Padgate

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1. Introduction
2. RAF Padgate
3. Padgate Railway Station
4. Bennett’s Rec
5. Padgate Industrial School / Padgate Cottage Homes
6. Church Life
   1. Padgate Methodist Church
   2. Christ Church
   3. St Oswald’s Church
7. Padgate Training College
8. A. Monk & Co Ltd
9. Padgate Library
10. Padgate Tennis and Bowling Club
11. Padgate Brook

PADGATE, a village and a chapelry in Warrington parish, Lancashire. The village stands 1 mile N of the river Mersey at the boundary with Cheshire, and 2½ N E of Warrington r. station. The chapelry was constituted in 1844; and its post town is Warrington. Pop. in 1861, 1, 510. Houses, 296. The living is a p. curacy in the diocese of Chester. Value, £120. Patron, the Rector of Warrington.

GB Historical GIS / University of Portsmouth, History of Padgate, in Warrington and Lancashire | Map and description, A Vision of Britain through Time.

URL: https://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/24754

Date accessed: 03rd October 2024

Memorial to those who died in service during the 1st and 2nd World Wars at Bennett’s Rec.

Padgate is located in the east of Warrington.

Before 1838 Padgate was the name of a road from Warrington to Bolton. “Pad” is a north country word for path, and a “Padgate” is a well-trodden path.

The word ‘gate’ comes from a Danish word for ‘road’ (gata), so not a garden-gate as many might think.

Hilden Road, Padgate (21 January 2012).

Between 1939 and 1953 the district was home to a small RAF base, RAF Padgate. This RAF station will be well-remembered by thousands of young men who were selected for RAF National Service and on this site received their first taste of military discipline.

The site of the RAF base is now a housing estate, bordering Bennett’s Rec and Cinnamon Brow. Padgate Community High School is also on this land and now called Padgate Academy, having also been known as Lysander Community High School. The name Lysander comes from the British army air co-operation aircraft named after the Spartan general Lysander.

Street names in the area remember some of the aeroplanes from the war, Valiant Close, Anson Close and Lancaster Close, to name just a few. See Military Service for more information.

Above: Padgate High school was renamed as Lysander Community High School for a period of time to reflect the name of the aircraft. However, the name (in my opinion) wasn’t popular and the school is now known as Padgate Academy.

A poster advertising an entertainment event at RAF Padgate in 1956.

The district has an unmanned railway station on the Liverpool to Manchester line originally operated by the Cheshire Lines Committee from 1873. It is served by the local stopping service via Warrington Central station and Glazebrook station.

See Making Tracks for more information.

In 2015 the Friends of Padgate Station were formed, aiming to restore the station to its former beauty. The group, working with Network Rail, commissioned a series of six paintings of well-known people with links to the area. They were created by artist Rachelle Clearly from IC Art in Irlam and include radio presenter Chris Evans, singer Kerry Katona, actors Pete Postlethwaite and Bert Kwok, Minnie Beardsall, who died in 2018 aged 92 and Bob McLaughlan, chairman of the Friends of Padgate Station.

The original plan for the Cheshire Lines Committee was to have a station at Winwick Road on a straight section of track between Bewsey and Padgate. However, the locals requested a station in the town centre, the current Warrington Central. On the first photo, right, you can just make out a footbridge. The second photo shows the view from that footbridge showing where the line now loops left to Warrington Central. The ‘straight’ section was opened in 1883, ten years after the ‘loop’ section. It occupied the space where the trees have now grown on the right of the photo.

The junction of the ‘straight’ and ‘loop’ sections from the footbridge (second image) close to Bennett’s Recreation ground.

In the centre of Padgate, next to the train line, is a large area of land and playing fields known as Bennett’s Recreation Ground or simply Bennett’s Rec. It is named after William Bennett who donated the land for community use in 1919.

This is the home of the Woolston Rovers rugby league side. Following a fire at the club house, the club struggled to survive. Recently a new changing room facility has been built on the site of the former club house and the club is starting to rebuild. This is also home to Greenall’s Padgate St Oswald’s reserves football team who are currently competing in the Mid Cheshire Football League reserve division. The first team play at Tetley Walkers Club, Long Lane, Warrington.

