Our History

Who We Are

Early History 


The original, individual, settlements making up the Ecclesiastical Parish of Backford were Backford itself, Great Mollington, Lea By Backford, *Moston, Chorlton and Caughall. 

Each has an early English name, indicating their foundation before the Norman Conquest in 1066. The earliest known date of them being combined is 1305. From then, too, it is certain that a vicar had been appointed to the church we know as St. Oswald's.


*Moston is no longer part of the Parish

Our thanks to John Hess and the Backford and Mollington & Local History Society for this summary.
Our thanks to the Backford and Mollington & Local History Society for the following summary of our history.

Backford Parish in 1914 

Because a proper village centre had never come into being, Backford Parish in 1914 was still made up of scattered groups of houses in its townships. The economy was mainly agricultural, with an emphasis upon dairy farming, and had for many years been dominated by the larger, private, estates in Mollington and Backford. That ascendancy, however, was being weakened by poor farming conditions and a lack of heirs in their own farming families. 

Few people in the parish had any experience by 1914 of: electricity, piped water, plumbing or a motorcar.  Education was improving through the new schools and, as industry became established in Cheshire, alternative opportunities for employment were beginning to appear. The population in 1914 was: Backford 155; Mollington 246; Lea 104; Chorlton 70; Caughall 23; In total 598.

Good farming land

Behind the parish history has been the good farming land of Cheshire. Communities like Backford originally grew all their own food. Later came specialisation, and for those in this area, its deep lowland soil coupled with a damp climate meant that the best crop was lush, rich grass. Arable crops were not excluded, but conditions were more appropriate for animal husbandry, especially dairy farming, and thus for milk and cheese production. In an ideal "Cheshire System" pigs would also be reared to eat up residual whey from cheese production.

In the early 18th Century, Cheshire cheese, which keeps well over a winter, was sold all over Europe, much being shipped out from Shotwick. (In 1736 the River Dee became canalised and Shotwick ceased to be a port as the Dee Marshes were drained). Before refrigeration, nothing else kept so well, and everyone ate cheese. It was a large and important industry for Cheshire. Subsequently America started producing and undercut Cheshire on price, rapidly destroying the export business from this county. Other outlets for cheese were sought, notably the growing towns of the industrial revolution, and sales continued. 

A changing landscape

In the 1930s milk was handled in churns with each farmer having to use a horse and cart to transport milk to Mollington railway station each day. Then James Pownall, a local business man, started a milk collection by steam lorry from each farm, transporting it directly to Birkenhead dairy for bottling and distribution. He brought compound feeds back from Merseyside docks and mills as a return load. From the 1950s milk was collected in bulk, in specially designed tankers and taken by road to the dairy. 

With the decline of dairy farming, sheep are often seen in the fields now, and there is more arable farming, especially of maize. On the other hand many of the farms have sold off their land, and, together with their barns, have been converted to homes. 

The arrival of the railways changed everything

However, in the 19th century railways were built. Liquid milk could be delivered very quickly to the towns, and demand for it gradually changed most Cheshire dairy farms to milk alone. 

By the 1920s Mollington had eleven farms, Backford ten, Lea nine, Cholton five and Caughall two, with much commitment to milk production.

The number of dairy farms has declined since the war. In Mollington, Home Farm, Rose Farm, Crosslooms and Well Farms have all gone (in 1928 there were 33 farms in the parish, by 2000 only 9, and not all of those handle milk production).  

The township of Backford is the centre of the parish and appropriately contains our Church and Village Hall as well as Backford Hall, home for so many years to the Gleggs, a leading family in the area. Indeed, that family, at one time, owned much of the township. 

In Mollington, the two major houses, Mollington Hall and Mollington Banastre, and one just outside, Crabwall Hall, eventually succumbed to the shrinking demand for large country houses, due largely to difficulty in obtaining domestic staff.

Mollington Hall was the centre of an extensive estate for the Feilden family and had continued as such for Gibbons and Frost, a Chester flour miller. With no male heir to the Frosts, the estate was broken up by 1930, and in 1938 the Hall was demolished by an Ellesmere Port builder, Cullin. His plans for house building on the site ran into financial difficulties and were only implemented much later.
Surviving the loss of the Hall were its surrounding farms and a nucleus of original properties like the CE School opened in 1896, and the Post Office. 

Chorlton by Backford

Chorlton has some claim to be the quietest and most remote of the townships. Certainly, its small group of houses has always been difficult to find first time and it feels somehow more separate than other parts of the parish. Many of the recorded reminiscences, surround the one large house, Chorlton Hall. 

