Short history of policing in Stockton Heath
Stockton Heath has a very long and varied history. There has been a settlement here since Anglo-Saxon times and ‘The Heath’ was made an important resting place for the marching Roman armies. It was also a camp for both armies in the civil war.
The Romans made Wilderspool Causeway, London Road and Chester Road as routes for their armies to march along. Thereafter used as the main trade routes in and out of Warrington.
Home of the Parish Stocks
In the early 1800 (1805 – 1808 ‘Ish) a house stood at the corner of London Road and Walton Road which was the home of Edward Fenna and his family who was the Parish Constable. Outside the house were the Parish Stocks (removed 1850). The house was called the “Stone Jug”. Fenna would not have had a uniform and was unpaid for the work he did, which was not a lot. He would walk the streets with a lantern at night and have a rattle for attracting attention. He did get paid expenses for duties such as relief of the poor, flogging people and putting people in the stocks, etc.
Sergeant Revis Slater
The first Sergeant in charge at Stockton Heath was Revis Slater sometimes referred to as Reeves who took up his position in 1858 shortly after the Cheshire Constabulary was formed in 1857. Sergeant Slater had been a policeman in Manchester and later an Assistant Petty Constable in the Little Leigh area prior to joining the new Cheshire force.
Located in the Bucklow Hundred
Originally Stockton Heath and surrounding area were located within the Bucklow Hundred which stretched from Altrincham to Runcorn. When the force was established the old area of the Hundred became the Bucklow Division with headquarters at Lymm where the Superintendent was based. In 1868 the Runcorn Division was established with headquarters at Runcorn where the superintendent was based. Stockton Heath then became part of the Runcorn Division with an establishment of 21 officers; the Runcorn Division remained until 1966 when Runcorn Division was again absorbed into the Altrincham Division. This arrangement continued until the 1974 Boundary Changes when Altrincham became part of Greater Manchester and Stockton Heath including the area out to Lymm became part of the Warrington Sub Division. Runcorn then was attached to the Northwich Division.
Police Officer assaulted by thief
In the Chester Chronicle dated 19th October 1861. William Millington alias Mills, 31, labourer, charged with stealing a Spade, the property of James Parker, at Appleton, also stealing a pair of trousers, a tobacco box, ounce of tobacco, and £1. Is. Id, property of Martin Codlay, at Grappenhall. He was further charged with violently assaulting, beating, and wounding Reeves Slater, police sergeant whilst in the execution his duty at Grappenhall, on the 27th of July. —Sentence Three years penal servitude.
An odd incident with an oven door
An undated publication titled “Stockton Heath and Immediate District " recalls the following as a true story about Sergeant Slater who late at night arrested a man on some charge or other, and instead of taking him down to the ‘Stone Jug ‘ took him to his own house in Toll Bar Road, and having fastened him, with handcuffs on, to the handle of the oven door, retired for the night. Next morning. however, to the consternation of the Sergeant, the prisoner, handcuffs, and oven door were missing. It is not known whether the prisoner was ever recaptured or the oven door recovered. Sergeant Slater died in service in 1865.
The first Police Station
In 1864 a single storey police station was built on the present site of the police station, there was one Sergeant and one PC for the village. The area outside the Police Station (Victoria Square) was called ‘Pigeon Bank’ and belonged to the Police Station. Every year the fairground from Warrington (Silcocks) would stop at Stockton Heath on their way to Stoke. With the permission of Sgt Thomas Morris, they set up their tents, Dobbie horses (roundabouts), Coconut Shy’s etc. It is recorded that one-year Sergeant. Morris’s son came out of the Police Station, jumped on a Dobbie Horse and broke it.
Bravery Commendation for Sergeant Gosling
Another Stockton Heath Sergeant John Gosling was in charge from 1894 to 1899 when he retired, he was the holder of a Merit Badge which was a rare reward usually for some Meritorious Act, some years earlier he had been involved in an extremely violent incident with a gang of poachers in the Middlewich area, he was commended for Bravery by the Chief Constable and given an increase in pay. He had joined the force in 1873.
The "new" police station
In 1894 an Act of Parliament set up local Parish Councils. Stockton Heath was part of the township of Appleton. Two years later Stockton Heath formed its own Parish Council and one of its first jobs was to rename ‘Pigeon Bank’ as ‘Victoria Square’ after Queen Victoria. In 1911 that Police Station was closed and demolished with the present Police Station opening the following year. The dates are to be seen on the headers of the drainpipes. The new Station incorporated a Magistrate’s Court and living quarters for the Inspector. Gas lamps, some of which can still be seen in the cells, illuminated the Police Station. The Inspector’s house that was the area now used by the writing room, gent’s toilet and kitchen and upstairs the waiting room toilets and Court two. The Inspector’s daughter who still lived in Stockton Heath recalled some years ago that her bedroom was the Court Waiting Room. After she came home from school she would have to clean and polish the Court floors for NO payment.
Outside the Police Station on the side where the Inspector’s front door is situated (now bricked up) above and to the left marks can still be seen where a bell cage would hang with a long chain down to beside the door. People could, in the case of emergency, ring the bell and attract the attention of the Constable who was on patrol in the village.
In 1974 Stockton Heath, under Local Government re-organisation joined with Warrington Police which had become part of Cheshire Constabulary. The Court remained in use until 1988 when the cells could no longer be used to house prisoners. An old, recorded motto from the old Police Station was: ‘I open the door and enter in whether we lose, or whether we win. Whether we rise, stand or Fall. We’ll do our duty, to please you all’.
Will Brown.
Museum Researcher
