I have a huge archive of photographs about Christleton, and occasionally am asked about an event or other, and inevitably I start to search for the item, and have great fun looking at other images on the way. I know most of them have been shared on the website at different times over the last five years, but I thought I’d show some of them again now.

I start off with a Chester Chronicle image taken in 1972, of the boys from the old Junior School (now the Parish Hall) going across the road to walk to the King George VI Playing field to play football. By coincidence the last picture is one of Ernest Hall’s slides of the Village showing horses being prepared for the Littleton Races at the jump in the hedgerow at the same field. Ernest Hall was the postmaster in the Village and took his camera around the village, taking wonderful historic pictures such as the Romanies who visited the Village each year, usually in Autumn and established their temporary home in one of our lanes or on Birch Heath Common. Ernest gave me his entire collection of Christleton colour slides in the 1980’s, and I’ll share more of them with you on future occasions. They cover scenes and events in the Village from about 1965 to 1980 and are remarkable record.

Amongst the fascinating look at the past are images from an Exhibition about Conservation I had displayed in the “new” school hall. Amongst the visitors were the then young Gerald Duke of Westminster, who sadly died in 2016. He had not long inherited the title, and was very interested in the conservation work we were doing in the village, especially the Pit Project which was soon to bring great success to the school when we were awarded 2nd Place in the National Save the Village Pong Campaign. Other visitors seen include Phil Heywood Parish Council Chairman and Emma Hall, President of the Christleton W. I.

I also came across a picture of the Primary Harvest Service at St James. This was taken by Rector Charles Mack before the Wrought Iron Screen had been moved. I think this must have been taken in 1985. Another amusing event is the picture of me guiding the village swans through the village to safety on the canal. They had been holding up traffic outside the former Post Office in the centre of the village for an hour before being persuaded to go through the stile footpath to the Primary School grounds. I then organised the class of children I was teaching that morning to form a horseshoe behind the swan family, and we walked them gently into Rowan Park and through Phil Heywood’s Garden onto the canal. The cob was 2SL who lived to the grand old age of 27years, and responsible for over 100cygnets being born at the Pit.

Another significant image is of the Maypole Team featured on the cover of the “Deesider” Magazine in 1969. This image was taken in the garden at Faulkners Lodge, where the Fete that year took place by kind permission of the Cullimore Family. Later images of the Maypole team were taken on the Primary School Field, where almost all Village Fete’s since have taken place. The picture of Gertrude Wright and Chizuru Uchida a Japanese student at the School in her National Costume was also taken at the Fete, in the year that Gertrude had returned from founding her St James Charity School at Leh, in Ladakh.

In the 1980’s and 90’s Year 6 children from the school always had a week’s study visit to the Lake District, staying at the Youth Hostel in Keswick. One of the favourite walks was up Catbells, and the children are standing at the summit, looking down on Derwentwater.

Another vivid memory for me, was arranging for the “Sealed Knot” a civil war re-enactment society to march through the village to publicise “The Battle of Rowton Moor”. I had planned for them to come through the Village to enable me to capture a picture that could have illustrated the Village during the 1640’s. Everything went well and they turned into Village Road as planned, and I was waiting by The Ring O Bells to get close up shots as they marched through. Our plan was foiled at the very last minute, when a brown and cream Number 5 Chester Corporation double decker bus followed behind them, completely ruining the shot, and giving away the date. The Sealed Knot group then enjoyed a pint at the Ring O Bells and shared a few drinks with a couple who had just got married and were having their reception there. The bride was ceremonially carried out of the pub by Andrew Gilliatt, the Captain of the Sealed Knot, who was then, the main instigator of “Holly Holy Day” an annual celebration of the Battle of Nantwich which took place in January 1664, a year before the Battle of Rowton Moor in September 1645.

Other images include a view of the newly restored Christleton Lodge, a grand house lived in by the Heywood Family in the 1880’s, then occupied by the Army during WWII, and occupied by the Randall Family who ran a Market Garden establishment there for many years, until it was sold to the Brewers Inn chain in the 1990’s. The “Cheshire Cat” is now a favoured eating place, offering hotel accommodation for visitors. The picture was taken shortly after opening in its original colour scheme, I think in 2001.

One of the final pictures, is a group of members of Churches Together in Christleton in 1996, who were undertaking a short procession to commemorate the Pilgrimage of St Columba. They are pictured outside the Methodist Chapel alongside a Celtic Cross made for this special occasion by Charles Smeathan and Eric Kenyon.