Sound is a hamlet (at ) and civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. The hamlet is located to the south west of Nantwich. The civil parish covers and also includes the small settlements of Newtown and Sound Heath, with a total population at the 2011 Census of 239. Nearby villages include Aston, Ravensmoor and Wrenbury.
The name is of Saxon origin and means "a sandy place". The first record of the township is in 1310. It was raided by Royalist forces in 1643, during the Civil War. The Methodist chapel was built in 1838, and a primary school on the boundary with Broomhall opened in 1876. Other historic buildings include a rare example of a malt kiln.
The River Weaver runs along the southern boundary and the Welsh Marches railway line crosses the parish. The area is mainly agricultural, with dairy farming predominating. The flat terrain has an average elevation of around 60 metres. There is a small Site of Special Scientific Interest and Local Nature Reserve named Sound Heath, which forms an important habitat for freshwater invertebrates and breeding birds. Nationally scarce species observed here include the mud snail, great raft spider, a species of water scavenger beetle and the beautiful snout moth.
History
Sound, or Soond, is a name of Saxon origin which means a sandy place. Sound is not mentioned in the Domesday survey. In 1200–1300, there is evidence for a hamlet named Fouleshurst, which is thought to have been located near Fouleshurst (now Fullhurst) Hall on Sound Lane, in the north of the modern civil parish. However, no traces have yet been uncovered of this settlement. Records exist of the township of Sound itself from 1310. The area of the modern civil parish was divided between two administrative units in the Nantwich Hundred: part fell within Wrenbury chapelry, which was served by St Margaret's Church, Wrenbury, and part within the ancient parish of Acton, which was served by St Mary's Church, Acton. The earliest landowners were the Sound family, but the manor had passed to the Chetwode family by the reign of Edward IV (1461–1483) and by 1800, it was owned by the Cholmondeleys.
In April 1643, during the Civil War, Sound was one of several townships raided by Royalist forces. The diarist Edward Burghall wrote:
In 1831 there was a hopyard north of Sound Hall, which had a malt kiln. Two beerhouse keepers were recorded in Sound in 1850, and one of the cottages adjacent to Sound Hall is believed to have been an alehouse.
The Crewe and Shrewsbury Railway was approved in 1853. Construction employed engineers Joseph Locke and John Edward Errington and contractor Thomas Brassey, and the line opened on 1 September 1858. It passed through Sound with no station.
Broomhall Church, a Methodist chapel, was built in Newtown in 1838 by Joseph Cartlidge. A Primitive Methodist Chapel was constructed in 1875 at Sound Heath, and a Sunday School was added in the late 1930s. This chapel closed in 1973, when the congregation united with that of Broomhall Church, which was renamed Broomhall and Sound Church. Sound School (on the boundary with Broomhall) opened in 1876, with 58 pupils in its first year. During the Second World War, the school served as an emergency rest centre for evacuees. It was expanded with mobile classrooms in the late 20th century.
Governance
Sound is administered by Sound and District Parish Council, jointly with the nearby civil parishes of Austerson, Baddiley, Baddington, Broomhall and Coole Pilate. Sound is represented by 4 councillors out of a total of 15. From 1974 the civil parish was served by Crewe and Nantwich Borough Council, which was succeeded on 1 April 2009 by the unitary authority of Cheshire East. Sound falls in the parliamentary constituency of Eddisbury, which has been represented by Edward Timpson since 2019, after being represented by Stephen O'Brien (1999–2015) and Antoinette Sandbach (2015–19).
Geography, economy and transport
The civil parish has a total area of . The underlying geology is Keuper marl, with glacial sand deposit providing light sandy soil at Sound Heath. The River Weaver and Edleston Brook form parts of the southern and northern boundaries of the parish, respectively. Several unnamed brooks also run through the parish, and many small meres and ponds are scattered across its farmland and woodland. The majority of the terrain is relatively flat, with an average elevation of around 60 metres; near the northern parish boundary and adjacent to the Weaver in the southwest the land is more undulating in character. There are several areas of woodland within the parish, including Sound Heath and Asphodel.