Daresbury
Encyclopedia
Daresbury is a small rural village
Village
A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet with the population ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand , Though often located in rural areas, the term urban village is also applied to certain urban neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New...

, civil parish and ward in the unitary authority of Halton
Halton (borough)
Halton is a local government district in North West England, with borough status and administered by a unitary authority. It was created in 1974 as a district of Cheshire, and became a unitary authority area on 1 April 1998. It consists of the towns of Widnes and Runcorn and the civil parishes of...

 and part of the ceremonial county of Cheshire
Cheshire
Cheshire is a ceremonial county in North West England. Cheshire's county town is the city of Chester, although its largest town is Warrington. Other major towns include Widnes, Congleton, Crewe, Ellesmere Port, Runcorn, Macclesfield, Winsford, Northwich, and Wilmslow...

, England. It is covered by the Weaver Vale
Weaver Vale (UK Parliament constituency)
Weaver Vale is a county constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament by the first past the post system of election.- Boundaries :...

 constituency. At the 2001 Census
United Kingdom Census 2001
A nationwide census, known as Census 2001, was conducted in the United Kingdom on Sunday, 29 April 2001. This was the 20th UK Census and recorded a resident population of 58,789,194....

, the population of the parish was 216,
with a total ward population of 3,906.

The most notable attributes of Daresbury are that it was the birthplace (some 1.5 miles south of the village) of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is an 1865 novel written by English author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll. It tells of a girl named Alice who falls down a rabbit hole into a fantasy world populated by peculiar, anthropomorphic creatures...

author Lewis Carroll
Lewis Carroll
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by the pseudonym Lewis Carroll , was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, as well as the poems "The Hunting of the...

 (real name Charles Dodgson), and that the Science and Technology Facilities Council
Science and Technology Facilities Council
The Science and Technology Facilities Council is a UK government body that carries out civil research in science and engineering, and funds UK research in areas including particle physics, nuclear physics, space science and astronomy .-History:It was formed in April 2007 as a merger of the Particle...

 Daresbury Laboratory
Daresbury Laboratory
Daresbury Laboratory is a scientific research laboratory near Daresbury in Cheshire, England, which began operations in 1962 and was officially opened on 16 June 1967 as the Daresbury Nuclear Physics Laboratory by the then Prime Minister of United Kingdom, Harold Wilson...

 had a synchrotron
Synchrotron
A synchrotron is a particular type of cyclic particle accelerator in which the magnetic field and the electric field are carefully synchronised with the travelling particle beam. The proton synchrotron was originally conceived by Sir Marcus Oliphant...

 research facility called the Synchrotron Radiation Source
Synchrotron Radiation Source
The Synchrotron Radiation Source at the Daresbury Laboratory in Cheshire, England was the first second-generation synchrotron radiation source to produce X-rays...

, closed in August 2008.

Controversy arose in the late 1990s when Diamond
Diamond Light Source
Diamond Light Source is the UK's national synchrotron science facility in Oxfordshire, United Kingdom. Its purpose is to produce intense beams of light whose special characteristics are useful in many areas of scientific research...

, a new synchrotron light
Synchrotron light
A synchrotron light source is a source of electromagnetic radiation produced by a synchrotron, which is artificially produced for scientific and technical purposes by specialized particle accelerators, typically accelerating electrons...

 source planned to be built at the Laboratory, went instead to the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
The Rutherford Appleton Laboratory is one of the national scientific research laboratories in the UK operated by the Science and Technology Facilities Council . It is located on the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus at Chilton near Didcot in Oxfordshire, United Kingdom...

, near Didcot
Didcot
Didcot is a town and civil parish in Oxfordshire about south of Oxford. Until 1974 it was in Berkshire, but was transferred to Oxfordshire in that year, and from Wallingford Rural District to the district of South Oxfordshire...

 in Oxfordshire
Oxfordshire
Oxfordshire is a county in the South East region of England, bordering on Warwickshire and Northamptonshire , Buckinghamshire , Berkshire , Wiltshire and Gloucestershire ....

.

Daresbury has become a place of pilgrimage because of the Lewis Carroll association. The parish church has a Lewis Carroll window.

In 2006, the annual Creamfields
Creamfields
Creamfelds is a large dance music festival featuring DJs and live acts. It is held annually on the August Bank Holiday weekend in Daresbury, Cheshire, England, just outside of Liverpool where it had previously been held for a number of years. It is renowned for being headlined every year by the...

 dance festival was held in Daresbury after relocating from the disused Liverpool airport site it had occupied for the 6 previous years. This saw 40,000 revellers partying from 3pm-6am to a line-up that included live performances from The Prodigy
The Prodigy
The Prodigy are an English electronic dance music group formed by Liam Howlett in 1990 in Braintree, Essex. Along with Fatboy Slim, The Chemical Brothers, and other acts, The Prodigy have been credited as pioneers of the big beat genre, which achieved mainstream popularity in the 1990s and 2000s...

 and Zutons, as well as DJ sets from the likes of Sasha
Sasha (DJ)
Sasha is a Welsh DJ and record producer. Sasha began his career playing acid house dance music in the late 1980s...

, Paul Oakenfold
Paul Oakenfold
Paul Mark Oakenfold is a British record producer and a trance DJ.-Early Career: 1979–84:Paul Oakenfold's career was set to be a chef, after having hopes of becoming part of a band. He describes his early life as a "bedroom deejay" in a podcasted interview with Vancouver's 24 Hours, stating he grew...

, 2 Many DJ's, Green Velvet and DJ Shadow
DJ Shadow
Joshua Paul Davis better known as DJ Shadow is an American music producer, DJ and songwriter. He is considered a prominent figure in the development of instrumental hip hop and first gained notice with the release of his highly acclaimed debut album Endtroducing....., which was constructed...

. The festival was repeated in 2007 and 2008, and it is anticipated that it will be an annual occurrence in the village.

Daresbury is also an electoral ward. However, the boundary of the ward is different from (and larger than) the parish boundary, and includes the parishes of Moore
Moore, Cheshire
Moore is a village and civil parish in the Borough of Halton, Cheshire, England. It has a population of 807.The name 'Moore' comes from the Old English word mor, meaning 'moor, or fen'...

, Halton
Halton, Cheshire
Halton, formerly a separate village, is now part of the town of Runcorn, Cheshire, England. The name Halton has been assumed by the Borough of Halton, which includes Runcorn, Widnes and some outlying parishes.-Geography:...

 and Preston Brook
Preston Brook
Preston Brook is a civil parish in the borough of Halton, a unitary authority in the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. It is located to the south-east of Runcorn and is adjacent to the M56 motorway. It contains the villages of Preston Brook and Preston on the Hill.In the 2001 Census, the...

.

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