Chadderton

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Chadderton
Lancashire

Chadderton Town Hall
Location
Grid reference: SD905055
Location: 53°32’46"N, 2°8’33"W
Data
Population: 34,818  (2011)
Post town: Oldham
Postcode: OL1, OL9
Dialling code: 0161
Local Government
Council: Oldham
Parliamentary
constituency:
Oldham West and Royton

Chadderton is a town within the conurbations of south Lancashire. It is beside the River Irk and the Rochdale Canal, on undulating land in the foothills of the Pennines, a mile west of Oldham, four and a half miles south of Rochdale and six miles northeast of the city of Manchester.

Chadderton's early history is marked by its status as a manorial township, with its own line of lords and overlords, who included the Asshetons, Chethams, Radclyffes and Traffords. Chadderton in the Middle Ages was chiefly distinguished by its two mansions, Foxdenton Hall and Chadderton Hall, and by the prestigious families who occupied them. Farming was the main industry of the area, with locals supplementing their incomes by hand-loom woollen weaving in the domestic system.

Chadderton's urbanisation and expansion largely coincided with developments in textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution and the Victorian era. A late 19th century factory-building boom transformed Chadderton from a rural township into a major mill town—one of several in its region—and the second most populous urban district in the United Kingdom. More than 50 cotton mills had been built in Chadderton by 1914.

Although Chadderton's industries declined during the mid-20th century, the town continued to grow as a result of suburbanisation and urban renewal. The legacy of the town's industrial past remains visible in its landscape of red-brick cotton mills, now used as warehouses or distribution centres. Some of these are listed buildings because of their architectural, historical and cultural significance.[1][2]

Chadderton's built environment is distinguished by its former textile factories: "The huge flat-topped brick mills with their square towers and their tall circular chimneys dwarf all other buildings."[3] Rows of early-20th century terraced housing built to house Chadderton's factory workers are a common type of housing stock throughout the town; narrow streets pass through these older housing areas.[4]

Chadderton is contiguous with other settlements on all sides, including a shared boundary with the city of Manchester to the southwest.[5]

Name

The origin of the name 'Chadderton' is uncertain. By one account it is a combination of the British language word Cader or Cater (the modern Welsh Caer), indicating a fortified place amongst the hills and the Old English suffix tun meaning a settlement.[5][6][4] The University of Nottingham's Institute for Name-Studies proposes instead that it is 'Cadeir's hill farmstead' after an otherwise unknown Welsh or pre-Saxon landowner.[7]

Archaic spellings include Chaderthon, Chaderton, Chaterton and Chatherton.[8] The first known written record of the name Chadderton is in a legal document relating to land tenure, in about 1220.[6]

History

Early history

Chadderton Fold by the River Irk

Remains of Roman roads have been discovered running through the town,[5][8] and the local road name Streetbridge suggests that the Romans once marched along it on a path which may have led to Blackstone Edge.[6][4] Relics found at a tumulus in Chadderton Fold date from the Early Middle Ages, probably from the early period of Anglo-Saxon England,[6][8] as Chadderton emerged as a manor of the Salford Hundred.

Chadderton is not recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086. Its first appearance in a written record is in a legal document from around 1220, which states that Robert, Rector of Prestwich, gave land to Richard, son of Gilbert, in exchange for an annual fee of one silver penny.[6] Following the Norman conquest, Chadderton was made a constituent manor of the wider Royal Estate of Tottington, an extensive fee held by the Norman overlord, Roger de Montbegon.[5][9] Taxation and governance continued on this basis throughout the Middle Ages, with the Barons Montbegon of Hornby Castle holding the estate, until it passed to the Barons Lacy of Clitheroe Castle, and then onto local families.[5] In about 1235, the sub-manor of Chadderton and Foxdenton passed from Richard de Trafford of Trafford Park to Geoffrey de Trafford, who adopted the surname of Chadderton, thus founding the Chadderton family.[4] During the High Middle Ages, pieces of land in Chadderton were granted to religious orders and institutions, including Cockersand Abbey and the Knights Hospitaller.[6]

