Daresbury is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authorit ...

in the unitary authority of Halton and the ceremonial county of

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a ceremonial and historic county in North West England, bordered by Wales to the west, Merseyside and Greater Manchester to the north, Derbyshire to the east, and Staffordshire and Shropshire to the south. Cheshire's county tow ...

, England. At the 2001 census it had a population of 216, increasing to 246 by the 2011 census.

History

The name means "Deor's fortification", derived from an

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th ...

personal name and the word ''burh'' (a fortified place). The population was recorded over time at 134 in the census of 1801, 157 in 1851, 153 in 1901, 235 in 1951 and reaching 216 by 2001. Opened in 1850 on the

Birkenhead Railway The Birkenhead Railway was a railway company in North West England. It was incorporated as the Birkenhead, Lancashire and Cheshire Junction Railway (BL&CJR) in 1846 to build a line connecting the port of Birkenhead and the city of Chester with ...

, the area was served by

Daresbury railway station Daresbury railway station was a station in Moore, Cheshire, on the Birkenhead Joint Railway between Runcorn and Warrington. It was named after the village of Daresbury, Cheshire, about a mile away to distinguish it from Moore railway station ...

in the nearby village of

Moore Moore may refer to: People * Moore (surname) ** List of people with surname Moore * Moore Crosthwaite (1907–1989), a British diplomat and ambassador * Moore Disney (1765–1846), a senior officer in the British Army * Moore Powell (died c. 1 ...

. The station closed to passengers in 1952 and to goods in 1965, although the line through the station site remains in use. Daresbury was the birthplace of '' Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' author

Lewis Carroll Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (; 27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, poet and mathematician. His most notable works are '' Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (1865) and its sequ ...

, in All Saints' Vicarage. The village has a Lewis Carroll Visitor Centre and in the parish church of All Saints, a Lewis Carroll window, which includes an image of the

Cheshire Cat The Cheshire Cat ( or ) is a fictional cat popularised by Lewis Carroll in ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' and known for its distinctive mischievous grin. While now most often used in ''Alice''-related contexts, the association of a "C ...

Landmarks

Built in 1759,

Daresbury Hall Daresbury Hall is a former Georgian country house in the village of Daresbury, Cheshire, England. It was built in 1759 for George Heron. The house is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II* listed buildin ...

is a former Georgian

country house An English country house is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were often owned by individuals who also owned a town house. This allowed them to spend time in the country and in the city—hence, for these peop ...

which has been used as a private dwelling, military hospital and residential home. A designated Grade II*

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern I ...

since 1952, it is on the

Heritage at Risk Register An annual ''Heritage at Risk Register'' is published by Historic England. The survey is used by national and local government, a wide range of individuals and heritage groups to establish the extent of risk and to help assess priorities for acti ...

due to being in very poor condition. A major fire in June 2016 destroyed much of the building, which has since been secured with scaffold and mothballed in a roofless condition.

Governance

Daresbury was a township and chapelry in

Runcorn Runcorn is an industrial town and cargo port in the Borough of Halton in Cheshire, England. Its population in 2011 was 61,789. The town is in the southeast of the Liverpool City Region, with Liverpool to the northwest across the River Mersey. ...

parish of Bucklow Hundred, which became a civil parish in 1866. The village was administered as part of Runcorn Rural Sanitary District from 1875, then from 1894

Runcorn Rural District Runcorn was a rural district in Cheshire, England from 1894 until 1974. It was named after but did not include Runcorn, a town on the River Mersey to the north-west of the district, which formed its own urban district. The district was abolis ...

. Local government reorganisation on 1 April 1974 transferred the area to the

Borough of Halton ("Industry fills the ship") , image_skyline = Runcorn Bridge - geograph.org.uk - 1701094.jpg , imagesize = , image_caption = The Silver Jubilee Bridge at dusk , image_flag ...

. Daresbury is also an

electoral ward A ward is a local authority area, typically used for electoral purposes. In some countries, wards are usually named after neighbourhoods, thoroughfares, parishes, landmarks, geographical features and in some cases historical figures connected to ...

