tarporley

Tarporley is near the site of a prehistoric settlement.{{citation needed|date=July 2021}} Several prehistoric artefacts have been discovered within close proximity of the present-day village: a Neolithic stone axe, a flint scraper and a Bronze Age barbed and tanged arrow head.{{cite web|url=http://www.cheshirearchaeology.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/HTS_Arch_Assess_Tarporley.pdf |title=Archaeological Assessment: Tarporley|work=Cheshire Historic Towns Survey|publisher=Cheshire County Council/English Heritage|date=2003|access-date=3 July 2021}}

It is listed in the Domesday Book as Torpelei,{{cite web|url=http://www.domesdaybook.co.uk/cheshire2.html#tarporley |title=Cheshire L-Z: Tarporley|publisher=Domesday Book Online|access-date=3 July 2021}} which has been translated as meaning “a pear wood near a hill called Torr”.{{cite book|last=Dodgson|first=J. McN|title=The Place-Names of Cheshire (Part III): The Place-Names of Nantwich Hundred and Eddisbury Hundred|publisher=Cambridge University Press|date=1971|isbn=0-521-08049-5}} For this reason, Tarporley Church of England Primary School has a pear tree for its emblem. However, the exact origins and meaning are unclear. The name has also been suggested to mean "a peasant's wood/clearing", derived from the Old English words þorpere (someone who lives at a thorp; a peasant) and lēah (a wood, forest, glade or clearing){{cite web|url=http://kepn.nottingham.ac.uk/map/place/Cheshire/Tarporley |title=Key to English Place-Names: Tarporley|publisher=University of Nottingham|access-date=3 July 2021}}

In 1066, the settlement was owned by Wulfgeat of Madeley and was worth one pound. Twenty years later, under the ownership of Gilbert the Hunter (Gilbert de Venables), Tarporley's value had halved, to ten shillings. This small agricultural settlement comprised eight households (four villagers, two smallholders and two slaves).{{cite web|url=https://opendomesday.org/place/SJ5562/tarporley/ |title=Tarporley|first1=Anna|last1=Powell-Smith|publisher=Open Domesday/University of Hull|access-date=3 July 2021}} The Domesday entry suggests that Tarporley was one of many townships still recovering from the devastation caused by the Normans' Harrying of the North in 1069–70.

The parish council comprises 12 locally elected members.{{cite web |title=Councillors |publisher=Tarporley Parish Council |url=http://www.tarporley.org.uk/htdocs/councillors.htm |access-date=21 January 2008}}

An electoral ward of the same name exists. This ward stretches north-east to the Budworths with a total population at the 2011 census of 4,398.{{cite web|url=http://www.ukcensusdata.com/tarporley-e05008696#sthash.FKYkAYL5.dpbs|title=Ward population 2011|publisher=UK Census Data|access-date=30 May 2015}}

Tarporley was an ancient parish, appearing in the Domesday Book of 1086 in the hundred of Rushton, but by the late 12th century it had become part of Eddisbury Hundred. The parish included four townships, being Eaton, Rushton, Utkinton and a Tarporley township that covered the main settlement and adjoining areas.{{cite book |last1=Youngs |first1=Frederic |title=Guide to the Local Administrative Units of England: Volume 2 |date=1991 |publisher=Royal Historical Society |location=London |isbn=0861931270 |page=36}} In 1863 the whole parish was declared to be a local government district, governed by a local board.{{London Gazette|issue=22715|page=1417|date=10 March 1863}}

