Crewe: A History

For many people the name of Crewe means the railway station on the West Coast Main Line, a major rail junction 158 miles north of London Euston. Before the station was built in the late 1830s, ‘Crewe’ was a township in Barthomley parish, in the holding of the ancient ennobled family named Crewe. Monks Coppenhall was the adjacent township, the place chosen for the railway works that grew up to accompany the station and junction. As it developed throughout the 19th century it gradually took on the name of Crewe, eventually adopting it officially and becoming the Borough of Crewe with a railway works acknowledged internationally as a centre of engineering excellence. This history therefore is mainly the story of old Coppenhall, whose two manors are recorded in Domesday book as ‘Copehale’. The author uses original documents from archives including those of various lords of the manor, early landowners, court cases, parish documents and wills to shed light on aspects of the history of Crewe town that have not been revealed before.