The London coaches that brought travellers to Chester and Parkgate frequently got into difficulties in the low-lying parts near the River Dee. The roads were very bad, and the coach often had to be hauled out of the mud by a team of horses borrowed from some neighbouring farm.
The passengers sometimes found themselves without their purses and their jewels at the end of their journey. The roads were frequented by highwaymen--'gentlemen of the road', they called themselves--who held up the coach and demanded money. With pistols levelled at their heads, the travellers were generally glad to escape with their lives.
One of the most famous of these highwaymen was Dick Turpin, whose escapades, I imagine, are known to most Cheshire boys, though I hope they have no wish to follow the career of this rascally thief.
Once it happened in Cheshire, near Dunham I popped On a horseman alone, whom I speedily stopped; That I lightened his pockets you'll readily guess-- Quick work makes Dick Turpin when mounted on Bess.
The robbery spoken of in these lines was committed on the high-road between Altrincham and Knutsford, and Turpin rode so fast to the inn at Hoo Green, where he showed his watch to some Cheshire squires, that he was never suspected of the crime. This and many other stories of Turpin are told by Harrison Ainsworth, the novelist, whose father lived at Rostherne.
Knutsford claimed a highwayman of its own, one Higgins, who lived on Knutsford Heath as an ordinary gentleman of means, and was very friendly with the sporting squires of the neighbourhood. His favourite amusement was to waylay the ladies who went to the county balls and 'assemblies' at the George Hotel, and rob them of their diamonds. But he, like most others of his profession, was found out at last, and paid with his life the penalty of his crimes.
The people of Cheshire were not all thieves and robbers in the eighteenth century. If the rich and the idle were given to folly and extravagance, and poorer men also too often lost the little they possessed through gambling and cock-fighting, the heart of the people was sound, and only waiting to be stirred to newer life and better ideals.
In the latter half of the century a great preacher came to Cheshire, and stirred deeply the hearts of men by denouncing the follies of the age, and the lack of religious feeling which had spread over all classes of society. His name was John Wesley, the founder of the Wesleyan and Methodist bodies. At first he met with much opposition, and his meetings were broken up by the mob, but in time the people were struck by his earnestness and flocked to hear him. The chapel at Chester where he preached was so crowded that it could not hold all who wished to listen to him. In his Diary he tells us of his visits to Knutsford, Stockport, and other Cheshire towns. But Wesley and his followers often found themselves unable to preach in the churches, so they built for themselves chapels, little square brick buildings, all over the county.