Darnhall is a

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 ...

and small village to the south west of Winsford in the Borough of Cheshire West and Chester 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 ...

in England. It had a population of 232 at the 2011 Census.

History

The Norman Earls of Chester had a hunting lodge or summer palace at Darnhall in Over parish. There was an enclosed area where deer and wild boar were kept to be hunted by the Earl and his guests. It was there that the last earl met his death in 1237. It was rumoured that his wife, Helen, the daughter of

Llywelyn the Great Llywelyn ab Iorwerth (, – 11 April 1240), also known as Llywelyn the Great (, ; ), was a medieval Welsh ruler. He succeeded his uncle, Dafydd ab Owain Gwynedd, as King of Gwynedd in 1195. By a combination of war and diplomacy, he dominate ...

, had poisoned him in order to favour the powerful aristocrat that her daughter had married. However, King Henry III annexed the title and its lands and spent time at Darnhall. After the

Second Barons' War The Second Barons' War (1264–1267) was a civil war in Kingdom of England, England between the forces of barons led by Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester, Simon de Montfort against the royalist forces of Henry III of England, King Hen ...

, the Ash Brook was dammed to drive three

water mill A watermill or water mill is a mill that uses hydropower. It is a structure that uses a water wheel or water turbine to drive a mechanical process such as milling (grinding), rolling, or hammering. Such processes are needed in the production ...

s and to make pools to keep fish.Curzon, J. Brian. ''It's All Over'' (2006) In 1270 at the behest of his son, Henry III gave the estate to the Cistercians, who built Darnhall Abbey in 1274 on the north bank of the new lake. However the land was not suitable for the grand scale of building envisaged, and the locals were not cooperative, so the monks left Darnhall to found Vale Royal Abbey in Whitegate in 1281. For a period of around 50 years, between the foundation of Vale Royal and the death of Abbot Peter, the tenants and villeins of Darnhall periodically rebelled against the abbey's overlordship, sometimes violently. The first mention of a priest is in 1307 when a Thomas de Dutton is mentioned, but it is uncertain if this was at St Chad's in Winsford or as a chaplain at Darnhall, or both. The church and responsibility for the parish was given to St Mary's Convent in

Chester Chester is a cathedral city in Cheshire, England, on the River Dee, Wales, River Dee, close to the England–Wales border. With a built-up area population of 92,760 in 2021, it is the most populous settlement in the borough of Cheshire West an ...

, who appointed the priests in charge. By the eighteenth century, Darnhall belonged to Thomas Corbett (secretary of the Admiralty), and through him it descended to Thomas Corbett (Lincolnshire MP).

Geography

A small area near the eastern boundary of the civil parish falls within the Weaver Valley Area of Special County Value. The parish includes Darnhall Wood, part of the Wettenhall And Darnhall Woods

Site of Special Scientific Interest A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain, or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland, is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle ...

, together with woodland in the adjacent Wettenhall parish.

Landmarks

Darnhall is home to one of the radio telescopes that make up the

Jodrell Bank Jodrell Bank Observatory ( ) in Cheshire, England hosts a number of radio telescopes as part of the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics at the University of Manchester. The observatory was established in 1945 by Bernard Lovell, a radio astron ...

MERLIN The Multi-Element Radio Linked Interferometer Network (MERLIN) is an interferometer array of radio telescopes spread across England. The array is run from Jodrell Bank Observatory in Cheshire by the University of Manchester on behalf of UK Re ...

(Multi-Element Radio Linked Interferometer Network)

radio telescope A radio telescope is a specialized antenna (radio), antenna and radio receiver used to detect radio waves from astronomical radio sources in the sky. Radio telescopes are the main observing instrument used in radio astronomy, which studies the r ...

array linking six observing stations that together form a powerful telescope with an effective aperture of over . At the junction between Moors Lane and Hall Lane stands two stone pillars known as the "Darnhall Knobs", one of which was constructed in 1897 to mark the celebration of the

Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria The Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria was officially celebrated on 22 June 1897 to mark the occasion of the 60th anniversary of Queen Victoria's accession on 20 June 1837. Queen Victoria was the first British monarch ever to celebrate a Diamond ...

after the previous column fell 70 years prior. The other pillar stands parallel and is said to have ancient origins.

Notable people

* Charles Lee – A British army officer who later became a general in the American

Continental Army The Continental Army was the army of the United Colonies representing the Thirteen Colonies and later the United States during the American Revolutionary War. It was formed on June 14, 1775, by a resolution passed by the Second Continental Co ...

References

External links