Crewe is perhaps best known as a large railway junction and home to Crewe Works; for many years, it was a major railway engineering facility for manufacturing and overhauling locomotives, but now much reduced in size. From 1946 until 2002, it was also the home of Rolls-Royce motor car production. The Pyms Lane factory on the west of the town now exclusively produces Bentley motor cars. Crewe is 158 miles (254 km) northwest of London, 28 miles (45 km) south of Manchester city centre, and 31 miles (50 km) southeast of Liverpool city centre.
The name derives from an Old Welsh word criu, meaning 'weir' or 'crossing'.[4] The earliest record is in the Domesday Book, where it is written as Creu. The original settlement of Crewe lies to the east of the modern town. It was a township in the parish of Barthomley.[5][6] The original settlement of Crewe later became known as Crewe Green to distinguish it from the newer town to its west.
The town of Crewe owes its existence to Crewe railway station, which opened in 1837 on the Grand Junction Railway. When the route for the railway was being planned, alternative routes and locations for the main station in this area were considered; Winsford, 7 miles (11 km) to the north, had rejected an earlier proposal, as had local landowners in neighbouring Nantwich, 4 miles (6 km) away. The company then settled on the route through Crewe and the station was built in fields near Crewe Hall. The station was in the township of Crewe, but the land north-west of the station was in the neighbouring township of Monks Coppenhall, which formed part of the parish of Coppenhall.
The company built its main locomotive works to the north of Crewe railway station, and a "railway colony" soon started developing in the area north-west of the station. In 1840 Joseph Locke, chief engineer of the Grand Junction Railway, produced plans for a new town there. The railway company built much of the early town itself in the 1840s and 1850s.[7] Although the nascent town was in the township of Monks Coppenhall rather than the Crewe township, it was known as Crewe from the start.[8][9] The modern town of Crewe was thus named after the railway station, rather than the other way round.
In 1859 the township of Monks Coppenhall was made a local board district, giving the town its first form of local government.[10] The district's name was changed from Monks Coppenhall to Crewe in 1869.[11][12] Townships were redefined as civil parishes in 1866, and whilst the local board district was renamed in 1869 the civil parish was not. As such, there was a Crewe district which contained the parish of Monks Coppenhall, but did not contain the parish of Crewe.[13] An old, local riddle describes the somewhat unusual states of affairs: "The place which is Crewe is not Crewe, and the place which is not Crewe is Crewe."[14]
Crewe War Memorial
The population expanded rapidly to reach 40,000 by 1871.[7] In 1877 the Crewe local board district was incorporated to become a municipal borough. The railway station remained part of the neighbouring parish of Crewe rather than the borough of Crewe until 1936. The borough boundary was significantly enlarged in 1936 to absorb the parish of Church Coppenhall and parts of several other neighbouring parishes, including the area of Crewe parish around the railway station.[15][16] The reduced Crewe parish to the east of the town formally changed its name to Crewe Green in 1984.[17]
The town has a large park, Queen's Park (laid out by engineer Francis Webb), the land for which was donated by the London and North Western Railway, the successor to the GJR. It has been suggested that their motivation was to prevent the rival Great Western Railway building a station on the site, but the available evidence indicates otherwise.[18]
The railway provided an endowment towards the building and upkeep of Christ Church. Until 1897 its vicar, non-conformist ministers and schoolteachers received concessionary passes, the school having been established in 1842. The company provided a doctor's surgery with a scheme of health insurance. A gasworks was built and the works water supply was adapted to provide drinking water and a public baths. The railway also opened a cheese market in 1854 and a clothing factory for John Compton who provided the company uniforms, while McCorquodale of Liverpool set up a printing works.
During World War II the strategic presence of the railways and Rolls-Royce engineering works (turned over to producing aircraft engines) made Crewe a target for enemy air raids, and it was in the flight path to Liverpool.[19] The borough lost 35 civilians to these,[20] the worst raid was on 29 August 1940 when some 50 houses were destroyed, close to the station.[21]
Crewe crater on Mars is named after the town of Crewe. Crewe was described by author Alan Garner in his novel Red Shift as "the ultimate reality".
