MIDDLEWICH is an ancient market town situated at the confluence of the rivers Wheelock, Croco and Dane.

In the Domesday Book, it was called Mildestvich. It is one of the Wiches or Wyches joining Northwich and Nantwich from which salt has been drawn for centuries; in fact, it is between the two other Wiches, hence the name.

The Romans were the first to discover the brine that flowed freely here and founded the town calling it Salinae after the salt.

From the traces of a Roman road in the vicinity, there is little doubt that it was a Roman station, and the remains of an entrenchment camp were discovered at Kinderton.

During Roman times, salt was an essential substance that was then and for many years used for preserving food and manufacturing.

It was so valuable that Roman soldiers pay was called salary after salt. That name seems to have stuck.

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As well as the importance of the town during the Roman period, it also featured in the English Civil War.

Two battles took place here with the church as a centrepiece; they were titled the First and Second Battle of Middlewich and were between the Royalists commanded by Sir Thomas Aston and the Parliamentarians commanded by Sir William Brereton.

Reading the description of the first battle in a letter from Sir Thomas to Lord Cholmondeley on March 17, 1642, it would appear to have been quite a poorly managed affair like so many in that war.

On one occasion, the Royalists crowded into the church, leaving a cannon in the graveyard to fight off troops from all directions, especially down Dog Lane, now Queen Street.

Sir Thomas wrote: “I found all the foote wedged up in the church, like billets in a woodpile, not one man at his arms.”

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The noble knight is scathing about his incompetent and mutinous troops but managed to escape himself via Kinderton.

Those in the church were shot or captured, including Sir Edward Moseley and other officers, 400 common soldiers and weapons for 500 men.

When describing the first battle, Sir William Brereton quoted: “God hath not given many more complete victories.”

In the second battle, about nine months later, Sir William suffered his only major defeat in the war when the Parliamentarians lost due to Royalist assistance from Irish troops and marks on the porch still exist from the cannon shots in this battle.

That church has seen a lot of bloodshed; a visit to the church will show evidence of the damage caused. Middlewich has seen many changes over the years, none less than the building of St Michaels Way through the town in the 1970s to free up the road to the M6 motorway.

A campaign is afoot to reopen the railway station that has been closed to passengers since 1960.

Since then, the house building programme that has taken place and the number of commuters who live here should make this a priority.

Mention has to be made of the canal network centred here.

The Trent and Mersey canal, the Shropshire Union canal, and the tiny Wardle canal meet, making it the starting point on canal pleasure boating around Cheshire and further afield.