Three residents who have their roots in the market town tell Janet Reeder why they are proud to call it home.
Lynn Riley
Frodsham Christmas Tree Farm
'Once you’ve been here a while it’s the place where everyone knows your name and everyone is connected'
I’ve been in Frodsham for 35 years. I was born and raised in Sheffield and went to university, met the man I am now married to in some dodgy nightclub somewhere in Manchester and the rest is history.
We lived in Singapore for a while, had our children out there, set up a business and then came home because there’s no place like it.
Frodsham is lots of things: strategically brilliantly located so it looks and feels like an old historic market town, but it is so well connected. However, the thing that anchors most people is it has this huge heart of community. Once you’ve been here a while it’s the place where everyone knows your name, and everyone is connected. It’s the most vibrant key service centre in Cheshire West – ie, it’s where people come for their shopping, to send kids to school, come to the doctors, dentist, that sort of thing.
We serve a very big rural hinterland, plus we have the most heart-stoppingly beautiful countryside. The geology is super significant. We used to be underwater in prehistoric times so our geology is unique. We have the sandstone hills and the British Geological Survey is camped on Ince Marshes, which is a hop skip and a jump away from us, looking at the geology below our feet. There’s a big international research facility being set up so people can explore exciting new energy opportunities. We are very close to the geothermal crust and it's this type of research that’s going to inform carbon capture and how we better store energy.
We’ve got Daresbury not a million miles away – we can take the train one stop, walk down the canal and we are in the biggest research facility for quantum computing outside of Santa Clara in the US. It’s exciting times, particularly for young people.
We bought the farm my husband was born on and we have quite a steep and unusual field, which wasn’t any use for anything, and we were very keen to look at how we could diversify the land and do good, commercial things, which were as ecologically favourable as possible. So we planted Christmas trees, which have added massively to the biodiversity of our farm. We took a decision very early on when we saw how many hundreds and thousands of ladybirds use Christmas trees to grow their larva that we couldn’t spray them. So, they are super organic. We don’t cut them down and sell them. People come along to the field choose their tree and then we cut it down and you can take it home.
Locals have really embraced supporting local businesses and we’ve got quite a loyal following. There are those who have driven past these trees and watched them grow. We’ve now got quite a few amazing traditions with people coming and selecting their tree in the October school holidays and putting baubles and decorations on it then coming back with their kids to cut it down.
We deliver our first Christmas trees in the early part of November. We a bit of a cottage industry; we are local and we always donate to the church and the schools and there are always a few that find their way to people who need a tree. And locals will pitch in and lend a hand because that’s the kind of people we are.
We’ve also got some very famous sons and daughters in Frodsham. There’s Eddie Bishop, comedian John Bishop’s brother who is an artist, we’ve got Tim Firth who wrote Calendar Girls and Gary Barlow whose mum still lives round the corner, so we’ve got a lot of historical artistic talent and we have our wonderful Weaver Words Literature Festival, which is our biennial celebration of everything arty and wordy.
facebook.com/frodshamchristmastrees
Ian Lancaster
Chair, Frodsham Players
'I really like the layout of the high street – that bustling market on a Thursday for instance'
It was 1994/5 when I moved into Frodsham and it ticked all the boxes for me. It had good transport links – I know a lot of people complain about the transport connections, but a lot of my business travel was up and down the M6 corridor and we are only 10 minutes away from there.
I now work for a company called Eurobitume, which represents bitumen manufacturers all over Europe and I can get to Manchester Airport within half an hour, which is great. Five minutes away and you’re into Delamere Forest and relatively close to Chester; you’ve got a pretty easy commute into Liverpool and Manchester is only 45 minutes by train.
I really like the layout of the high street – that bustling market on a Thursday for instance, and some of the things they do in the community centre – the big bonfire and the Christmas Festival Parade.
