Helsby

Map of civil parish of Helsby within the former borough of Vale Royal

The village is situated on the A56 main road between Chester and Runcorn. The neighbouring settlements are Dunham-on-the-Hill, Frodsham, Elton and Alvanley. Helsby is a semi-rural village, with a few dairy and arable farms, but is also in close proximity to a number of industrial plants around the Mersey estuary including the Essar Stanlow Oil Refinery, the Encirc glass bottle manufacturing plant, the Kemira fertiliser plant on Ince Marshes and the Ineos Chlor chemical manufacturing site and power station at Rocksavage. There are few jobs in Helsby itself. The Tesco supermarket is one of the biggest employers in Helsby. The village is popular with commuters as a residential area, due to its links to the M56 motorway and rail networks.

On Helsby Hill, the remains of a promontory hillfort, 1.9ha in area, have been excavated. A buried soil was found under the hillfort containing fossilised pollen dating to the late Mesolithic to early Neolithic, between 7000 and 3001BC.[4] Further evidence suggests a burning episode dating to the early Neolithic occupation or woodland clearance dating to 4000BC to 2351 BC.[5]

The bivallate hillfort is protected on the south and east by two parallel ramparts and an unusual type of inturned entrance 11 yards (10 m) wide. There were three phases of hillfort construction at Helsby. The first stone rampart was constructed in the middle to late Bronze Age (1250-1050 cal BC) and consisted of a bank with a well-dressed outer face of sandstone blocks and an irregular inner face, which was built on a slight batter; it was approximately 4 yards (3.5m) wide. A socketed bronze axe was found at Helsby in 1925.[6] This was followed by a series of colluvial deposits against the internal face of the stone rampart that formed the second phase of activity. The third and final phase was the re-building of the rampart in the post-Roman period, dating as late as 530 AD suggesting early Saxon re-occupation of the hillfort.[7]

Helsby was located on the strategically important Roman road between Chester and Wilderspool near Warrington. The road existed between c. 79–410 AD to link the garrison of Deva to Wilderspool, which produced pottery that supplied the north west of England.[8] The Roman road passed at the foot of Helsby Hill probably following the route of Old Chester Road.[9] On the top of the hill a Roman bronze sestertius of the emperor Tiberius minted in Rome in AD22 was found and just off Vicarage Lane in 1958, an uninscribed Roman altar of red sandstone was discovered with a carved jug on one side and an axe and knife on the other.[10]

The first known settlers of Helsby were the Vikings in the 10th century. In fact, the name 'Helsby' is likely to be derived from the Viking name Hjallr-by, meaning "the village on the edge" (placenames with the suffix "by" often denote Viking/Danish origins, e.g. Derby, Grimsby, Whitby, etc.). However, Old Norse suggests that Hjalli means edge and Hjallr means constructed platform or scaffold.[11]

The village was recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 under the Norman name of Hellesbe.[12] The Manor of Helsby was owned by a series of aristocratic landowners, most recently the Marquess of Cholmondeley.

In the 13th century Helsby was deemed a demesne manor under the lordship of Dunham-on-the-Hill, by a family called Hellesby. Later it passed to Thornton and then to Frodsham. The earliest mention of the original, timber Old Hall, was in a contract for the construction of additional work in stone in the mid 15th century. The wooden part of the hall perished in a fire in the 16th century when it was leased to one of the Hatons of Helsby. The later hall probably derived its name from its proximity to the older site. It was built of brick at the end of the 18th century and was used as a farmhouse.[13]

Helsby Hill was the location of a rare public execution when William Henry Clarke was hung in chains on 21 April 1791 after being convicted of robbing the Warrington Mail.[14]

A Methodist church was established in 1800, seventy years before the Anglican church was built in 1870. Helsby is home to two primary schools (Helsby Hillside and Hornsmill) that serve the east and west of the village respectively, with the former being in close proximity to one of the most successful secondary schools in Cheshire for the 2018/2019 academic year: Helsby High School.[15]

The village was once home to many pubs, the majority of which were adjacent to the A56 road. In the centre of the village, the Railway Inn currently offers Greenalls cask ale and is frequently host to live music.