Such districts were reconstituted as urban districts in 1894.Local Government Act 1894 Tarporley Urban District Council met at the Public Hall on Forest Road (since demolished and replaced by a house called 37 Forest Road).{{cite book |title=Kelly's Directory of Cheshire |date=1914 |location=London |pages=647–648 |url=https://specialcollections.le.ac.uk/digital/collection/p16445coll4/id/235844/rec/2 |access-date=11 January 2024}}{{cite web |title=Tarporley: Forest Road |url=https://www.cheshireimagebank.org.uk/frontend.php?pos=1&action=zoom&keywords=Ref_No_increment;MATCHES;(%5E%7C%20+)c10648($%7C%20+)&continueUrl=ZnJvbnRlbmQucGhwPyZzZWFyY2h0ZXJtcz1jMTA2NDgmYWN0aW9uPXNlYXJjaCZrZXl3b3Jkcz1SZWZfTm9faW5jcmVtZW50JTJDVGl0bGUlMkNMb2NhdGlvbiUyQ0Z1cnRoZXJfSW5mb3JtYXRpb24lMkNLZXl3b3JkcyUzQk1BVENIRVMlM0IlMjglNUUlN0MlNUIlNUVhLXpBLVolNUQlMjljMTA2NDglMjglMjQlN0MlNUIlNUVhLXpBLVolNUQlMjklM0Imb3JkZXJCeT1EYXRlQ3JlYXRlZCZvcmRlckRpcmVjdGlvbj1ERVNDJmFsdGVybmF0ZVBhZ2VzPTE= |website=Cheshire Image Bank |access-date=11 January 2024}} The urban district was abolished in 1936, when the area was split into three rural parishes called Tarporley, Rushton and Utkinton within the Northwich Rural District.{{cite web |title=Tarporley AP/CP |url=http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/unit_page.jsp?u_id=10109668 |publisher=GB Historical GIS / University of Portsmouth |work=A Vision of Britain Through Time |access-date=21 January 2008}} Northwich Rural District was abolished in 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972.{{cite web |title=Tarporley UD |url=http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/unit_page.jsp?u_id=10117150 |publisher=GB Historical GIS / University of Portsmouth |work=A Vision of Britain Through Time |access-date=21 January 2008}} From 1 April 1974 Tarporley formed part of the borough of Vale Royal, within Cheshire and was included in the new unitary authority of Cheshire West and Chester on 1 April 2009.

Tarporley is part of the parliamentary constituency of Chester South and Eddisbury, represented since the 2024 general election by Aphra Brandreth of the Conservative Party. It was previously part of the Eddisbury constituency, which had been represented by Conservative Party MPs since its re-establishment in 1983, apart from a brief period in 2019 when the sitting MP Antoinette Sandbach had the Conservative whip removed and eventually sat as a Liberal Democrat before losing her seat to the Conservative Edward Timpson in the 2019 general election.

File:Market hall in Tarporley.JPG

Tarporley is bypassed by the A49 and A51 roads. The village was once served by Beeston Castle and Tarporley railway station on the North Wales Coast Line between Crewe and Chester, more than two miles from the village; the line remains open but the station closed in April 1966.

A local bus service, route 84, is provided by Stagecoach in Lancashire.

File:Swan Hotel, Tarporley.jpeg

{{see also|List of schools in Cheshire West and Chester}}

Tarporley has two schools: Tarporley High School and Tarporley Church of England Primary School.

Brook Farm School was a state special education boarding school located in the village that closed in 2001 and was demolished in 2013.

Established in 1983, through The British Council, Tarporley is twinned with the Breton village of Bohars, near Brest, France.{{cite web|url=http://www.tarporleytwinning.org.uk/ |title=Tarporley Twinning Association|access-date=10 December 2013}}

Tarporley Hunt Club, the oldest surviving hunt club in England,{{cite ODNB|url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/28678 |last=Atkinson|first=D.|title=Warburton, Rowland Eyles Egerton (1804–1891)|date=2004|doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/28678 |access-date=11 May 2010}}{{cite web|url=http://www.horseandhound.co.uk/news/29/292024.html |last=Butler|first=L.|title=Tarporley Hunt Cup goes under the hammer|publisher=Horse and Hound|date=20 November 2009|access-date=11 May 2010}} {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110610081307/http://www.horseandhound.co.uk/news/29/292024.html |date=10 June 2011}} meets in the village every Christmas.

• Maria Elizabetha Jacson (1755–1829), writer of books on botany, lived locally after 1787, when her father was local rector.
• Henry Shaw (1812–1887), taxidermist working in Shropshire, but born locally.
• Dominic Cotton (born 1960),{{cn|date=May 2025}} trained and worked as an actor, now a London journalist.
• Tom Oliphant (born 1990), racing driver.
• Will Goodwin (born 2002), footballer who has played over 80 games in the English Football League.

{{Portal|Cheshire}}

• Listed buildings in Tarporley
• St Helen's Church, Tarporley
• Portal, Tarporley

Notes

{{reflist|30em}}

{{Commons category|Tarporley}}

• [http://www.tarporley.org.uk/ Parish council website]

{{Cheshire, Cheshire West and Chester}}

{{Cheshire}}

{{authority control}}

Category:Civil parishes in Cheshire

Category:Villages in Cheshire