Chorlton Hall remains the focus of life in the township; however, it has not been the only one over the years. Three dairy farms have existed separately. Chorlton Lodge, Mount and Grove. 

The company Wild and Sons bought Lodge Farm in 1946. One of the sons, Oulton Wade, created a pig unit at Chorlton in 1955, in support of a traditional Cheshire System - cows eat grass, their milk is converted to cheese, the whey is fed to the pigs, the pigs manure the land to grow grass and so on. 

A year of change

In 1967 came foot-and-mouth disease which caused 100 cattle and 1000 pigs to be slaughtered at Lodge Farm. (The only other farm to be affected in the parish was Grove Farm, next door.) For some time it went out of business, though compensation was paid. In the late 1970s, Wades were asked to make Cheshire Farmhouse Blue Cheese to counter increasing demand in the country. Up to then Lodge Farm had produced only milk, and Wild's dairy in Mollington was committed to plain cheese. The two types cannot be made on the same site, so blue cheese came to Chorlton. Unfortunately, the market for blue then became oversupplied and after only three years, blue cheese production was halted. Lodge Farm was sold by the Wades in 1993, the house in 1998.

A fourth farm in Chorlton specialised in slaughtering. That work stopped temporarily during the 1939-45 war, when private slaughter houses were closed in favour of centralised control by government, and ceased finally in 1975

Caughall

This is the smallest of our parish townships, and the only one lying outside Wirral. After about 1600 and until recently, it consisted of two farms only, each subordinate to an owner elsewhere, and therefore without a large house or social centre.

 Now, however, Caughall contains part of Chester Zoo (The North of England Zoological Society), which, in order to control movement of animals after the 1967 Foot and Mouth scare, bought all land around it in Caughall.    

Lea by Backford

Lea by Backford is one of the five Townships in the Parish of Backford nestling between two larger villages of Backford and Mollington. The record in the Doomsday Book states that the “church itself held and holds Lea in Backford. There is one hide paying geld. There is land for three ploughs. In demesne is one plough and two slaves, and two villain’s and two bordars with one plough and one acre of meadow. TRE it was worth 10s, now as much”.

A definition of the word demesne is thought to be ‘manorial land actually possessed by the lord and not held by tenants’.

It is thought that Demage, (as in Demage Lane), is a derivative of the old word Demesne and could explain the historical background to this current road name. This would imply that Lea Hall would have been the manor and that Lea Manor Farm, (previously known as Demage Farm), could have been the farm to the Manor.

In days gone by there were eight main farms and today there are four remaining active farms where all aspects of farming are covered including beef, arable, dairy, poultry, whilst other farm land has diversified.

Whilst farming has changed over the years, local farmers emphasis food production, does not stop the careful management of the environment, birds and wildlife being paramount in all of resident’s and farmers minds.

Coots, moorhens, woodpeckers, kingfishers, are to be seen along with owls in local woodlands and along the brooksides of Lea.

The church is dedicated to St Oswald, a King of Northumbria. The earliest documents about the church date from 1291 and the first Vicar was appointed in 1305. Evidence of wartime are apparent within the village and undulations in the grounds of both Lea Manor Farm and Friars Park Farm can

be seen as a result of off loading bombs following raids particularly in the Liverpool area.

Today, Lea is bordered by the Parishes of Mollington and Backford and all three continue to benefit from the use of St Oswald’s Church, the Village Hall and St Oswald’s School. The Chester to Birkenhead railway, (opened in 1840), still passes through Lea by Backford but no longer has the benefit of a station. There used to be a busy siding for fuel distribution from the local refinery and the handling of goods, particularly agricultural foodstuffs. Lea also boasts one of the first automatic telephone exchanges and now supports 519 residential premises and 59 non residential premises in the surrounding area. In more recent times a commercial development (Chester Gates) has been constructed at the northern boundary of Lea Parish including amongst other facilities 2 wholesale outlets, a trampoline park and a driving test centre. At present, there are 80 residential properties in the Parish and approximately 207 residents.


And finally

The parish today looks much as it was. Certainly there is less farming; less of the social life surrounds the church or larger houses. Mollington especially has grown into a commuter community with many parents out at work all day. On the other hand the Five Villages HUB has become a new focus, many younger people with a variety of talent and a sense of community have moved in, and things no longer depend on the few. 
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