Crewe Town Council launches new Heritage Plaque Scheme

Crewe Town Council has introduced a Heritage Plaque Scheme for Crewe which aims to celebrate important people, places and events from Crewe’s past.

There will be three types of plaque – blue, grey and red:

Blue Plaques

To qualify for a plaque, recipients must:

• have died at least 20 years ago
• have a significant link to Crewe’s past
• be associated with a building that still stands and would have been recognisable to the recipient.

Grey Plaques

Grey Plaques are similar to Blue Plaques but are used when a building no longer exists or has been altered so that the recipient would no longer recognise it.

Red Plaques

Red Plaques are part of the Red Wheel Scheme which was created by the National Transport Trust to recognise and commemorate the most significant sites of historical importance to transport heritage in the UK. There are over 120 plaques in the UK.

The first red plaque will be unveiled at Crewe Heritage Centre on Monday 4^th July 2022 at midday. The date coincides with the 185^th anniversary of the first train passing through Crewe in 1837. The plaque celebrates the Crewe Works Narrow Gauge Railway, which was a small tramway system which ran inside the engineering works. Between 1862 and 1932 it moved materials between the different parts of the site. The section connecting Spider Bridge to the Station was built in 1878.

The first blue plaque will be unveiled at Mirion House, 57 Earle Street on Saturday 9^th July at 1pm  to celebrate the first Mayor of Crewe – Dr James Atkinson. The son of a blacksmith from Hazel Grove, Dr Atkinson was born in 1837, trained as a doctor and came to Crewe in 1863 as the assistant to the LNWR’s resident surgeon, Edwin Edwards. After Edwards’ death in 1865, Atkinson became the LNWR head surgeon. He was involved in many sporting committees and was also president of the Crewe Orchestral Society.

Mirion House was built for Dr Atkinson upon his marriage to Miriam Hill and was paid for by her father – John Hill – who was the financer of the Market Hall.

The heritage plaque scheme is funded by Crewe Town Council. The next blue plaque will commemorate Ada Nield Chew and conversations are currently taking place to secure a suitable location for the plaque.

Crewe’s heritage is very much on the agenda at Crewe Town Council, with exciting heritage developments coming up over the next few months, including Heritage Open Days and the launch of a new Heritage Forum in Crewe!