improvement, after a negative review in 2013.

3 January: A major fire occurs at Northwich Outdoor Market.

19 December: Macclesfield Town is fined six points by the English Football League after leaving players' salaries unpaid and failing to play a League Two match against Crewe Alexandra.

16 December: Warrington West station opens in Chapelford, near Great Sankey, Warrington.

12 December: In the general election, the Conservative party gains Crewe and Nantwich and Warrington South, and holds Congleton, Eddisbury, Macclesfield and Tatton, while the Labour party holds City of Chester, Ellesmere Port and Neston, Halton, Warrington North and Weaver Vale.

9 December: Chester-born actor Daniel Craig is nominated for a Golden Globe Award for his performance in the murder mystery, Knives Out.

2 December: A trial over an explosion at a mill in Bosley in July 2015, which killed four employees, commences in Stockport.

1 October: Keith Sinclair, Bishop of Birkenhead, becomes acting Anglican Bishop of Chester, after Peter Forster's retirement.

The output of Chester-based architect John Douglas (1830–1911) included a diverse range of non-residential works. The majority of his works were in Cheshire and North Wales. His architectural styles were eclectic, but as he worked during the Gothic Revival period much of his output incorporates elements of the English Gothic style. He is probably best remembered for his incorporation of vernacular elements in his buildings, especially half-timbering, but also tile-hanging, pargeting, and decorative brickwork in diapering and tall chimney stacks.

In addition to numerous churches, Douglas's non-residential works included a great variety of buildings such as schools, shops, offices, hotels, public houses, banks, model farms, cheese factories, a gentlemen's club, a public baths and a public convenience. The Eastgate Clock in Chester, a memorial of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, is perhaps the best known of the smaller commissions he undertook. Other examples include memorials, a canopy over a well (pictured), a temporary triumphal arch, a garden ornament and an obelisk.

Warrington

Chester

Crewe

Runcorn

Widnes

Ellesmere Port

Macclesfield

Winsford

Wilmslow

Congleton

Northwich

Sandbach

Nantwich

Poynton

Neston

Middlewich

Alsager

Knutsford

Lymm

Alderley Edge

Bickerton Hill

Bosley
Minn

The Cloud

Croker Hill

Old Pale

Helsby Hill

Peckforton Hills

Shining Tor

Shutlingsloe

Tegg's Nose

Windgather

Top: Map of modern Cheshire showing urban areas (grey) and the major road network. Chester (red) is the county town, and Warrington has the greatest population. Towns with more than 10,000 inhabitants in 2011 are highlighted; the size of dot gives a rough indication of the relative population.

Bottom: Relief map showing the major hills. The Mid Cheshire Ridge is a discontinuous ridge of low hills running north–south from Beacon Hill (north of Helsby Hill) to Bickerton Hill. Most other high ground falls within the Peak District in the east of the county. Shining Tor (559 metres), on the boundary with Derbyshire, forms the county's high point.

The ceremonial county of Cheshire is administered by four unitary authorities (click on the map for details):

1 – Cheshire West and Chester

2 – Cheshire East

3 – Warrington

4 – Halton

In the local government reorganisation of 1974, Cheshire gained an area formerly in Lancashire including Widnes and Warrington. The county lost Tintwistle to Derbyshire, part of the Wirral Peninsula to Merseyside, and a northern area including Stockport, Altrincham, Sale, Hyde, Dukinfield and Stalybridge to Greater Manchester.

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