Davenham

Davenham
Cheshire
St Wilfrid's Church
Location
Grid reference:	SJ658708
Location:	53°14’9"N, 2°30’40"W
Data
Population:	2,745  (2011)
Post town:	Northwich
Postcode:	CW9
Dialling code:	01606
Local Government
Council:	Cheshire West & Chester
Parliamentary constituency:	Eddisbury

Davenham is a village in Cheshire, in the county's Northwich Hundred. It had a population of 2,745 at the 2011 census. Davenham stands in the centre of the Cheshire Plain near both the River Dane and River Weaver.

Church

The parish church, St Wilfrid, goes back to the Domesday period but the current church is the fourth on the site. The current church dates from a major reconstruction between 1844 and 1870 in the Victorian Gothic revival style. The tower has a recessed spire built in 1850.

Legend says that the original church was founded by St Wilfrid on a journey through Cheshire in the 7th Century, but the first documented evidence of a church on the site is an existing priest and church in 1086.

History

Davenham is recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Deuenham. Its name means "hamlet on the River Dane". The site of the Norman Shipbrook Castle by the River Dane is indicated by the name of Castle Hill, between Shipbrook Bridge and Shipbrook Hill Farm, but no traces now remain.

Between 1996 and 2006, a large housing development was built on farmland to the north-west of the village centre. The estate is known as Kingsmead (now its own, separate civil parish) and is separated from the historic village by the A556 Northwich bypass.

Sport

• Football: Davenham F.C. The club notably reached the final of the 1887 Welsh FA Cup.

Outside links

("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Davenham)

• Davenham Parish Council
• GENUKI Website entry
• Photographs
• St. Wilfrids Church
• Kingsmead Primary School