In 1880-01, Warrington Union erected an industrial school complex at Padgate. The site provided accommodation and training for pauper children away from the main workhouse site.

The buildings included two boys’ houses, two girls’ houses, a school, a superintendent’s house and a porter’s lodge. Play sheds were added in 1885.

The industrial school later became Padgate Cottage Homes. The surviving buildings have since become business premises. For a map and photos showing its location click the link below.

Information supplied by Peter Higginbotham at workhouses.org.uk/Warrington/

Location of Padgate Cottage Homes on Green Lane.

Padgate Methodist Church began soon after John Wesley visited the area in 1790 for the twentieth and last time.

Wesley was 86 years old at the time and he was assisted into the pulpit of the Bank Street chapel in the town centre by a John Smith. Smith was so inspired by Wesley’s Methodism that he vowed to set up a similar fellowship in Padgate.

Smith’s home on Padgate Lane became the first meeting place and as the congregation grew, there was need for a bigger purpose-built space.

The first chapel was built in 1831 with space for 140 parishioners. In 1875 a larger one was built near the railway bridge (this is the one still in use today).

The land for the current church was donated by William Bennett Jnr who had purchased the 1831 chapel in 1875 and converted it into two cottages.

The cottages still stand today near St Oswald’s Church on Padgate Lane. William Bennett JNR is the father of Alderman Arthur Bennett JP who lived at Paddington House.

In the early years of the church there was no resident minister. The meetings were taken by members of the congregation or visiting preachers.

Padgate Methodist Church on Padgate Lane (11 May 2009).

Noticeboard at Padgate Methodist Church advertising events to celebrate the 219th anniversary of the church, taken 11 May 2009.

The parish church, Christ Church (1838), is a listed building, as is the former rectory (built approximately 2 years later). Christ Church has an affiliated Church of England Primary School nearby which also dates, in its present form, from around the same time. The church has a graveyard which includes a Commonwealth War Graves section. For more information, see the Christ Church website.

In 2016, work commenced on the building of a new vicarage in the grounds adjacent to the church. This new vicarage became the residence of the vicar in early 2017, and the old rectory is now a private residence.

Some information retrieved from Wikipedia

St Oswald’s Church is a Roman Catholic church on Padgate Lane. The parish was founded by Benedictine monks from Ampleforth Abbey, and it is now served by clergy from the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Liverpool.

The parish was established from St Mary’s Church, Warrington by Fr. Thomas Austin Hind O.S.B, a Warringtonian by birth. He is credited with conceiving the idea to build the church and to have chosen the dedication to St Oswald of Northumbria. On 1 July 1924, Archbishop Keating of Liverpool give permission for the formation of this, the fourth Benedictine parish in Warrington: the others being St. Albans (1755), St. Mary’s (1877) and St. Benedict’s (1902). The parish was served by the clergy of St Mary’s Church, Warrington until it became an independent parish on 24 July 1929.

St Oswald’s Church (11 May 2009)

The last Benedictine Parish Priest was Fr Harold Cyprian Broomfield O.S.B as the Abbot of Ampleforth Abbey surrendered the parish to the Archbishop of Liverpool on 10 September 1962. From 2013, following the death of Canon William Redmond, the parish was served by the parish priest of St Benedict’s Church, Warrington. On 1 May 2018, St. Oswald’s became part of one new combined parish called Blessed James Bell which also incorporates the former parishes of St Mary’s and St Benedict’s in Warrington.

Parish Priests

St Oswald’s Church (11 May 2009)

St Oswald’s Church (11 May 2009)

School and Convent

In 1929 the Sisters of the Cross and Passion, part of the Passionist family, moved from Buttermarket Street in Warrington to Bruche Hall close to the church. A school, with a capacity for 200 children, was opened on 1 September 1931, which was staffed by the sisters and lay teachers. In 1971, a purpose built convent was built and the old house demolished. Some information from Wikipedia.

