Northenden

Northenden
Cheshire
Church Road and Palatine Road, Northenden
Location
Grid reference:	SJ828901
Location:	53°24’27"N, 2°15’30"W
Data
Population:	14,771  (2011)
Post town:	Manchester
Postcode:	M22
Dialling code:	0161
Local Government
Council:	Manchester
Parliamentary constituency:	Wythenshawe and Sale East

Northenden is a suburban village in Cheshire, absorbed now within the spawl of townscape spreading over the county border from Manchester, so that now it is in a continuous belt running from Sale to Stockport. Northenden stands on the south bank of the River Mersey, which marks the border of Lancashire and whose riverside meadows provide a brief breathing space between the Cheshire towns and the Lancastrian towns to the north. It is south too of the the M60 motorway which rings Manchester. It is four miles west of Stockport and five miles south of Manchester, bounded by the districts of Didsbury to the north, Gatley to the east, and the rest of Wythenshawe to the south and west.

Northenden was formerly a rural township and parish within the Bucklow Hundred. Despite a process of unplanned urbanisation and population growth in its neighbours during the 19th century, Northenden long remained a comparatively rural and unpopulated area which spanned the hamlets of Lawton Moor, Northern Moor, Rose Hill and a part of what is now Wythenshawe. By 1866 Northenden had coalesced and in 1931 the Manchester Corporation extended its civic boundaries to encompass Northenden to open it for development. Throughout the mid-20th century Northenden was redeveloped as an overspill estate for Manchester.

History

Northenden was mentioned as Norwordine in the Domesday Book of 1086; its name is from the Old English Norþ-worþign meaning "north enclosure". It was then a small farming community with a manor house and woodland. Another theory is that the name means "northern dale or valley", presumably because it was near the River Mersey. In later times Northenden was sometimes called Northen.

There was a weir on the Mersey there in the 14th century (where Mill Lane stands now) and a mill was set up to grind corn. The mill belonged to the Tatton family of Wythenshawe Hall, but was demolished in the 1960s.

As Northenden is on a major (and very old) crossing place of the Mersey on the 'Salt Road' from Cheshire to Manchester, it prospered in the Middle Ages. The ford was an important way into and out of and into Manchester (now Ford Lane), as there was no bridge over the Mersey between Sale and Stockport, until in 1745 Bonnie Prince Charlie's army built a troop-bridge out of big poplar tree trunks where the B5095 (Manchester Road, Didsbury) now crosses the Mersey, south of Didsbury, in his abortive attempt to seize the crown of England. The Northenden ford was unusual because its northern and southern ends were not opposite each other, but people using the ford had to wade about 500 feet along the riverbed. The Simon's Bridge was built at the ford in 1901 to help access to Poor's Field, and the rent from this field was used by the church to buy blankets and clothes for the needy.

Distance from Manchester enabled Northenden to avoid the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century. The nearest it came to industrialisation was a cottage industry in flax spinning. In the 1980s the area became part of the Mersey Valley Park, and the banks of the river form part of the Mersey Valley Trail.

Northenden began to develop as an attractive riverside township for Manchester's more affluent managers, clerks and tradesmen, and the Victorian and Edwardian development gives the village much of its present character. In the wake of Manchester's acquisition of Wythenshawe for a new Garden City, Northenden became an official district of Manchester in 1931.

Northenden is often referred to as a village by the locals, but was engulfed in suburban housing as the very large Wythenshawe housing estate was built during the first half of the 20th century. Northenden, whose centre was formerly Church Road, rapidly developed a new shopping centre along Palatine Road (a new road built to connect with Manchester) to service the new neighbourhood with shops, schools, a cinema (closed 1974), hotels, churches, small businesses and service industries. Eventually, a larger shopping centre and various amenities were built in the centre of Wythenshawe in the late 1960s, though Northenden still is busy.

Northenden railway station served the area between 1866 and 1964, being located between Sharston Road and Longley Lane. Passenger trains from Stockport Tiviot Dale to Warrington and Liverpool Central railway station|Liverpool stopped here. The Northenden Neighbourhood Forum policy is to encourage the reopening of the station.

About the village

The Church of St Wilfrid, Northenden is a Grade II* listed building. Most of the church's structure dates from the 19th century, apart from the tower which was built in the 15th century. The 19th century remodelling was done in red sandstone and is an example of Perpendicular Gothic architecture. St Wilfrid's contains a memorial to 19th-century railway chairman Sir Edward Watkin, founder of the Channel Tunnel Company, who is buried in the church grounds.

The area also has places of worship for Methodists, Anglicans, Roman Catholics, Jehovah's Witnesses and Quakers.

Northenden Social Club's first premises was a converted First World War army hut, originally used by the medical officer at Heaton Park. Buying it cost £114 and the club had to raise another £412 for it to be transported to their site and established as a social club. In front of the club is the Northenden War Memorial next to Palatine Road.

A section of the River Mersey is in the town of Northenden and one of its more popular parts is the weir, which now has a fish ladder] so migrating salmon and sea trout can get upstream, because the weir is flat with tiles and has only a thin sheet of water running down the weir as it is fairly wide. Fishing can be very good here as this stretch contains trout, roach, dace, eels, pike, salmon (mid autumn-mid-spring and this goes for sea trout), chub, barbel and some grayling have been caught.

Outside links

• Northenden Civic Society
• St Wilfrid’s, Northenden (the locality: where it is, its history)
• Northenden Conservation Area
• Northenden Past
• Northenden Riverside Park
• Northenden Mill
• Northenden Social Club history