Cranage 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. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

in the unitary authority of

Cheshire East Cheshire East is a unitary authority area with borough status in Cheshire, England. The local authority is Cheshire East Council, which is based in the town of Sandbach. Other towns within the area include Crewe, Macclesfield, Congleton, Wilms ...

and the ceremonial county of

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Merseyside to the north-west, Greater Manchester to the north-east, Derbyshire to the east, Staffordshire to the south-east, and Shrop ...

, England. According to the 2001 UK Census, the population of the civil parish was 1,131 which had risen to 1,184 by the 2011 census.

History

The establishment of a community in Cranage is mentioned in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book ( ; the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book") is a manuscript record of the Great Survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

. The name derives from the

Old English Old English ( or , or ), 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 developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

of ''Crāwena-læcc'', which means ''crows stream''. The manor of Cranage, unlike many estates, has not remained in one family but had changed hands many times. Historically, Cranage was an agricultural area which had a wide variation of farming activities. Cranage Hall was one of the principal dwellings in the area. It is believed that it was built in the 17th century incorporating elements of an earlier hall. Lawrence Armistead had the hall demolished in the 19th century and the current Cranage Hall built in 1829, to a design by

Lewis Wyatt Lewis William Wyatt (1777–1853) was a British architect, a nephew of both Samuel and James Wyatt of the Wyatt family of architects, who articled with each of his uncles and began practice on his own about 1805. Lewis Wyatt is known primarily f ...

. The Hall remained in possession of the Armistead family until 1920. Subsequently, it was converted into part of the Cranage hospital, and on the hospital's closure became a conference centre. The parish contains neither a church nor a chapel that is currently used. but is served by the nearby church of St. Luke,

Holmes Chapel Holmes Chapel is a village and civil parish in Cheshire, England, north of Crewe and south of Manchester; Swettenham Meadows Nature Reserve lies east of the village and Goostrey lies to the north. The population of the village was 6,700 a ...

. The village school was closed in 1990 as a result of the drop in the number of pupils. There is no shop or post office in the parish. The ''Old Vicarage Hotel'', originally built in the 17th century, provides accommodation. The ''Swan Inn'', an earlier source of accommodation, has changed purpose and is now Swan Farm. ''A Journey through Time: Holmes Chapel, Cotton and Cranage'', by Annabel Capewell, Rosemary Dear, Patricia Dingle, Rodney Smith, Terry Taylor and Janet Yarwood was published in 1996.

Notes

External links

Villages in Cheshire Civil parishes in Cheshire {{cheshire-geo-stub

History

See also

Notes

External links