The Bache
It is difficult to separate the Bache from Upton as both
are bound up together in their history and their interests. With Upton to
the North and East, Newton and Hoole on the East and South East, the Parkgate
Road to the West, and the city boundaries on the South, it is the doorway from
Upton to Chester.
The name has aroused a great deal of interest and there are several possible meanings of the work:-
1.
The Bache is
mentioned In the Charter of Randle II 1095 as Bachia.
2.
In Saxton's Map of
Cheshire 1577 it is referred to as The Baits; and in a map dated 1605 as
both the Baits and the Baites.
Other names
include the following:-
3.
From a Dutch word
"bac", a cup or vessel, referring to the fact that the Bache lies in
low ground.
4.
Baich – a strip of land.
5.
Batch - a sandbank or patch of ground near a river.
This is a likely origin of the name as the Newton Brook ran into the Dee just
under
the Bache in a sort of bay, and a large portion of the Bache land was once the
actual river beach.
6.
Bach - (Teuton) a brook.
7.
Bache - Saxon denomination of a valley.
8.
Other meanings
given are - a beach, strand or ford.
9.
Lastly from the
Welsh word Bach - -little hook. These hooks were fixed in the sandstone
of the small ravine passing through what is now the Bache Hall estate. To
these, packmen from Parkgate tethered their loaded mules while they went to the
Northgate to get permission to enter the City of Chester. The Bache was on the
city boundary line and mules were not allowed in the city without permission,
as previously criminals had been smuggled out in sacks or on mules. This
explanation, while interesting, does not seem so probable when we remember that
the Bache was referred to in the charter of Hugh Lupus, long before the above
could have occurred.
We hear first of the Bache in connection with the flint flakes and cores found in the Bache Pool. This pool is frequently mentioned in old Charters in the defining of the city boundaries. It is referred to in the Black Prince's Charter to Chester 1355; and again in the Vestry Orders of St. Oswald's, Chester. In the Vestry Orders we find the Bache Pool mentioned several times "in the preambulatlon to the boundaries" of St. Oswald's in 1656.
Another reference includes a description of the
estate:-
"The manor of Bach lyeth without the Citty
Libertyes 'and is in the Hundred of Broxton, it is but one maner house where
the owner or his tenent is a perpetual constable for that place”.
"Chantrells was possessors of it for many
descents. William Chantrell sould it to
Edward Whitby, recorder of Chester. But the Pool is the boundery of the Liberty
of the Citty of Chester upon which is a water milne; and all along the banks of
the said pool from Ston bridg to the said pool and so along the side of
the rivolet to Flokersbrook." From
a note by R. Holrne III.
The Bache Pool took the place of the village
green, and was the meeting place of old for the villagers of Upton and the
Bache. On May 9th 1751there was held at the "Bach Pool" a meeting to
settle the accounts of the Overseer of the highways. All the business of the
village was conducted there for many years. It was a centre of social life too,
and skating was carried on there whenever possible until the pool was filled in
about 1883. One old lady, a former inhabitant, still remembers skating on the
pool as a child. (16)
The Bache Mill no longer exists.
In 1095 there was a mill at Bachia or the Beche
and this became the property of the Abbey of St. Werburgh in the twelfth
century, together with the Pool and fishery. After the Reformation it became,
the property of the Dean and Chapter of the Cathedral. Shortly before 1816 the
Dean and Chapter sold the mill to Mr. Brodhurst of Bache Hall. In 1825 this
mill, adjoining the Bache Pool, was tenanted by Mr. Dodd, a skinner.