Havannah – The Deserted Village

Before the river Dane wends its way into the town of Congleton it passes through a hidden village in the Dane valley, with no sign posts marking its location one can easily pass by not realising its existence.

In the past the village contained three mills which produced knitted ties and fustian which were the life-blood of the village, however a disastrous flood occurred in 1872 which resulted in the village becoming known as the Deserted village, however the village did come back to life and returned to industrial life until the 1950s.

The weir at Havannah

Cigars were also produced here by H. Andana & Co Ltd and the spelling of the village name had to be changed as the name Havana must have had a copyright attached to it.

An interesting story attached to Havannah is that a ghostly figure of a woman dressed in grey clothing and wearing a pictorial hat is said to have been seen on many occasions walking between the bridge that spans the river Dane and where a five storey mill had used to stand in the village.

The bridge in Havannah which spans the Dane

It is said that the woman was murdered in the late 1800s by her husband who threw her over the weir in a barrel. Nowadays the village has shrunk considerably, there is still some industry here but many of the houses have now gone. There is still a row of cottages which would have housed the mill workers in the past, however these days they have been converted into private dwellings.

In 1999 a young school girl called Claire Hart from Eaton, a small village about a mile from Havannah was brutally murdered by jobless loner Craig Aaron Smith, she had been shot, beaten and strangled and her body had been thrown into the river Dane. Her body was found at the weir at Havannah.

It is thought that Smith may have been making use of a cave that can be found in this area, he was charged with her murder on the 24th of June 1999, the day after her body was discovered.

The cave entrance beneath a tree