Local History
In 1870-72, John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales described Betchton in the following terms:
"BETCHTON, a township in Sandbach parish, Cheshire; 2 miles SE of Sandbach. Acres, 2,594. Real property, £6,722. Pop., 798. Houses, 152. There are extensive salt-works and a Methodist chapel".
The salt works and Methodist chapel are now long gone, along with the school, post office and Hassall Green's village pub.
In Anglo-Saxon England, prior to the Norman Conquest in 1066, the area we know today as Cheshire was divided into administrative areas called Hundreds, in common with much of the country.
From around the 13th century, the county was also divided into areas known as the Ancient Parishes. Initially, these parishes were created for ecclesiastical purposes: every parish came under the clerical care and jurisdiction of a parish priest, and the parishes defined which areas came under which priests. The reforms to the church in England originally instigated by King Henry VIII began the process of the Ancient Parishes taking on secular responsibilities, and a split gradually developed between the church parishes and the civil parishes we know today. Betchton is such a civil parish, and the parish council has no connections with any religious organisation.
