vegetables, and small silk and heavy cotton works. The town had one bank and one newspaper. By 1911 the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition mentions the existence of chemical works and the manufacture of condensed milk. In common with the rest of the United Kingdom, Middlewich's young male population was decimated during the First World War. The cenotaph, near to the parish church, lists the names of the 136 men who died in that conflict, representing around 10% of the male population of the town aged between 15 and 45. Forty-two of Middlewich's inhabitants lost their lives in the Second World War, with a further fatality in the Korean War. The Brunner Mond salt works in Brooks Lane also erected a cenotaph in memory of the 16 men from the works killed in the First World War, and the two who died during the Second World War. In the period between the end of the First World War until shortly after the Second World War, there was extensive housebuilding in the town; a significant number of houses were built in the King Street area to the north, the area bounded between Nantwich Road and St. Anne's Road to the west, and especially in Cledford to the south. The 1970s commenced with the building of a new road, St. Michael's Way, which allowed traffic moving from east to west through the town to bypass the main shopping street, Wheelock Street. Along with the bypass there was significant remodelling of the town centre, with the old town hall and library being demolished. This bypass successfully eased the flow of traffic away from the main shopping street, but the joining of three major roads remains a bottleneck, which will be eased by a proposed eastern bypass. Since the early 1980s Middlewich has seen a significant quantity of new housing development, initially in the Sutton Lane and Hayhurst Avenue areas. New developments have recently been built on the sites of old salt workings to the south of the Roman Fort at Harbutt's Field, near the Norman Baron's moated manor house at Kinderton Manor, and on the site of the old railway station. One of the latest developments is on the old silk works next to the Big Lock public house. In common with other local towns such as Holmes Chapel, Northwich and Winsford, people are attracted to Middlewich because of its good road links via