stands in a low flat situation on the east bank of the Weaver. The houses are for the most part old, and built of timber and plaster. The church is large and cruciform, with stalls, stone pulpit, and an octagonal tower. The Dissenters have several meeting-houses, and there are several ranges of alms-houses. The prosperity of the town was formerly owing to its brine springs and salt-works, which were of great antiquity and celebrity, but only one spring is now worked. The chief manufactures are of shoes, cheese, gloves, and cotton goods. The Chester, the Ellesmere, the Liverpool, and Birmingham Junction canals, and the Middlewich Branch canal unite in the neighbourhood of the town, and the Grand Junction canal passes at no great distance. The Crewe station, a great focus of railways, is close to Nantwich. Pop. of township, 1851, 5426. |