Alpraham

Description of Alpraham Parish

The Parish of Alpraham is situated in the centre of the Cheshire Plain and bounded by the Parishes of Bunbury, Tilstone Fearnall, Eaton, Rushton, Wettenhall, Calveley and Wardle. The largest part of the boundaries being provided by the River Gowy and Wettenhall Brook.

It is traversed by the Shropshire Union Canal, the Railway and the A51 Nantwich to Chester Trunk Road. At present, most of the houses are situated in the central village area known as Highwayside sitting astride the A51. There is no large employer in the Parish.

There are now only two Public Houses, these being the Tollemache Arms and the Traveller's Rest. Service buses are scheduled to run at roughly one hour intervals in both directions throughout the day providing a service to Chester, Nantwich, Crewe and the Potteries.

Alpraham is a mainly agricultural Parish and farming is declining with some farmhouses being converted to private housing. Nevertheless, the larger farms such as Alpraham Hall and Moat House Farm still operate.

A brief History of Alpraham

Alpraham once comprised three hamlets, Alpraham, Alpraham Green and Highwayside. The last of these covers the area along the main road and was only so named during the stagecoach era. The straight road leading from the village towards Nantwich has always been known as the Watfield Pavement (or The Armitage) and legend has it that it was "thrown up one night by evil spirits".

Image reproduced with permission of Ordnance Survey and Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland


	The name "Alpraham" used to be "Alburgham", meaning the "hamlet of Alhburg", an Anglo Saxon woman's name. About 1380 it was the manor of the Alpraham family and was part of Delamere Forest. Later, during the 15th and 16th centuries the main landowners were the Pages (hence the name of Pages Wood). By the end of the 16th century there was much evidence of the spread of Puritanism in the Bunbury area. In particular, a man named Edward Burghall, who was born in Beeston in 1600, kept a diary entitled "Providence Improved" which recorded "how God punished both the Papists and the loose Livers". Always a controversial character, he became the Vicar of Acton but was ejected in 1662 when he removed to Alpraham where he lived in great poverty until his death in 1665. Like most villages, Alpraham suffered during the Civil War; probably mainly during the severe winter of 1643-4 when Parliament's forces passed through the parish to the Battle of Nantwich. It is well known that Methodism in Cheshire started in the Alpraham area. The first sermon was preached by John Nelson, a young disciple of John Wesley, when he visited Moat House Farm in 1742. This took place under a pear tree in the farm yard, and John Wesley himself preached under the same tree in 1749. He preached here many times until his last visit in 1781. There have been three Methodist Chapels in the village; the last of these closed fairly recently. Until the estate was sold to Lord Leverhulme in the 1960's, the principle landowners in the area for several centuries were the Tollemache family. As far as the Church was concerned, the Ecclesiastical Parish of Tilstone Fearnall also included Alpraham, Wettenhall, Tilstone Fearnall and Tiverton until 1990. When Canon John Bowers became the incumbent in 1992 he was responsible for Alpraham, Bunbury, Calveley and Tilstone Fearnall; Wettenhall joined the Acton Parish.
Image reproduced with permission of Ordnance Survey and Ordnance Survey of N.Ireland