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Ellesmere Port
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==History== [[File:Ellesmere-port-stanlow.jpg|left|thumb| [[Ellesmere Port Dock]] at the [[Manchester Ship Canal]] looking towards the [[Stanlow Refinery]] ]] The town of Ellesmere Port was founded at the outlet of the never-completed [[Ellesmere Canal]], named after the town of [[Ellesmere, Shropshire]]. The canal (now renamed) was designed and engineered by [[William Jessop]] and [[Thomas Telford]] as part of a project to connect the rivers [[River Severn|Severn]], [[River Mersey|Mersey]] and [[River Dee, Wales|Dee]]. The canal was intended to be completed in sections. In 1795 the section between the River Mersey and the River Dee at [[Chester]] was opened. However the canal was not finished as first intended; it never reached the River Severn. Upon re-evaluation, it was decided that the costs to complete the project were not projected to be repaid because of a decrease in expected commercial traffic. There had been a loss of competitive advantage caused by steam engine-related economic advances (nationally, regionally and locally) during the first decade of the canal's construction. The 1793 act authorising the canal's construction referred to its connection to the Mersey being "at or near Netherpool". In the event, the canal's northern end was not built in the [[Township (England)|township]] of Netherpool, but in the neighbouring township of Whitby to the east.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hanshall |first1=J. H. |title=The History of the County Palatine of Chester |date=1817 |page=88 |url=https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_History_of_the_County_Palatine_of_Ch/wsYHAAAAQAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA88&printsec=frontcover |access-date=5 February 2025}}</ref> The settlement which grew up at the canal basin was known both as 'Ellesmere Port' and 'Whitby Locks' at first.<ref>{{cite web |title=Sheet LXXX NW Northwich |url=https://maps.nls.uk/view/257403451 |website=National Library of Scotland |publisher=Ordnance Survey |access-date=5 February 2025 |date=1842}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Ellesmere Port |url=https://epns.nottingham.ac.uk/browse/Cheshire/Eastham+%26+Stoke/53283641b47fc4085600093d-Ellesmere+Port |website=Survey of English Place-Names |publisher=The English Place-Name Society |access-date=5 February 2025}}</ref> Settlements had existed in the area since the writing of the [[Domesday Book]] in the 11th century, which mentions [[Great Sutton]], [[Little Sutton, Cheshire|Little Sutton]], Pool<ref>{{cite web|url=http://opendomesday.org/place/XX0000/nether-and-over-pool/|title=Place: [Nether and Over] Pool|publisher=Open Domesday|first=Anna|last=Powell-Smith|access-date=1 December 2015}}</ref> (now [[Overpool]]<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/compress/cu31924028139339/formats=ARCHIVE%20BITTORRENT,RAW%20CORNELL%20BOOK%20ZIP,DUBLIN%20CORE,METADATA,MARC,MARC%20BINARY|title=The place-names of the Liverpool district; or, the history and meaning of the local and river names of south-west Lancashire and of Wirral|first=Henry|last=Harrison|publisher=Elliot Stock|year=1898|access-date=23 December 2012}}</ref>) and [[Hooton, Cheshire|Hooton]].<ref name=CHSS>{{cite web|url=http://www.cheshirearchaeology.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/HTS_Arch_Assess_EllesmerePort.pdf |title=Cheshire Historic Towns Survey, Ellesmere Port, Archaeological Assessment |publisher=Cheshire County Council |year=2003 |access-date=1 December 2015 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151208130423/http://www.cheshirearchaeology.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/HTS_Arch_Assess_EllesmerePort.pdf |archive-date=8 December 2015}}</ref> The first houses in Ellesmere Port itself, however, grew up around the docks and the first main street was Dock Street, which now houses the National Waterways Museum. Station Road, which connected the docks with the village of Whitby, also gradually developed and as more shops were needed, some of the houses became retail premises. The main employer at this time was Burnell's Iron Works which had been set up at the end of the nineteenth century. This was followed by the setting up of the Mersey Ironworks factory by the Wolverhampton Corrugated Iron Company In 1905 who settled on Ellesmere Port as a way of exploiting the company's international trade through the nearby ports of Birkenhead and Liverpool. Initially 300 workers and their families came from [[Wolverhampton]] and the surrounding areas to work in the factory, settling in a specially built worker's village named “Wolverham”.