Our Local Heritage
A fascinating collection of stories and articles covering the diverse local heritage of Marple and District.
Alphabetical List
Familiarity breeds contempt but it can also lead us to looking at our surroundings quite casually. How much do we really notice? One of the favourite parts of our local heritage is the Peak Forest Canal and particularly the locks. How many times have you walked up (or down) the locks? You must know every inch. Or do you?
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Brabyns Brow marks an obvious division in the Marple flight between the lower eight and upper eight locks. It is approximately halfway, not just in the number of locks but also in the distance covered. Another distinction is that this is the point at which the towpath crosses over the canal. The towpath is on the eastern side for the lower eight locks but crosses over to the western side for the upper eight.
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Standing on Bridge No 1, the first bridge on the Macclesfield Canal, with your back to the old toll house, Marple Marina is spread out before you. The open water of Top Lock with the branch beyond, lined with boats of every size and shape and colour, present a very peaceful scene but it was not always thus. Just like Black Wharf at Lock 12, in its heyday Top Lock was the centre for various activities all centred around the canal.
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So, the Albert Schools will soon be no more. Its familiar facade has been a part of this community for 150 years so perhaps we should learn a little about it before it is gone forever. It has only been a school for less than half that 150-year history but why the name “Albert” and why “Schools” (plural)?
To answer that we need to look at the way we educated our children in centuries past.
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The side of the British Home Stores building presented a bare and uninteresting blank wall to an alley called Deanery Way until, in 1978, BHS commissioned artists Joyce Ballot and Henry Collins of Colchester Art Society to design a series of five concrete mural panels to brighten this up by telling the story of the town, starting at Merseyway, and finishing at Princes Street.
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The origins of Chadkirk Chapel are lost in the Mists of Time, or, more accurately, lost in Myths and Legends. However, it is safe to say that it is probably the oldest ecclesiastical building in the borough as well as holding a Grade II* classification.
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In September 1755 William Wright leased a plot of land from George Nicholson, the owner of the Chadkirk Estate, for a period of fifty years. He wanted to build a mill for textile finishing - bleaching, dyeing and printing. At the time, although Britain had a reputation for producing raw materials such as wool and flax it was still only a cottage industry when it came to producing finished textiles. If woven cloth was to be bleached and dyed it was sent to Holland and the finest printed cottons came from India - no local producer could match them for quality. But things were beginning to change.
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There is an unusual building on Church Lane, close to the tower of the old Georgian church. To be precise it is two buildings, roughly joined together at a slight angle and presenting four pointed-arch bays to the road. Although there are architectural differences, both buildings are built of dressed stone with separate graduated split-stone roofs.
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Use your favourite search engine to investigate the whys and wherefores of Cobden Cross. The result is peppered with those who experience the cross and area in different ways.
But what is the story about this cross on top of its hill? And why did a cross appear on the Ridge in 1969?
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Pear Tree Farm in Mill Brow recently came up for sale. Grade II listed, it was originally a seventeenth century farm house, complete with mullion windows and a stone roof. This makes it distinctive though not unique, but what really makes it stand out is the adjacent barn. As with the main house, this has been given a thorough twentieth century ‘makeover’ but it is not difficult to envisage its original function as a barn. Local legend has it that John Wesley preached there on one of his visits though the authentication is not as reliable as Bongs.
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There have been a number of times when county boundaries have been adjusted.
The biggest change locally, came about in 1936 when Furness Vale, most of Whaley Bridge and part of Newtown were transferred from Cheshire to Derbyshire. At the same time Mellor and Ludworth became part of Cheshire, becoming Marple Urban District Council’s responsibility. The original county boundary following the River Goyt had caused numerous administrative anomalies and duplications of offices.
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Mellor and Ludworth were part of the Royal Forest of the Peak but Marple and Wybersley were also in a royal forest, the Forest of Macclesfield. An early development, it was established prior to 1160 and, at its height, it covered about 80 square miles from Chadkirk in the north to just north of Congleton. It was contiguous with the Royal Forest of the Peak with the River Goyt on its northern and western boundary and to the south the River Dane marked its limit. The western boundary followed a series of roadways.
Beginning at Rodegreen, just to the north of Congleton, it passed through Gawsworth, Prestbury and Norbury Low to the “stream of Bosden.” The exact location of Norbury Low is uncertain but presumably it was part of Norbury.
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Goyt Mill at Hawk Green was the last cotton mill to be built in the Marple area, and is the only building of that kind left standing locally today. Set on rising ground on the east bank of the Macclesfield Canal just after Hibbert Lane crosses the canal on Eccles Bridge (Bridge 3), it can be seen from near and far.
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