. However, the boundary of the ward is different from (and larger than) the parish boundary, and includes the parishes of

Sandymoor Sandymoor is a civil parish in Runcorn, Halton, Cheshire, England, with a population of approximately 2,678. The majority of housing in Sandymoor was built post-1990 and the parish was formed in 2008 by the ''Halton (Parish Electoral Arrangement ...

and

Preston Brook Preston Brook is a village and civil parish in the borough of Halton, a unitary authority in the ceremonial county of Cheshire in North West England. It is located to the south-east of Runcorn and south-west of Warrington, adjacent to the ...

. The total ward population in 2011 was 5,401. Daresbury is represented nationally by the

Weaver Vale Weaver Vale is a constituency in Cheshire represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2017 by Mike Amesbury, a member of the Labour Party. Constituency profile The constituency takes its name from the River Weaver, which fl ...

parliamentary constituency.

Economy

Near the village is the Science and Technology Facilities Council's

Sci-Tech Daresbury Sci-Tech Daresbury, also known as Sci-Tech Daresbury Enterprise Zone, is a science and innovation campus near the village of Daresbury in Halton, Cheshire, England. The site began life as the Daresbury Laboratory later adding the Cockcroft In ...

science and innovation campus, which includes the

Daresbury Laboratory Daresbury Laboratory is a scientific research laboratory based at Sci-Tech Daresbury campus near Daresbury in Halton, Cheshire, England. The laboratory began operations in 1962 and was officially opened on 16 June 1967 as the Daresbury Nuclear ...

and the

Cockcroft Institute The Cockcroft Institute is an international centre for Accelerator Science and Technology (AST) in the UK. It was proposed in September 2003 and officially opened in September 2006. It is a joint venture of Lancaster University, the University ...

. The Synchrotron Radiation Source (SRS) facility at Daresbury Laboratory was in operation between 1981 and 2008. Daresbury Park is to the south west of the village, at junction 11 of the

M56 motorway The M56 motorway, also known as the North Cheshire motorway, serves the Cheshire and Greater Manchester areas of England. It runs east to west from junction 4 of the M60 at Gatley, south of Manchester, to Dunkirk, approximately north of Ches ...

. The site provides office and warehouse space for several businesses and includes the Daresbury Park Hotel.

Transport

The village of Daresbury lies to the east of the realigned A56 road. The B5356 Daresbury Lane heads eastwards from the village towards Hatton and Stretton, while the A558 Daresbury Expressway heads westwards towards

and crosses the

Bridgewater Canal The Bridgewater Canal connects Runcorn, Manchester and Leigh, in North West England. It was commissioned by Francis Egerton, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater, to transport coal from his mines in Worsley to Manchester. It was opened in 1761 from Wo ...

Community and culture

In 2006, the annual Creamfields dance festival was held in Daresbury after relocating from the disused Liverpool airport site it had occupied for the six previous years. This saw 40,000 revellers partying from 3pm-6am to a line-up that included live performances from

The Prodigy The Prodigy are an English electronic dance music band formed in Braintree, Essex, in 1990 by producer, keyboard player and songwriter Liam Howlett. The original line-up also featured dancer and singer Keith Flint and dancer and occasional ...

and Zutons, as well as DJ sets from the likes of Sasha,

Paul Oakenfold Paul Mark Oakenfold (born 30 August 1963), formerly known mononymously as Oakenfold, is an English record producer, remixer and trance DJ. He has provided over 100 remixes for over 100 artists including U2, Moby, Madonna, Britney Spears, Mas ...

, 2 Many DJ's, Green Velvet and

DJ Shadow Joshua Paul Davis (born June 29, 1972), better known by his stage name DJ Shadow, is an American DJ, songwriter and record producer. His debut studio album, '' Endtroducing.....'' was released in 1996. Biography Early years (1989–1995) DJ Sha ...

. As of 2019, the festival has been an annual event at the site.

References

{{Authority control Villages in Cheshire Civil parishes in Cheshire Borough of Halton