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.roydenhistory.co.uk/eportwarmemorial/alsoserved/not_on_wm/griffiths_henry_and_e/griffiths_h%20and%20e.pdf|title=Wolverhampton Corrugated Iron Company|first=Mike|last=Royden|access-date=15 March 2021}}</ref> As the expanding industrial areas growing up around the canal and its docks attracted more workers to the area, the town itself continued to expand. [[File:Ellesmere-port-lighthouse-1.jpg|thumb|Whitby lighthouse]] [[File:Cottage Hospital - geograph.org.uk - 34849.jpg|thumb|Ellesmere Port Hospital]] By the mid-20th century, thanks to the opening of the [[Manchester Ship Canal]] in 1894 and the Stanlow Oil Refinery in the 1920s, Ellesmere Port had expanded so that it now incorporated the villages of Great and Little Sutton, Hooton, Whitby, Overpool and Rivacre as suburbs. The town centre itself had moved from the Station Road/Dock Street area, to an area that had once been home to a [[stud farm]] (indeed, the former [[Ellesmere Port and Neston]] Borough Council officially referred to the town centre as Stud Farm for housing allocation purposes) around the crossroads of Sutton Way/Stanney Lane and Whitby Road. The foundation stone for Ellesmere Port Civic Hall was laid by the Chairman of Ellesmere Port Borough Council, Horace Black, on 2 May 1953.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.nwfa.mmu.ac.uk/default_twocolumn.php?skip=3045&Global=*&dates=&category=&ContentCounty=&Abroad=&Professional=&ProfCategories=&AmCategories=&AllPodCategories=&AvailableOnline=|title=The Laying of the Foundation Stone at the new Civic Hall|publisher=Manchester Metropolitan University|access-date=22 February 2021}}</ref> It was designed in the [[Modern architecture|modernist style]] and completed in 1955.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.epmsonline.co.uk/index.php/our-concerts/36-ellesmere-port-civic-hall|title=Ellesmere Port Civic Hall|publisher=Ellesmere Port Music Society|access-date=22 February 2021}}</ref> The [[Ellesmere Port Council Offices]] were constructed just to the southwest of the civic hall and completed in 1969.<ref>{{cite news |title=Borough of Ellesmere Port |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/ |access-date=6 September 2022 |work=Cheshire Observer |date=12 December 1969 |location=Chester |page=11 |quote=...at the new Municipal Offices, 4 Civic Way, Ellesmere Port...}}</ref> In the 20th century, a number of new housing estates were developed, many of them on the sites of former farms such as Hope Farm and Grange Farm. Many estates consisted of both [[council housing]] and privately owned houses and flats. Ellesmere Port, in more recent times has had an influx of immigrants from [[Liverpool]]. Thus demand for housing increased with the opening of the [[Vauxhall Motors]] [[Vauxhall Ellesmere Port|car plant]] in 1962. Opened as a components supplier to the [[Luton]] plant, passenger car production began in 1964 with the [[Vauxhall Viva (1963–1979)|Vauxhall Viva]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.factorytour.co.uk/ellesmereport/ |title=Ellesmere Port car factory- Vauxhall, Opel |publisher=Factorytour.co.uk |access-date=20 May 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120314155901/http://www.factorytour.co.uk/ellesmereport/ |archive-date=14 March 2012}}</ref> The plant is now Vauxhall's only car factory in Britain, since the end of passenger car production at the Luton plant in 2004 (where commercial vehicles are still made). Ellesmere Port currently produces the [[Vauxhall Astra]] model on two shifts, employing 2,500 people. In the mid-1980s, the Port Arcades, a covered [[shopping mall]] was built in the town centre. By the 1990s, it was the retail sector rather than the industrial that was attracting workers and their families to the town. This was boosted with the building of the Cheshire Oaks outlet village and the Coliseum shopping park, which also included a [[Multiplex (movie theater)|multiplex]] cinema; prior to this since the closure of the cinema in Station Road, Little Sutton (King's cinema) and the Queen's cinema adjacent to Ellesmere Port railway station in the 1960s the town's only cinema had been a single screen in the EPIC Leisure Centre. In August 2012, [[Marks & Spencer]] opened their largest store (apart from Marble Arch in London) on a site near the Coliseum shopping park.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://corporate.marksandspencer.com/stories/blog/mands-cheshire-oaks-store |title=M&S Cheshire Oaks Store|publisher=Marks and Spencer|access-date=27 April 2021}}</ref>
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