# Hoole

Hoole is a suburb in the east of Chester, in Cheshire West and Chester, Cheshire, England. The area is contiguous with Newton to the north and Vicars Cross to the south. The A41 road marks the suburb's eastern boundary, with the separate Hoole Village approximately 1 mile (1.6 km) away.

## History

The settlement was first mentioned in the Register of the Abbey of Saint Werburgh in 1119. The name derives from the Old English word hol and is believed to mean "at the hollow" (or hole), possibly referring to the "hollow way" formed by a Roman roadway.
On 17 July 2009 sixteen flats on Hoole Lane were destroyed following an explosion on the first floor. More than thirty firefighters tackled the resulting fire at the two-storey building in Wharton Court.

## Community

Hoole is a residential area consisting of mainly Victorian terraced houses and 1930s semi-detached houses. Hoole Road is a designated conservation area. Due to the proximity of the area to Chester city centre, Chester railway station and the M53 motorway, the area is home to many hotels, guest houses and bed and breakfast establishments.
The main shopping streets are Faulkner Street and Charles Street, Hoole has a Post Office branch with cash machine facilities. Open spaces in Hoole include Alexandra Park which provides tennis courts, bowling greens and a children's play area and the Coronation Playing Fields. A large area of allotments is accessible from both Canadian Avenue and Hoole Lane.
The annual Hoole Christmas Lights switch-on by a local celebrity attracts crowds of thousands to Faulkner Street. The event celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2019.

## Governance

There is one tier of local government covering Hoole, at unitary authority level: Cheshire West and Chester Council.

### Administrative history

Hoole was historically a township. The township was mostly in the ancient parish of Plemstall in the Broxton Hundred of Cheshire. A small part of the township in its southernmost corner comprised part of the parish of St John the Baptist, Chester, but lay outside the city's municipal boundaries. From the 17th century onwards, parishes were gradually given various civil functions under the poor laws, in addition to their original ecclesiastical functions. In some cases, including Hoole, the civil functions were exercised by the township rather than the wider parishes. In 1866, the legal definition of 'parish' was changed to be the areas used for administering the poor laws, and so Hoole became a civil parish.
In 1864, a Hoole local government district was created, administered by an elected local board. The promoters of the local government district initially sought to have the whole township included in the district, but objections from ratepayers in the more rural north-eastern part of the township led to the district covering only the south-western part of the township, which was becoming more urban as the suburbs of Chester expanded. In 1893 the local board built itself a new headquarters at 2A Westminster Road.
Local government districts were reconstituted as urban districts under the Local Government Act 1894. The 1894 Act also directed that civil parishes could no longer straddle district boundaries, and so the parish of Hoole was reduced to match the urban district, and the rural part of the old parish outside the urban district was made a separate parish, which Cheshire County Council chose to name Hoole Village.
The population of the township or civil parish of Hoole was recorded at 177 in 1801, 427 in 1851, 5,341 in 1901 and rising to 9,056 by 1951. Hoole Urban District had its boundaries adjusted in 1936. The main changes were that it absorbed part of the neighbouring parish of Newton (which was abolished), and it ceded an area in the south to the city.
Hoole Urban District was abolished in 1954. The area west of the A41, containing the majority of the area and population, was absorbed into Chester. The area east of the A41 was mostly transferred to Hoole Village, except for a smaller part which was added to Guilden Sutton. Hoole has therefore been administered as part of Chester since 1954; since 2009 the local authority for the city has been Cheshire West and Chester Council.

## Places of worship

There are four churches in Hoole: Anglican (All Saints' Church), Baptist, Methodist and United Reformed. These churches work together to host Hoole's largest free annual event 'Funday on a Sunday', which attracted more than 6,000 people in July 2006. This event was held in previous years in Alexandra Park, but in 2006 moved to the nearby, larger, Coronation Playing Fields. The Funday event was held on the Coronation Playing Fields again in 2007 and 2008, by which time it had become part of the Chester-wide Chesterfest organised by churches in Chester.

## Transport

The A56 Hoole Road is the main thoroughfare through the suburb. It connects Chester city centre with the A41, the A55 the M53 motorway (at junction 12). The Millennium Greenway footpath and cycle way runs along a former railway trackbed.
Chester railway station is less than 1 mile (1.6 km) away from Hoole.

## Notable residents

RAF pilot and charity founder Leonard Cheshire was born (on 7 September 1917) at 65 Hoole Road, which is now a guest house.
Russ Abbot (born Russell Allan Roberts on 18 September 1947), is the lead singer of the Black Abbots and later become a solo comedian.
Ainsley Harriott lives in Hoole with his girlfriend and son.