Flookersbrook: Difference between revisions

In February 1643 work began on protecting the suburbs of Chester by banking-up an earth rampart to adsorb artillery fire. A major salient was planned to enclose Flookersbrook Hall. The extent to which these works were completed is unknown but by late 1643 the Royalists were under increasingly heavy pressure and the extensive outworks could no longer be defended. The "Great Siege of Chester" (John Barratt) states that on 16th November [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Shipman Sir Abraham Shipman] the deputy governor of Chester. Decided the present outwork could not be defended.

1732 saw a certain amount of unrest in Chester centered around the Mayoral elections - sporadic disorders culminated in a clash in Bridge Street in early October between a Whig mob (allegedly reinforced with disguised soldiers, revenue officers, and Liverpool sailors) and Tory supporters who included Welsh miners. The latter came off worse, and the Whigs, suspecting that Tory aldermen were admitting more freemen after dark, broke into and wrecked the Pentice. The mayor called for dragoons from Warrington to help restore order and appointed c. 270 special constables. Fifty dragoons arrived on foot and according to "a letter from a freeman of the city of Chester to his friend in London" (text [https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=LGRpAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA27 here]) were loadged in Hoole, with 25 of them quartered at the [[Ermine]] (then in the hands of a John ArtinstallArtingstall) and the remainder at a neighbouring house in Flookersbrook.

As described in the article [[Hoole Local Board Petition 1894]] Charles Brown was very much involved with the discussions as to whether Flookersbrook should move from Newton to Hoole as the border between the two was shifted to the Cheshire Lines railway (now the Millennium Greenway). He was a principal opponent of the scheme, together with the Earl of Kilmorey (a significant local landowner), the Dixon's (who had major agricultural interests in the area) and William Williams the builder (who was then in the process of developing Halkyn Road). They organised a meeting at the "Ermine": the traditional meeting place of Newton Parish Council. They were ultimately unsuccessful - the Civil Parish of Newton was finally abolished in 1936. Matters then collapsed into something of a farce as reported in ''The Courant'' <ref>[https://newspapers.library.wales/view/3662127/3662130/17/flookersbrook Courant, 6th October 1897]</ref>. By 1901 things had progressed to the point where the inhabitants of Flookersbrook were threatening to block the connection between Ermine Road and Hoole Road <ref>[https://newspapers.library.wales/view/3806103/3806108/64/flookersbrook Courant, 5th June]</ref>, the argument rattled on into 1904 <ref>[https://newspapers.library.wales/view/4248410/4248416/53/flookersbrook Cheshire Observer, 10th September]</ref> and 1905 <ref>[https://newspapers.library.wales/view/3806885/3806893/136/flookersbrook Courant, 8th March]</ref>. It appears that one reason for the dispitedispute coming to andan end were increasing attempts after 1906 by the City renewing its efforts to increase its boundary to include both both Flookersbrook and Hoole.