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CHELFORD VILLAGE Whichever way one looks at it, the oldest part of Chelford is its church site. Not, of course, the present Georgian church dating from 1776 but the same site on which a chapel of rest stood as far back as 1248 between two rivers and above the ford which was crossed by many regular travellers. Today the rivers are reduced to streams and the travellers move in wheeled boxes concentrating mainly on what is in front of them. Standing on the Cheshire Plain just north of the Jodrell Bank radio telescope Chelford has moved from its mainly farming heritage to being home to many who commute to their place of work whilst remaining famous for its Agricultural Market, widely regarded as one of the busiest in the country. Over the years the village core has moved northwest, largely since the coming of the London and North Western railway in 1846 whose line was curved in that direction to accommodate the wishes of the local Squire.The village school first recorded in 1734 has moved several times with the excellent Church Controlled replacement school, on what is probably the third site, having been opened in 1999.The Parish Hall was built by voluntary subscription in 1908 and continues to be the focus of daily, and nightly, activities both for the village and for outside groups fully justifying the wisdom of those who founded it. Standing beside the recreation field, it is accompanied by the Scout and Guide building whose movements continue to flourish even in today?s materialistic world.Reputedly one of the finest cricket grounds in the country, that of The Cheshire Gentlemen, alongside the railway line was desecrated just before the Second World War to build a strategic cold store depot whose fortress-like building remains.
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