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Over Ward

MAPS of Knutsford drawn in the 1830s and 1840s are now available to view on the Internet.

The tithe maps - which detailed who owned each portion of land - had previously been stored at the Cheshire Record Office in Chester.

Now, in a four-year project paid for by a £159,000 National Lottery grant, they have been transferred to a digital format and can be accessed with the click of a mouse.

"It will be very helpful for anyone researching their family histories," said local historian Joan Leach, who published the book Knutsford last year.

"I think people will also be interested in finding their street and going back to see how it used to look."

Anyone living in Townfields might be interested to learn that the plot was once called Lover's Field.

The five-acre field was owned by Peter Legh, who possessed most of the land in Over Knutsford at that time. It was occupied by a man called Robert Bennett. Mrs Leach, who normally consults maps in the library, said she thought the online versions, which also include Ordnance Survey maps from 1875 and 1910, were more useful.

"It makes the information very accessible if you just know how to use it," she said.

Mrs Leach, who lives in Chester Road, said she was interested to see how different the town centre was in the 1830s.

"All the properties behind King Street all had gardens down to the Moor and you can see trees, which must have been fruit trees," she said.

"Looking at the census the people living in the market place were all Irish. They'd come over to build canals and leave behind the Irish potato famine and then they worked as labourers on the local farms."

Mrs Leach said exciteable behaviour at the weekend in Knutsford was nothing new.

"The market used to stay open late on a Saturday night so when the labourers had all got their wages they could get their meat," she said.

"But things could get very rowdy."

To view the archive go to maps.cheshire.gov.uk/tithemap

8:59am Monday 12th May 2008

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