A town called Crewe
From Samuel Bagshaw's History & Gazateer of the County of Cheshire 1850

Crewe is a considerable and thriving market town, partly in Barthomley and Crewe parishes, but principally in Coppenhall parish, and locally situated in the township of Monks-Coppenhall, 41/2 miles S.W. by S. from Sandbach, and about the same distance from Nantwich.

About the year 1840 there were only three or four farm-houses, in the place which then might be called Crewe, and which now merits notice as an important and flourishing market town, enjoying a prominent geographical position among the railway stations of this country, and is the nucleus where converge lines of the first importance, and from whence the traveller may be conveyed to most parts of the Kingdom.

London, Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, and Chester have direct communication with Crewe ; and divers ramifications and branches effect the transit to other places.

This pleasant and well-built market town is situated a quarter of a mile west from the railway station, and since the opening of the Grand Junction and the London and Birmingham Railways, building has been carried on with amazing spirit and activity, and the town now contains upwards of 800 good houses, commodious and well-furnished shops, elegant hotels and tavems, a beautiful church, town hall, several handsome dissenting chapels, and school etc, have sprung up, and formed a town of magnitude as if by magic; the whole has a neat and compact appearance; the streets are open, and laid out with regularity-well sewered, and abundantly supplied with water.

The population cannot be much less than 5,000 persons.

The London and North-Western Railway Company own upwards of 500 houses. The Railway Company's works, which are on a grand scale, and cover an area of seven acres, furnish employment to near one thousand artizans and others.

Caption: An average of almost two engines a week were turned out from Crewe Works at the height of their fame, between 1857 and 1920.


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