The route of a new heritage trail about Congleton's famous suffragist has been unveiled.

Susan Munro, of Elizabeth's Group, announced the Elizabeth Elmy Heritage Trail on the group's latest lockdown video posted on social media.

Mrs Munro said the trail was the work of the group's "wonderful" trustee Heather Watson who had spent two years on bringing the project to fruition.

Mrs Munro said small plaques commemorating Elizabeth Wolstenhome Elmy would soon be erected on four key buildings throughout the town and a route between them would make an informative history tour.

Each plaque will have a little snippet of information about Elizabeth and a picture of her face.

Mrs Watson said the trail would start at Congleton Information Centre in the town hall, where people can pick up a leaflet. They will then be directed towards the town centre and left along Moody Street to Moody Hall.

Mrs Watson said: "The first place on the route of major interest where we are hoping to put a plaque (when we are able to go out and do that) is Moody Hall, which was where Elizabeth moved her girls' school to from Worsley in 1867.

"She was the headmistress and she lived in Moody Hall. It is a shame that Moody Hall is looking quite sad. It is a pity that the town is possibly going to lose that building. It would have been ideal to have kept that as some sort of heritage centre.

"It's to be hoped that maybe there's somebody out there who'll step in and put some pressure on or some money forward to try and help save that site as a site in remembrance of Elizabeth."

Mrs Munro said: "I think it's so sad. It is a beautiful building; it would be perfect for our museum. If we had our museum there, we would have a whole section on Elizabeth and her work would be there permanently and our statue, of course, would look beautiful in front of the building."

Mrs Watson replied: "And the museum desperately needs a larger home and it would be a perfect position. It would really impress people if Congleton had that sort of facility right in the centre of town."

The trail will then take people off to a mill on Booth Street, next to the cricket ground, which is currently being renovated. It was owned by Elizabeth's husband, Ben Elmy, who owned several mills in the town.

The trail then heads to Mill Street, where the couple were very much involved with what was the centre of the Co-operative movement.

Mrs Watson added: "In Mill Street, the Co-op had all its buildings, with shops and stores on both sides of the road. Above Ableworld mobility store, that building had a higher floor that unfortunately suffered a fire.

"In the top floor of there, the Co-op provided a lecture room and a library for the people of Congleton to use.

"The movement was very much about educating people who maybe hadn't got the money or the facilities to pay for anything else. It provided free lectures and educational books for them to use. It used to stay open until about 9.30pm for people to use the library.

"In that lecture room, Ben and Elizabeth both gave talks. The Co-operative educational movement agreed very much with their principles.

"One of main talks that Elizabeth gave there was on Alfred Lord Tennyson, the poet, and apparently packed the house out with a long talk!

"There will be a plaque there as it was quite major in their lives."

Mrs Munro, who welcomed the support of the Co-operative, replied: "The Elmys were very philanthropic. They were very concerned about their mill workers, particularly their women."

Mrs Watson continued: "Ben was one of the people that paid wages directly to his women workers, which I shouldn't have thought endeared him much to other mill owners!"

The trail will then carry on to Mr Elmy's Salford Mill, now Jantex. This is where the Elmys invited Charles Bradshaw and Amie Bessant, leaders of the British Atheist Society, to give a lecture.

Mrs Watson said the duo were not popular with people of the establishment. "When they tried to book lectures in the town hall, the town hall was not too pleased to have these sorts of talks going on there.

"But Salford Mill offered them space to give the lectures. Obviously, churchgoers in the town were not pleased about the talks either and led protests.

"There were talks on two nights at Salford Mill and on both nights, there were protestors outside, shouting heckling and throwing stones etc.

"On the first night, Annie Bessant got hit by a stone and on the second night Elizabeth got hit with a stone that cut her on the head. These hecklers followed them all the way back through Congleton Park to their home at Buglawton. It was quite riotous."

Mrs Munro said: "I love that story. I can just see a little five-foot-high Elizabeth standing against this crowd. There was nothing to stop her. Nothing at all!"

The next checkpoint on the trail takes residents through Congleton Park and into the Buglawton area of the story. Mr Elmy had two mills in Buglawton, which were Eaton Mill and Albion Mill.

Mrs Watson said: "Eaton Mill doesn't exist anymore. It is now the car park for Siemens, next to the footbridge that people will know between Havannah Street and River Dane Road across the Dane.

"It stood right on the banks of the Dane and had a waterwheel. If you look on the old maps you can actually see the runoff from the Dane of the channel that was created to run water through to the waterwheel."

Mrs Watson stated that Albion Mill is a little further down Havannah Street and used to be Naturecraft.

Mrs Watson said: "The buildings at the back were probably part of the mill complex. The car park used to have a nice house with a vinery and a greenhouse. It had room for talks and Ben used to let various groups and societies hold talks there. One of the groups was the Primrose League, which was attached to the Conservative Party, which was one of the earliest political groups to give women their own affiliated group."

Mrs Munro responded: "That's one of things that I love about Elizabeth, she tried to keep politics out of it. She worked with whoever was willing to stand up to the mark about equality and women's rights."

The trail then makes it way up to Buxton Road, past the Church House to The Lowe, a gabled house facing the end of Havannah Street.

Mrs Watson said: "People will know it as where someone used to run a milk round. It was a large building which is now three separate houses but used to be one Ben, when he first came to Congleton, rented it.

"He moved out, he moved back in, and at some point, Elizabeth lived there with him as she uses the address in her letters."

The trail then heads further down Buxton Road back towards the town via the couple's home, opposite Tommy's Lane.

Mrs Watson said: "It was one house but is now two semis. It used to have a central front door which can still be made out. They lived there with their son, Frank. It was the house they were still living in when Ben passed away and Frank and Elizabeth continued to live there.

"In 1918, Elizabeth fell downstairs and had to be moved to a nursing home in Manchester, dying in the March."

Just a few steps further along the street, past the former Throstle's Nest pub used to be a post office.

Mrs Watson said: "Elizabeth must've gone their thousands of times, judging by the thousands of campaign letters she sent!"

Back into town, the trail goes to the main street, where Mr Elmy tried to start up a newspaper to try and have a "freer press then the conventional newspaper which would've been very much conservative with a small c, "according to Mrs Watson.

She added: "He wanted to get views across that were a bit more radical. They had an officein Black Boy Yard which was somewhere on High Street and then it moved to a room at the back of the Borough Arms, the pub at the bottom of Moody Street that was knocked down to widen the street.

"They were trying to create an outlet for people to speak out about things that didn't get into the conventional press."

Once lockdown is lifted, the plaques are put into position and the leaflets are printed, the heritage trail is expected to take people at least two and a half hours to complete, but it can be split into two sections, the town area and the Buglawton area.

According to Mrs Watson residents can split the walk into two loops at the point when going through Congleton Park instead of going towards River Dane Road and Buglawton residents can cut across the playing fields and across the bridge at the river, which will bring people out to St Stephens Church.

Both Mrs Watson and Mrs Munro thanked Congleton Library and Congleton Museum for the volume of material available in their archives/displays to research Elizabeth.

A booklet about Elizabeth's life is one sale from the group for £3. You can order through Elizabeth's Group Facebook page. For more information about her, visit this website.