Since April 2009 Crewe has been administered by the unitary authority, Cheshire East Council; at parish level, since 4 April 2013, local matters have been dealt with by Crewe Town Council, which is based at 1 Chantry Court, Forge Street, Crewe, CW1 2DL.[22]
Like most of the United Kingdom, Crewe has an oceanic climate, with warm summers and cool winters and relatively little temperature change throughout the year.[25]
The railways still play a part in local industry at Crewe Works, which carries out train maintenance and inspection. It has been owned by Alstom since 2021.[26] At its height, the site employed over 20,000 people, but by 2005 fewer than 1,000 remained, with a further 270 redundancies announced in November of that year. Currently Alstom employs 6000 people across the UK and Ireland.[27] Much of the site once occupied by the works has been sold and is now occupied by a supermarket, leisure park, and a large new health centre.
The Bentleycar factory is on Pyms Lane to the west of town. As of early 2010, there are about 3,500 working at the site.[30] The factory used to produce Rolls-Royce cars, until the licence for the brand transferred from Bentley's owners Volkswagen to rival BMW in 2003.
The headquarters of Focus DIY, which went into administration in 2011, was in the town. Off-licence chain Bargain Booze is also Crewe-based. It was bought-out in 2018 by Sir Anwar Pervez' conglomerate Bestway for £7m,[31] putting drinks retailing alongside its Manchester-based Well Pharmacy.
Several business parks around the town host light industry and offices. Crewe Business Park is a 67-acre site with offices, research and IT manufacturing. Major corporations with a presence in the park include Air Products, Barclays, and Fujitsu. The 12 acre Crewe Gates Industrial Estate is adjacent to Crewe Business Park, with smaller industry including the ice cream van manufacturer Whitby Morrison. The Weston Gate area has light industry and distribution. Marshfield Bank Employment Park is to the west of the town, and includes offices, manufacturing and distribution. There are industrial and light industrial units at Radway Green.
The town has two small shopping centres: the Victoria Centre and the Market Centre. There are outdoor markets throughout the week. Grand Junction Retail Park is just outside the centre of town. Nantwich Road provides a wide range of secondary local shops, with a variety of small retailers and estate agents.
The Market Centre is the largest shopping centre in Crewe. It is situated in the heart of the town centre with a few national retailers, including B&M, Poundstretcher and Peacocks. There are three large car parks nearby and Crewe bus station is a five-minute walk from the shopping centre. It has a weekly footfall of approximately 100,000 visitors.
Developments
A planned redevelopment of Crewe's town centre, including the current bus station and main shopping area, was abandoned because of "difficult economic conditions" during 2008.[32]
There were also plans to revamp the railway station which involved moving it to Basford. This was pending a public consultation by Network Rail scheduled for autumn 2008, but no such public consultation was done. The plan was abandoned and maintenance work was carried out on the current station instead.[33]
Cheshire East Council developed a new regeneration master plan for Crewe,[34] which included the opening of a new Lifestyle Centre, with a new swimming pool, gym and library.
After a £3 million refurbishment, the Crewe Market Hall re-opened its doors on 19 May 2021, the start of many new developments in Crewe.[citation needed]
Crewe had been planned as the site of a transport hub for the Phase 2a High Speed 2 (HS2) railway line, which received royal assent in 2021 with planned completion in 2027. The plan included a new HS2 railway station, surrounded by a commercial hub providing 37,000 jobs and 7,000 homes by 2043. However on 4 October 2023, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced the cancellation of this phase of the HS2 development at the Conservative Party Conference.[35][36]
Transport
Platform 12 at Crewe railway station, before the roof over it was replaced
Railway
Crewe railway station is located less than a mile from the town centre, although it was not incorporated into the then Borough of Crewe until 1937. It is one of the largest stations in the North West and is a major interchange station on the West Coast Main Line. It has 12 platforms in use.
