Newcastle-under-Lyme in 1868

[Description(s) from The National Gazetteer (1868)]

"NEWCASTLE-UNDER-LYME, a parish, market town, municipal and parliamentary borough, in the hundred of Pirehill, county Stafford, 15 miles N. by W. of Stafford, 40 from Manchester, and 150 miles by road from London, or 147 by the North Staffordshire railway, on which it is a station. It is a very ancient town, having been a place of some note before the Norman conquest, but known by another name. Its present appellation of Newcastle was derived from a castle built here by Ranulph Earl of Chester, in place of the old castle at Chesterton. The suffix of under-Lyme is supposed to have been taken from a forest close by, so called from being on the "limes," or borders of Cheshire."  (There is more of this description).

 

[Description(s) from The National Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland (1868) - Transcribed by Colin Hinson ©2003]