About The Cheshire Magazine

The Cheshire Magazine

The Cheshire Magazine is a British luxury lifestyle magazine dedicated to Cheshire, Manchester and the surrounding areas of the North West of England. Launched in October 2013 by Runwild Media Group, the publisher of The Mayfair Magazine and Canary Wharf Magazine, it was created as the definitive luxury lifestyle title for the North West, edited at launch by Kate Houghton. Described by its publisher as the largest luxury lifestyle title for the region, the magazine is a glossy monthly covering fashion, beauty, society, art, culture, travel, entertainment, home and garden and motors. It is produced more like a coffee-table book than a conventional magazine, printed on high-quality stock with a gold-foil stamped cover, and it is delivered directly to selected affluent homes and placed in luxury hotels, salons, spas and businesses across the region. The magazine is based at Alderley Edge in Cheshire and states that it is written, designed and produced in the county it serves.

Launch by Runwild Media, 2013

The Cheshire Magazine was announced in September 2013 and launched in October of that year. Its publisher, Runwild Media Group, was already established in luxury publishing in London through The Mayfair Magazine and Canary Wharf Magazine, and the Cheshire title was a deliberate extension of that portfolio beyond the capital. Announcing the launch, publisher Giles Ellwood said the company was proud to launch the definitive luxury lifestyle title for the North West of England, explaining that having successfully established itself as a leader in luxury publishing in London, Runwild had decided the time was right to extend its portfolio to other areas of the UK, in a year that had seen the business grow with new investment in products, technology and people. The launch schedule was two issues in the fourth quarter of 2013, followed by monthly editions from 2014, the frequency the magazine has maintained as a monthly title delivered to its readers' homes.

The First Edition

The first edition of The Cheshire Magazine set out its stall with a mixture of fashion, homes and celebrity interview content. It carried features about Ralph Lauren and about Home's 30th anniversary, and an interview with Jacques Azagury, the dress designer best known for his work for Diana, Princess of Wales. That combination, an international fashion house, a regional homes business milestone and a designer associated with royalty, summarised the magazine's editorial proposition: national and international luxury subjects presented to a specifically Cheshire and North West readership. From the beginning, the title set itself apart from general county magazines by aiming squarely at the affluent consumer market of south Manchester and the Cheshire towns, an area long recognised as one of the wealthiest outside London.

Editor and Publisher

The launch editor of The Cheshire Magazine was Kate Houghton, who had previously edited Runwild Media's Live Cheshire publication, which had closed the year before. Her appointment gave the new title an editor with direct experience of the Cheshire lifestyle market and of the advertiser and reader base the magazine needed. The publisher at launch was Giles Ellwood of Runwild Media Group, who fronted the launch announcement in the North West media trade press. The Cheshire Magazine was thus not an independent start-up but a portfolio launch by an existing luxury publisher, importing a formula proven on London titles, The Mayfair Magazine for the West End's most expensive district and Canary Wharf Magazine for the Docklands financial quarter, and applying it to the North West's equivalent territory of Alderley Edge, Wilmslow, Knutsford and the Cheshire plain.

Editorial Coverage

The magazine provides editorial content covering the latest in fashion, beauty, society, art, culture, travel, entertainment, home and garden, with motors added in its current descriptions, offering what it calls a unique perspective on all things luxe and urbane. Its stated approach is to tell rather than sell, maximising reader engagement by presenting content as editorial rather than advertorial, and it emphasises British craftsmanship and county identity, describing itself as living and breathing Cheshire. Its official feature categories show the breadth of the formula: adventure, arts, business, charity, city breaks, culture, drive, education, events, family, food and drink, health and beauty, home, law, pets, property, sport, style, travel, weddings and wellbeing all appear among its strands, alongside trending features tied to places such as Chester, including coverage of Chester Races and the city's Distinguished Gentlemen's Ride.

Magazine Composition

The publisher's own breakdown of the magazine's composition lists the building blocks from which each issue is assembled. Local interest features and celebrity features anchor the book, supported by product features and dedicated coverage of luxury watches and jewellery. Health and beauty news, a food, drink and dining guide, and coverage of cars, bikes, yachts and jets serve the classic luxury categories. Fashion and style trend news, technology and gadget news and reviews, and two kinds of travel content, travel news and bespoke travel resort features, widen the mix, while family, pets and classroom news, homes and interiors, property coverage including hot property, bespoke business promotions and design project showcases and case studies connect the magazine to the domestic and commercial life of its readership. The composition is that of a complete luxury lifestyle package, designed so that a reader in Cheshire can find fashion, food, property, motoring and travel between the same covers.

Distribution: Delivered, Not Picked Up

Distribution was the launch's biggest claim. Runwild announced that the magazine would be distributed unlike any other title in the area, with hand deliveries to selected affluent homes using what it called the most sophisticated and meticulously planned distribution system ever employed by a regional magazine. The magazine's current materials repeat the philosophy: it does not rely on the audience finding it as a pick-up and drop magazine, but delivers monthly, directly to the consumer, and complements home delivery by placing copies in some of the most luxurious hotels, salons, spas and businesses in the North West. The Cheshire Magazine describes itself as the largest luxury lifestyle title for the North West of England, delivered using an Address Intelligence system to subscribers from the Wirral to Greater Manchester, plus all the villages and towns in between. For advertisers, that targeted delivery to known affluent households is the title's central commercial proposition.

Production Values

The physical production of The Cheshire Magazine is a deliberate part of its identity. The publisher describes the publication as more than a magazine: a luxury publication printed more like a coffee-table book, on the highest quality lithographic offset printing presses available in the UK. Each copy has a 350gsm cover stamped with the magazine's trademark gold foil logo, and 100gsm internal pages. Each magazine is perfection bound rather than stapled, creating a sharp square spine and pages that turn like a book's, a finish intended to keep issues on coffee tables rather than in recycling bins. The publisher also completes bespoke photo shoots from concept to execution entirely in-house, and can complement them with videography and film footage. A documented example is the Race Ready Chester fashion shoot, produced behind the scenes in collaboration with Chester Race Company and the Cheshire Oaks Designer Outlet, celebrating the Boodles May Festival at Chester Racecourse held between 8 and 10 May 2019.

Base and Readership

The Cheshire Magazine's published address is at 1 London Road, Alderley Edge, Cheshire, one of the most affluent villages in England and the heart of the territory the magazine serves; despite the title's coverage of Chester and the magazine's frequent Chester features, its base is Alderley Edge, not Chester. The publisher states that the publication is written, designed and produced in the county, and presents this local production as part of its authenticity for readers and advertising partners. Its readership, reached through print, digital, online and social channels, is the affluent population of Cheshire and Greater Manchester: the magazine exists to connect premium brands with affluent individuals through crafted content. Within the competitive field of North West lifestyle publishing, The Cheshire Magazine's position is distinctive: a London luxury publisher's regional flagship, produced locally, delivered by name and address rather than by chance, and printed to a standard intended to embody the luxury it describes.