Cottages, School Lane, Great Budworth village, Northwich, Cheshire, England, CW9 6HF

Great Budworth is a village and civil parish in Cheshire, England, four miles (6.4 km) north of Northwich off the A559 road, east of Comberbach, northwest of Higher Marston and southeast of Budworth Heath. Until 1948, Great Budworth was part of the Arley Hall estate. Great Budworth is approached from the main Warrington to Northwich road about two miles (3.2 km) from Northwich, along a ridge overlooking two meres, Budworth to the west and Pickmere to the east. It was situated in the hundred of Bucklow and deanery of Frodsham. At fifteen miles (24 km) in length and ten miles (16 km) in width, it was considered to be the second largest parish in Cheshire, after Prestbury. The parish contained nineteen townships: Budworth, Anderton, Appleton-cum-Hull, Aston-juxta-Budworth, Barnton, Barterton, or Bartington, Cogfoall, Comberbach, Dutton, Little-Leigh, Marbury, Marston, Pickmere, Stretton, Nether-Tabley, Over-Witley, Nether Witley, and Wincham. The early history of Great Budworth is documented in the Domesday Book, which mentions a priest at Great Budworth.[7] In 1130, St Mary and All Saints Church was given to the Augustinian canon of Norton Priory by William FitzNigel, Constable of Chester and Baron of Halton. The lord of the manor during the reign of Henry III was Geoffrey de Dutton. He donated to Norton Priory a third of his land to endow masses for his soul. After the dissolution of the monasteries, King Henry VIII granted the estate to John Grimsditch. It was afterwards divided into several parcels. There may have been a school in Great Budworth as early as 1563, but certainly one existed by 1578. For centuries, the village was owned by the head of Arley Hall who would collect rent from the villagers. Rowland Egerton-Warburton of Arley Hall paid for restorations and improvements to the church in the 1850s. Egerton-Warburton also undertook a "campaign to render it (the village) picturesque in Victorian eyes". To this end he commissioned architects