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Its most distinctive building, Orford Hall, was demolished in the 1930s, after the grounds were given to the town for a park. Community and sporting facilities are to be provided in Orford Park and on waste land between the park and Winwick Road in a £30m development for which planning consent was given in 2009. Controversy over a proposal to build a bypass road across the park has ended as the route would be lost in the new development, "The Orford Project". William Beamont, a Victorian solicitor and local philanthropist, lived at Orford Hall, which had previously been the seat of the Blackburne family. He founded Warrington's municipal library, the first rate-aided library in the UK, in 1848. His diaries are a valuable source of social history. Another notable local family were the Booths, who built Orford House in the late eighteenth century, ancestors of Charles Booth of the Liverpool shipowning family. The political ward of Orford is roughly a triangle bounded by Winwick Road, Poplars Avenue, Orford Road, Withers Avenue, O'Leary Street and Longford Street. There is one high school, William Beamont Sports College, and there are several primary schools. |