Padgate Training College (which was actually in Fearnhead) was created in 1949. Before that it was used as a camp for Canadian servicemen during the Second World War.

The site was occupied by the University of Chester, Warrington campus, until it moved into Time Square in Warrington town centre (opposite Warrington market) in 2021. See photos in the Fearnhead section.

Monk’s was a building and civil firm which originally set up in Irlam by Arthur Monk. and later occupied a site in Padgate in Warrington.

The company went on to become one of the country’s large contracting firms, employing several thousand people and being responsible for many important industrial projects.

Here is the report of Monk’s death in 1960:

WE record with regret the death of Mr. Arthur Monk, chairman and joint managing director of A. Monk and Co., Ltd., which occurred suddenly last Saturday, January 9.

Mr. Monk, who was sixty-seven, founded the building and civil engineering firm which bears his name as a small private construction firm, in 1920, at Irlam.

Since then, the company has become one of this country’s large contracting firms employing several thousand people and being responsible for many important industrial projects.

Mr. Monk, who was a member of the Institution of Structural Engineers, was keenly interested in local government affairs and had been for many years a Lancashire County Councillor.

Monk was equally interested in national politics and had served for a number of years as chairman of the Newton Division Conservative Association.

Furthermore, Mr. Monk gave generous support to numerous good causes. He had recently made a donation of £10,000 to the Manchester College of Technology, where he had received his early training.

Information from Graces Guide.

A photograph of an Albion truck owned by A. Monk & Co. Ltd, with kind permission from Barry Hanson for use on the mywarrington website.

Originally known as Albion Motor Car Company Ltd, the company was founded in 1899 by Thomas Blackwood Murray and Norman Osborne Fulton (both of whom had previously been involved in Arrol-Johnston). Murray’s father, John Lamb Murray mortgaged the Heavyside estate in Biggar, South Lanarkshire, to provide the initial capital. They were joined a couple of years later by John F Henderson who provided additional capital. The factory was originally on the first floor of a building in Finnieston Street, Glasgow and had only seven employees. In 1903 the company moved to new premises in Scotstoun.

In April 1931, the Albion Motor Car Company Ltd was renamed Albion Motors Ltd with its vehicles featuring the sunrise badge. In 1951, Albion was purchased by Leyland Motors, which then became part of the British Leyland Motor Corporation in 1968.

In 1969, the company took over the neighbouring Coventry Ordnance Works on South Street, which it used for truck component manufacture. British Leyland eliminated the Albion name in 1972 with the products continuing to be built at the same factory under the Leyland brand. In 1980, vehicle production at the former Albion factory ceased, moving to the British Leyland plant at Bathgate. However, component manufacturing continued.

In 1987 the component manufacturing plant became part of Leyland DAF. Following the collapse of DAF in 1993, Leyland DAF went into receivership, and the truck components business in Scotstoun was subject to a management buyout and transferred to a newly created company called Albion Automotive. In 1998, Albion Automotive was acquired by American Axle & Manufacturing Company of Detroit. The new company manufactures axles, driveline systems, chassis systems, crankshafts and chassis components.

Information: Wikipedia.

Padgate library is located between Padgate Academy and the local shopping area on Insall Road. It opened on 8 June 1982 and is now managed by Livewire Warrington on behalf of Warrington Borough Council. It is currently one of 13 libraries in the town as a whole.

My photo of Padgate Library was taken on 8 June 2001, exactly 19 years after it opened.

Padgate Tennis and Bowling Club was founded on 22 March 1900. It has six shale outdoor tennis courts, originally installed in 1938, and is located on Green Lane.

See their website for information on membership and coaching,

Padgate Brook, a tributary of the Mersey, runs to the western edge of Padgate, and is in turn fed by numerous smaller waterways (Spittle Brook, Blackbrook, Spa Brook, Cinnamon Brook, Cross Brook and Cockshot Burn).

It originates in Peel Hall Meadows and other outlying rural stretches of land to the north. To the east, Birchwood Brook also feeds the Mersey.

The photo, right, shows Padgate Brook between Hilden Road in Padgate and Capesthorne Road in Orford.