Bus services in Crewe are operated predominantly by D&G Bus; their routes link the town with Congleton (route 42), Leighton Hospital (12), Macclesfield (38), Nantwich (84X) and Northwich (31/37).[43]
The Grade II-listed Edwardian Lyceum Theatre is in the centre of Crewe. It was built in 1911 and shows drama, ballet, opera, music, comedy and pantomime.[45] The theatre was originally located on Heath Street from 1882. The Axis Arts Centre is on the Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) campus in Crewe. It relocated from the university's Alsager Campus when it closed. The centre has a programme of touring new performance and visual art work.[46] The Axis centre closed at the end of the spring 2019 season with the withdrawal of MMU from the Crewe campus.[47] The Box on Pedley Street is the town's main local music venue.
Both the Lyceum Theatre and the Axis Arts Centre feature galleries. The private Livingroom art gallery is on Prince Albert Street. The town's main library is on Prince Albert Square, opposite the Municipal Buildings.
The Jacobean mansion Crewe Hall is located to the east of the town near Crewe Green. It is a grade I listed building, built in 1615–36 for Sir Randolph Crewe. Today, it is used as a hotel, restaurant and health club.
There is a multiplex Odeon cinema on Phoenix Leisure Park on the edge of the town centre, as well as a Mecca bingo hall.
Queens Park is the town's main park; £6.5 million was spent on its restoration in 2010.[50] It features walkways, a children's play area, crown green bowling, putting, a boating lake, grassed areas, memorials and a café.[51] Jubilee Gardens are in Hightown and there is also a park on Westminster Street.
In 2019, Crewe hosted Pride in the Park (previously held at Tatton Park in 2018) in Queens Park. The 2020 event, which had been due to take place on 12 September, was cancelled on 20 May, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[52]
The weekly Crewe Chronicle and the daily Sentinel newspapers cover the town. Cheshire Live, an online news source that covers news across Cheshire, also has a section dedicated to Crewe news.[53]
The local radio station is The Cat[54] broadcasting on 107.9FM from the Cheshire College South and West building covering the town along with Nantwich and other local settlements. Other radio stations that cover the area include Cheshire's Silk Radio from Macclesfield, Signal 1 and Greatest Hits Radio Staffordshire & Cheshire from Stoke-on-Trent and BBC Radio Stoke. Nantwich-based online-only station RedShift Radio also cover the area. Sonnet Radio is a Crewe based online-only station ran by volunteers. It covers Crewe and surrounding areas broadcasting 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.[citation needed]
Cheshire has adopted the comprehensive school model of secondary education, so all of the schools under its control cater for pupils of all levels of ability.[55] Until the late 1970s Crewe had two grammar schools, Crewe Grammar School for Boys, now Ruskin High School and Crewe Grammar School for Girls, now the Oaks Academy (formerly Kings Grove School). The town's two other secondary schools are Sir William Stanier School, a specialist technology and arts academy, and St. Thomas More Catholic High School, specialising in mathematics and computing and modern foreign languages.
Although there are eight schools for those aged 11–16 in Crewe and its surrounding area, South Cheshire College is one of only two local providers of education for pupils aged 16 and over, and the only one in Crewe. The college also provides educational programmes for adults, leading to qualifications such as Higher National Diplomas (HNDs) or foundation degrees. In the 2006–07 academic year 2,532 students aged 16–18 were enrolled, along with 3,721 adults.[56]
Manchester Metropolitan University's (MMU) Cheshire Faculty is based in Crewe, in a part of town which has been rebranded as the University Quadrant. The campus offers undergraduate and postgraduate courses in five areas: business and management, contemporary arts, exercise and sport science, interdisciplinary studies, education and teacher training.[57] The campus underwent a £70 million investment in its facilities and buildings in 2015.[58] The campus was used as a pre-games training camp for the London 2012 Olympic Games.[59]
Since 2016, there has been a University Technical College for 14-19 year olds interested in automotive or railway engineering.[60]
Crewe's local football club is Crewe Alexandra. During the late 20th century the club enjoyed something of a renaissance under the management of Dario Gradi, playing in the second tier of the professional pyramid for eight seasons in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Crewe Alexandra currently play in League Two (the fourth tier), having been relegated from League One in April 2022. In 2013 the club won its first major silverware after beating Southend United 2–0 in the EFL Trophy final at Wembley.
