Overview

Cheshire contains some of the earliest inland saltworks, industrial canals, and purpose-built mechanised textile mills in Britain. The region’s industrial story covers 2,000 years from the Romans to the Victorians and beyond. Drawing upon archaeological excavations over the last fifty years, this book looks at the physical remains of Cheshire’s chief industries, salt, textiles, metal working, and transport, from its Roman beginnings to the area’s role as the centre of Britain’s silk industry in the nineteenth century. Michael Nevell describes the excavation of Cheshire’s internationally important industrial archaeology sites showing how this archaeological work has helped the study of not only the salt industries of Nantwich, Middlewich, and Northwich, but Chester’s role as a port, especially in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and the Bridgewater Canal, the first long-distance industrial canal, and its port at Runcorn. The area’s largest industry in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, silk and cotton spinning, developed in eastern Cheshire and this area became Britain’s silk-manufacturing centre. The excavation of these textile mills, salt works, and transport networks reveals the impact of industrialisation on the landscape and people of the area, and Cheshire’s important role in the Industrial Revolution.

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9781398124110

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Author Information

Michael Nevell is a landscape archaeologist with more than 29 years’ experience in archaeology, as a consultant, lecturer, and researcher. His research interests include the archaeology of industrialization, community archaeology and historic buildings, especially textile mills and weavers’ cottages. He has written extensively on industrial and landscape topics and several of his books have won awards from the Libraries Association, the Association for Industrial Archaeology, and British Archaeological Awards. He is Head of Archaeology at the University of Salford and also co-edits the international journal Industrial Archaeology Review.

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