Two other pubs, the Robin Hood and the Horse & Jockey, were acquired by developers for conversion to residential properties. On 23 September 2011, the Robin Hood pub caught fire, causing roads to be closed throughout the village for some hours, and subsequently the building(s) were demolished. The Horse & Jockey was demolished in 2019 and a housing development has been built. The pub sign is to be displayed in the local community centre.

On the western edge of the village is the Horns Mill (formerly the Helsby Arms and before that the Brown Cow), a pub and restaurant that has changed hands on several occasions during recent years, and also closed down briefly, but reopened in January 2014.

The village has been in the press for its hugely successful community Christmas event, Ho Ho Helsby, which was held for the second time on 2 December 2017. There was an estimated attendance of 2,500 people enjoying artisan stalls, ice skating, reindeer, live music from local musicians on stage all day and a twilight procession of floats featuring local schools, community groups and businesses. The village is known for its community spirit, epitomised in the fund raising efforts for Ho Ho Helsby which is entirely voluntary, as well as knitted angels which are hidden around the village in the run up to Christmas Day. The village also has its own craft beer, Ho Ho Helsbeer, brewed in a brewery less than two miles away.

Behind the Railway Inn is the Courtyard, Helsby, a development of holiday cottages in period barn conversions offering a place to stay in the village, close to the North Cheshire Way footpath. There is also "Homestead Boutique Cottages" offering accommodation on Lower Robin Hood Lane.

The factory site at the western end of the village has been for many years the main source of employment in the village. Originally built in 1884 by the Telegraph Manufacturing Company as the Britannia Telegraph Works, it manufactured telegraph and telephone cables. Early advertisements for cable hands specified that he "must be a good cricketer"! The company was taken over by the Automatic Telephone Manufacturing Company and the telephone equipment and instrument manufacturing sections moved to Liverpool in 1892.[16] The cable works was more recently owned by BICC to make electronic cables. At peak employing 5,000 people, the number of workers declined from the Second World War. The decline continued following a series of redundancy initiatives started in 1970, and the site eventually closed in 2002. The site was then redeveloped for retail, light industrial and residential purposes. The first completed development on the site was a Tesco supermarket, which opened in September 2005. In 2005 cable manufacturing returned to Helsby when Heat Trace Limited, a British specialist cable manufacturer, took over one of the last remaining industrial buildings on the site to expand their operations, taking advantage of the existence of the electron beaming unit on the site for the irradiation of their specialist heating cables.

North west of Helsby, near the village of Ince, landowners The Peel Group are developing a 54 hectares (130 acres) industrial site on marshland. In 2009 a public inquiry gave permission to build a biomass power station,[17] which opened in 2018[18] as part of the Protos "energy and resource hub".[19] The site also houses a timber recycling plant and designated "nature areas".[20] The construction of a facility to recover energy from non-recyclable waste began in 2020.[21]

• J. Slater Lewis MICE FRSE (1852 in Rake House, Helsby – 1901) a British engineer, inventor, business manager and early author on management and accounting, known for his pioneering work on cost accounting.
• Ted Oldfield (1918 in Helsby – 2006) an English footballer who played at right-half for Port Vale
• Heathcote Williams (1941 in Helsby – 2017) an English poet, actor, political activist and dramatist [23]

• St Paul's Church, Helsby
• Listed buildings in Helsby

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Helsby.

• Helsby Parish Council
• Cheshire West and Chester Council
• Helsby High School
• Viking Wirral
• Helsby Methodist Church
• Helsby Village Action Group
• Helsby Football Club
• Helsby Golf Club
• Helsby Running Club
• North Cheshire Rail Users Group