Wardle, Cheshire

Wardle is a village and civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. The village lies on the Shropshire Union Canal, north west of Barbridge Junction, and is 4 miles to the north west of Nantwich, and the parish also includes part of the small settlement of Wardle Bank. The total population is around 250. RAF Calveley was a flight-training station during the Second World War, and the Mark III radio telescope stood on the airfield site in 1966–96. The modern civil parish includes Wardle Industrial Estate and is otherwise largely agricultural. Nearby villages include Barbridge, Calveley and Haughton.HistoryWatfield Pavement, a stone road believed to have originally formed part of a Roman road from Chester to Chesterton in Staffordshire, passed through or adjacent to the parish, and a bronze Roman coin was found nearby. Wardle appears in the Domesday Book of 1086 as "Warhelle". Wardle Hall was the seat of the Prestland family, passing to the Woodhey branch of the Wilbraham family in the early 17th century. A map dated around 1875 shows brickworks and brick fields adjacent to the Shropshire Union Canal, and mills and a brickworks were present in this area on a 1947 map.