How did I get involved in Frodsham Players? Well, the story behind it is I had a drunken conversation with a friend of mine in one of Frodsham’s excellent pubs. We both had kids who went to Frodsham C of E primary school and then Helsby High and were on the PTA together there. I had a conversation with this guy, and he said, 'you should go back and do acting' because I had done some 20 years earlier.
I came home and went onto Google and tried to find amateur theatre groups in Cheshire and I landed up on the Frodsham Players' website. And by a really curious twist of fate, the chair at that time was a lady I had last worked with in a drama group in St Helens. It kind of felt right and so I joined, and I never looked back really. I took over as chair in 2016.
We are into our 80th year now. We were started in 1942 by a chap called John Herbert Bu’lock. He had been involved with another amateur theatre group in Widnes but as far as we know he was living in Frodsham and started up the group. In the beginning, they just read plays through but then decided to put plays on.
The first show included three short plays, performed on October 23, 1942, all of which have faded into obscurity. They were called Chin Chin! But my Dear and The Ghost in the Garden.
Frodsham Players were also started as a charitable foundation, so all the profits went to help soldiers fighting in World War Two and that continued so we are still a registered charity. We have out on productions all over the place: Frodsham Primary School, Frodsham High School, the parish hall and latterly at the community centre. We’ve performed at St Lawrence Church and inside and outside Castle Park Arts Centre.
This month we are doing Calendar Girls (written by Frodsham’s Tim Firth) but sadly, with my change in job, I won’t be in it. I’m away for the first two nights of the production which is a real shame as it is only the second show I have missed since I started in 2015 when my first show was Macbeth.
frodshamplayers.com
Kim Horton
Manager, Castle Park Arts Centre (art galleries and workshops, plus craft units and a cafe, set in Victorian stables in parkland)
'The arts centre is a little hive of activity and something other places haven’t got. I think it makes us special'
I lived in Frodsham for 25 years before I separated from my husband. I left, then I came back and have now been here for about 21 years.
It’s changed and has grown a lot. There are a lot of new people who have moved in. It seems the demographic is a lot older in Frodsham than in any other area close by. If you get a house around the centre of the village everything’s on one level: you’ve got the library, you’ve got the doctors and all the shops within walking distance and I think that’s a big appeal. It’s either that or the 14 pubs.
If you go out around Frodsham the pubs are all different and they all have their regulars. I have a new neighbour who came and introduced himself and he’s got into the open mic at Paddy’s and Kash 22 already and he’s only been here about a month and a half. If you want something upmarket, live music or craft beers it’s all here. Frodsham is catering for a lot of different people in a very small space.
I’ve worked at Castle Park Arts Centre for more than 13 years now. I’m the centre manager but in reality, I’m the dogsbody and do everything. We are a self-funding charity and I’m multi-versed in what I do – everything from the accounts to sorting out exhibitions. But that’s what I like about the job – every day is different.
You get to meet all kinds of people and the job includes helping people. It’s a lovely place to work. We only live at the top of the road and I remember when I first got the job and we shut for an hour and a half at lunchtime because it was run by volunteers who did morning coffee and afternoon tea, saying to the children, 'oh I’ll be home for lunch. I can put the chicken in the oven and then when I come home at night it will be cooked.'
But I’ve never once gone home at lunchtime. I find for a little place it’s extraordinarily busy. Pre-Covid I used to count all visitors coming in and we had 80,000 through the door for the whole year, which is a lot considering many people still don’t know it exists. The people who come to the arts centre call it a little treasure, or Frodsham’s little gem.
We have music Tuesday to Saturday at 11am for the general public to come and listen to and have a coffee and it really helped people during Covid. We have a little courtyard and we put up gazebos. Some visitors have said it was a lifesaver, helping them to get out of the house; they’ve come and made friends.
The arts centre is a little hive of activity and something other places haven’t got. I think it makes us special. There are two caretakers, three trustees and myself. We are a small group but we work efficiently and keep rolling on. One thing that would be nice is to get a little bit of help with funding as it’s a constant battle trying to find ways to make ends meet.
castleparkarts.co.uk
