Lymm, Cheshire

Description
Lymm, a small town and a parish in Cheshire. The town stands on the Manchester Ship Canal, near the rivers Mersey and Bollin, 4 1/2 miles ESE of Warrington, and has a station on the Warrington, Stockport, and Manchester section of the L. & N.W.R., a post, money order, and telegraph office under Warrington, a police station, the base of an old cross, and a technical institute. The police station is a small building containing a court-room, &c., and is used for petty sessions. The lower steps of the cross are cut out of the solid rock, and are in good preservation. The town is governed by a local board. A good system of drainage was completed in 1894. The parish contains also the hamlets of Heatley Heath and Cliffe Lane, and the places called Crouchley Lane, Burford Lane, Lymm Booths, Oughtrington, Broomedge, Reddish, and Statham, and it extends to the Mersey and the Bollin. Acreage, 4375; population of the civil parish, 4995; of the ecclesiastical, 2955. Lymm Hall, an ancient edifice, formerly moated, was once the seat of the Domville family. Oughtrington Hall, Statham Lodge, and Beechwood, are chief residences. Tanning and fustian-cutting are carried on. Lymm Lake is formed by a dam on the river Dane; below is a picturesque wooded dingle. Quarries have yielded footprints of the labyrinthodon, a gigantic batrachian that flourished in the Triassic age. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Chester; net value, £278 with residence. The church, probably the fourth edifice erected on the present site, was built in 1851, is in the Early Decorated style; comprises nave, aisles, transepts, and chancel, with a tower which was rebuilt in 1890 ; has a fine E window; and includes, in the N aisle, a private chapel in lieu of one in the old church. There is a recessed arch in the S wall, of the Decorated period, about 1322, and in it what appears to be a Roman altar. The ecclesiastical parish of Oughtrington was constituted in 1881. Population, 2040. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Chester; gross value, £278 with residence. The church was erected in 1872. There are Congregational, Baptist, Wesleyan, and Primitive Methodist chapels.