From the early 1980s, Crewe Alexandra built a reputation for developing young players through its youth ranks: England internationals Geoff Thomas, Danny Murphy, David Platt, Rob Jones and Dean Ashton, plus Northern Ireland's Neil Lennon and Steve Jones, and Wales's Robbie Savage and David Vaughan all passed through the club. Among their earlier most notable home-grown players was Frank Blunstone, born in the town in 1934, who was transferred from "The Alex" to Chelsea in 1953, and went on to win five England caps. Internationals Bruce Grobbelaar and Stan Bowles were also on the books at one time in their careers.
Crewe's local rugby clubs are both based in or near Nantwich. The Crewe & Nantwich Steamers (formerly Crewe Wolves), who played in the Rugby League Conference, were based at Barony Park, Nantwich, while Crewe and Nantwich RUFC play their home games at the Vagrants Sports Ground in Willaston.
Speedway racing was staged in Crewe in the pioneer days of the late 1920s to early 1930s; the stadium in Earle Street also operated from 1969 until 1975 when the Crewe Kings raced in British League Division Two, then the National League. At the time the track was the longest and fastest in the UK.[61] Crewe Kings riders included Phil Crump (father of Jason Crump), Les Collins (brother of Peter Collins), Dave Morton (brother of Chris Morton), Geoff Curtis, John Jackson, Jack Millen and Dave Parry. Grand Junction Retail Park occupies the site of the now demolished stadium.[62]
The Crewe Railroaders are the town's American football team, currently competing in the BAFA Central League Division 2 and the subject of the film Gridiron UK, which premiered at the Lyceum Theatre on 29 September 2016.
Crewe also has its own roller derby team, Railtown Loco Rollers, founded in September 2013. They skate at Sir William Stanier Leisure Centre and compete with skaters and teams from all over the North West.
Crewe's main leisure facility is the Crewe Lifestyle Centre, which now houses Crewe's main public swimming pool after the Flag Lane premises closed in 2016.[63] Other notable leisure facilities include Sir William Stanier Leisure Centre and Victoria Community Centre.
^"Crewe Municipal Borough". A Vision of Britain through Time. GB Historical GIS / University of Portsmouth. Retrieved 5 January 2024.
^"Cheshire". Local Government Boundary Commission for England. The National Archives. Retrieved 5 January 2024.
^[1]Archived 21 June 2015 at the Wayback Machine states: "This can now be totally dispelled as records show the LNWR Co. originally thought their line to Chester would run alongside the river. However, it was discovered the ground was not firm enough and a more northerly route was decided upon. Had the original thought gone ahead it would have taken the land that was eventually used for Queens Park. It is obvious that a rumour became mixed with a proposal to open a station on the present Chester line called Queens Park Halt. To further clarify the situation an entry on 18 December 1886, in the Minute Book of the board of directors of the LNWR, refers to the area being given for a public park."
^Discovering Wartime Cheshire 1939-1945. Cheshire County Council Countryside and Recreation. 1985. pp. 47–48. ISBN0-906759-20-X.
^"Miasta partnerskie". dzierzoniow.pl (in Polish). Dzierżoniów. Archived from the original on 29 December 2012. Retrieved 29 July 2022.
Bibliography
Chambers, S (2007), Crewe: A history, Chichester, Sussex: Phillimore, ISBN978-1-86077-472-0
Curran, H; Gilsenan, M; Owen, B; Owen, J (1984), Change at Crewe, Chester: Cheshire Libraries and Museums
Dunn, F. I. (1987), The ancient parishes, townships and chapelries of Cheshire, Chester: Cheshire Record Office and Cheshire Diocesan Record Office, ISBN0-906758-14-9
Ollerhead, P (2008), Crewe: History and guide, Stroud, Gloucestershire: Tempus Publishing, ISBN978-0-7524-4654-7
Youngs, F. A. (1991), Guide to the local administrative units of England. (Volume 1: Northern England), London: Royal Historical Society, ISBN0-86193-127-0
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