Blacon

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Overview

Several examples of the arms of the Crewe family (a lion's paw emerging from a crown) can be seen around Blacon.

Blacon was originally known as Blakon Hill and was owned by the Marquess of Crewe. Prior to this ownership has been described as follows:

  • It was granted at the Norman Conquest to the ancestor of the Mainwaring family and passed by marriage with their heiress to the Trussell family and from them in the same manner to John De Vere, fifteenth Earl of Oxford, whose grandson, Edward, the poet Earl, alienated the estate in the time of Queen Elizabeth. The Norris family of Speke, Lancashire, were then residing at Blacon Hall.' About this time the manor passed by purchase to the Crewe family and was owned by the The Marquis of Crewe until his death on 20 June 1945.

The Parish of Blacon cum Crabwall was formed in 1923, and on 1 April 1936, under the Cheshire County Review Order, 1936, most of the parish was transferred to Chester County Borough. Prior to the Norman Conquest it was held by Toret, a freeman, but Hugh of Avranches passed it on to his baron, Ranulphus de Mesnilwarin. The estate of Crabwall was granted by the Mainwarings to the Arneway family in the early 13th century. John Arneway, mayor of Chester 1268–78, granted it to the abbot of Chester as an endowment to maintain his chantries in the abbey church and St Bridget's.

After the Dissolution the estate was given to a younger branch of the Gamull family of Buerton, who built a residence there in the early 17th century, demolished by c. 1800. The estate remained in the hands of the Gamulls' descendants until the 19th century, when it was sold to Philip Stapleton Humberston. Humberston was elected Conservative MP for City of Chester at the 1859 general election and held the seat until 1865 when he did not seek re-election. Its later history has not been traced. Crabwall Hall originally comprised a small brick house refronted in the early 19th century and was much extended in 1987 to form a luxury hotel.

Wikipedia informs us that Blacon is situated adjacent to the Welsh border and is located on a hill, one mile to the north-west of, and overlooking Chester. The village is built on what was previously farming land and is surrounded by open countryside. Blacon has views across to the city centre of Chester and to the Welsh hills some twenty miles to the west. Other nearby places include Saughall to the north, Newtown, Chester to the north-east, Upton and to the east, the village of Mollington.

A Brief History

Blacon was originally outside of the boundaries of Chester. The northern boundary wss defined in part by the stream known as the Bishop's Ditch, Flookersbrook, Bache Brook and Finchett's Gutter. The shaded area shows where the River Dee estuary used to flood before the river was "tamed".

Leland refers to an olde manor place (at Blaken Hedde) c.1536. Apparently the original hall of Blacon was destroyed at the siege of Chester during the Civil War.

The British Army maintained an army camp in south Blacon, from just before, to just after, the Second World War. A mixture of wooden and 'Nissen' huts were occupied by soldiers until the late 1950s; and the army firing range was still in evidence until the Chester City Council 'tower block' buildings of the mid-1960s. Blacon Camp housed various military operations, containing aircraft and war prisoners at the time. This part of (South) Blacon is referred to as 'The Camp' by local residents.

Blacon Cemetery was laid out in 1940, during the Second World War, when two plots, in Sections A and H, were set aside for service burials. The cemetery's first interment took place on 20 December 1941. The cemetery contains in all the war graves of 461 Commonwealth service personnel, including an unidentified Royal Air Force airman, and 97 war graves of other nationalities (86 of them Polish servicemen from various hospitals in the area) that are maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. The plot in Section A was a Royal Air Force regional cemetery for air personnel from bases in Cheshire and neighbouring counties, while members of other armed services were buried in Section H.

In recent years, Blacon has had its problems. It has gained a reputation as a deprived social-housing estate, but on the other hand a significant effort has been made to improve the area, with some positive results. It was not always like that.

Blacon Point was originally an area of high ground around which the River Dee curved before reaching the port of Chester. As a result of the silting of the Dee, the area below Blacon Point became land rather than water and is generally referred to as Sealand. This silting may have been caused by deforestation around the upper reaches of the Dee, leading to increased soil erosion and transport of silt by the river.

The large social housing estate was built between 1948 and 1968 and covers an area of 1.2 square miles with a population of 13,400.

The railway station closed in the 1960s. Goods services continued to use the line between Hawarden Bridge Junction and Mickle Trafford until 20th April 1984. The station was extant at this time, but the main building was demolished some time before 1986. On 31st August 1986 the line reopened, again only for goods services. It was now single-track, and at Blacon only the former Chester-direction line was retained. The reopening was short-lived, and the line closed again by the early 1990s. The track was mothballed for a while, but it was lifted before the end of the decade. In 2000 a footpath and cycleway was opened along the course of the line.

Blacon station was on the Manchester, Sheffield & Lincolnshire Railways (MSLR) Chester Northgate to Hawarden Bridge line which opened on 31st March 1890 and provided a connection to the Wrexham Mold & Connah’s Quay Railway. The WMCQR line ran from Wrexham to Shotton. The MSLR had to cross the River Dee at what became Hawarden Bridge to make a connection with the WMCQR line. With the opening of the MSLR line a route between Chester and Wrexham had been created which could compete with the 1846 Great Western Railway (GWR) route between the two towns. An avoiding line was also built to the east of Blacon at Chester so that trains could pass from west to east through the city and onto the Cheshire Lines Committee’s (CLC) Chester and Manchester line without having to reverse at Chester Northgate Station. However the avoiding line was generally used only by goods and excursion services.

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