by Nick Colley, chairman of Northwich and District Heritage Society

Ashton’s and Neuman’s Flashes are today a haven for birds and wildlife and a great place for a walk.

This wasn’t always the case, this area was once home to numerous salt works and mines and other related industry.

It was this industry that created the flashes as underground mines collapsed and the resulting hole filled with water to become effectively a man-made lake.

There was once a busy pub here catering to those thirsty workers as well as to the thriving angling community that fished in this area.

It was situated near where the Old Warrington Road met another road called Witton Brow.

To find the location today you would walk clockwise along the path around the flashes until you are on the stretch that runs alongside Old Warrington Road, then just before you come to the central path which runs across the middle of the flashes look to your right and it was about there.

Its original name was the Barry Arms after the Smith-Barry family of Marbury and can be traced back to the late 1700s.

In around 1821 it was renamed the Townshend Arms after E V Townshend who owned the land it stood on. Locally it was referred to as the ‘Witch and Devil’, the reason for this is lost in time.

At the time of the 1861 census the landlady was recorded as being 21-year-old Eliza Maylam, who had her 16-year-old sister working for her. Presumably one of the youngest landladies the area has ever seen.

Following subsidence damage the original building was replaced by a new timber-framed one in around 1885 - there must have been enough demand for a public house here to warrant the expense of replacing it.

This is backed up by the fact that Greenall Whitley took out a 21-year lease on it from March 1889 at an annual rent of £65 and then in 1903 the licensing magistrates recommended that a coach house be added to the building.

By 1913 things were not looking good, even though it had been rebuilt using a timber frame, the land beneath it was still sinking and the nearby Witton Brook waters were rising.

Soon the waters had reached the back wall of the property and the landlady, Mary Brogden even kept a boat tied to the back door in case she needed to escape.

On May 9, 1913 Northwich District Council served Greenall Whitley with a closing order.

The pub finally closed for good on July 10, 1913 and Mary Brogden and her staff moved out.

The fixtures, fittings and furniture were all removed and then soon after the pub disappeared below the water.

For more local history photographs visit the Northwich History Past and Present Facebook group