Brereton, Cheshire
civil parish in Cheshire, England
Brereton is a civil parish in the Cheshire East district, in the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. At the 2011 census, the population was 1,190. Brereton is mentioned in the Domesday book as the Manor of Bretune.
The civil parish includes the hamlets of Brereton Green, Brereton Heath, Smethwick Green, Medhurst Green, Sandlow Green and Davenport.
Brereton Hall, a Grade I listed, Elizabethan house that is in private ownership and not open to the public, was the family seat of the Lords Brereton, but the Lordship ended in 1722 when the fifth Baron Brereton died a bachelor. The adjoining Church of St Oswald is a Grade II* listed building described as "an unusually complete late Perpendicular church". The Bear's Head (formerly the Boar's Head) is a notable half-timbered public house, dated 1615 and also listed at Grade II*.
History
The civil parish was created in 1936 by uniting the civil parishes of Brereton cum Smethwick and Davenport. Brereton cum Smethwick was an Ancient Parish in Northwich Hundred. Davenport began as a township in Astbury Ancient Parish (which has had no separate civic identity since 1866.) Davenport was created a separate civil parish in 1866 which existed until the merger in 1936.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Brereton, Cheshire” as civil parish in Cheshire, England. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as civil parish in Cheshire, England. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 12, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q2063207. Authority coordinates are 53.174, -2.335. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2011, 1722, 1615 and 1936.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Brereton, Cheshire”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Brereton, Cheshire primary sources, Brereton, Cheshire archive and Brereton research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Brereton, Cheshire” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.