The manorial system was strong in Chadderton, and this lent distinction to the township,[5] in a region which otherwise had weak local lordship.[10] Throughout the Middle Ages, the manor of Chadderton constituted a township, centred on the hill by the banks of the River Irk, known as Chadderton Fold.[5] The fold consisted of a cluster of cottages centred on Chadderton Hall manor house, and a water-powered corn mill.[5] Chadderton Hall was owned and occupied by the de Chaddertons. Geoffrey de Chadderton became the Lord of the Manor of Tottington in the 13th century.[11][12] The de Chaddertons' involvement in regional and national affairs gave prestige to what was otherwise an obscure and rural township. William Chaderton was Bishop of Chester from 1579 to 1595 and held distinguished academic posts such as Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity.[12][13] Laurence Chaderton was the first Master of Emmanuel College, Cambridge and among the first translators of the King James Version of the Bible.[12] Tottington was dissolved in the mid-15th century and there came a succession of distinguished families, each headed by an esquire with links to the monarchs of England. The Radclyffe, Assheton, and Horton families provided six Sheriffs of Lancashire and a Governor of the Isle of Man.[12]

Apart from the dignitaries who lived in Chadderton's manor houses, Chadderton's population during the Middle Ages comprised a small community of retainers, most of whom were occupied in farming, either growing and milling of grain and cereal or raising cattle, sheep, pigs and domestic fowl.[4] Workers supplemented their incomes by hand-loom spinning and weaving of wool at home.[5][4] The community was ravaged by an outbreak of the Black Death in 1646.[14]

Textiles and the Industrial Revolution

Elk Mill, once one of Britain's largest and most modern cotton mills

Until the mid-18th century, the region in and around Chadderton was dominated by dispersed agricultural settlements.[15] During this period the population was fewer than 1,000, broadly consisting of farmers who were involved with pasture, but who supplemented their incomes by working in cottage industries, particularly fustian and silk weaving.[4][16] A fulling mill at Chadderton by the River Irk was recorded during the Elizabethan era,[16] and during the Early Modern period the weavers of Chadderton had been using spinning wheels in makeshift weavers' cottages to produce woollens. Primitive early 18th-century industrialisation developed slowly in Chadderton.[4] However, as the demand for cotton goods increased and the technology of cotton-spinning machinery improved during the mid-18th century, the need for larger structures to house bigger, better, and more efficient equipment became apparent. A water-powered cotton mill was built at Chadderton's Stock Brook in 1776.[11][17][18] The damp climate below the South Pennines provided ideal conditions for textile production to be carried out without the thread drying and breaking, and newly developed 19th-century mechanisation optimised cotton spinning for industrial-scale manufacture of yarn and fabric for the global market. As the Industrial Revolution advanced, socioeconomic conditions in the region contributed to Chadderton adopting cotton spinning in the factory system, which became the dominant source of employment in the locality.[16] The construction of multi-storey steam powered mills followed, which initiated a process of urbanisation and cultural transformation in the region; the population increasingly moved away from farming and domestic weaving in favour of the mechanised production of cotton goods.[10]

Nationally, the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 had resulted in periods of famine and unemployment for textile workers.[19] Nevertheless, despite years of distress and unrest, major disturbances of machine-breaking did not occur until 1826.[20] By the beginning of 1819 the pressure generated by poor economic conditions, coupled with the lack of suffrage in the industrialised towns, had enhanced the appeal of political Radicalism in the region.[19] The Manchester Patriotic Union, a group agitating for parliamentary reform, began to organise a mass public demonstration in Manchester to demand the reform of parliamentary representation. Organised preparations took place, and a spy reported that in neighbouring Thornham, "seven hundred men drilled ... as well as any army regiment would".[21] A few days later, on 3 August, a royal proclamation forbidding the practice of drilling was posted in Manchester.[22] On 16 August 1819, Chadderton (like its neighbours) sent a contingent of its townsfolk to Manchester to join the mass political demonstration now known as the Peterloo Massacre (owing to the 15 deaths and 400–700 injuries which followed).[23] Two of the 15 deceased were from the area: John Ashton of Cowhill and Thomas Buckley of Baretrees.[24]

Kent Mill, built in 1908

New markets in Europe and South America increased the demand for Britain's cheap cotton goods. Supplies of raw cotton were exported from plantations in the United States to Manchester.[25][26] From the markets in Manchester, mill owners from Chadderton and neighbouring towns bought their cotton to be processed into yarn and cloth. Supplies were cut during the Lancashire Cotton Famine of 1861–65 as a result of the American Civil War, leading to the formation of the Chadderton Local Board of Health in 1873, whose purpose was to ensure social security and maintain hygiene and sanitation in the locality following the crisis.[27] Despite a brief economic depression, the urban growth of Chadderton accelerated after the famine. The profitability of factory based cotton spinning meant that much of Chadderton's plentiful cheap open land, used for farming since antiquity, vanished under distinctive rectangular multi-storey brick-built factories—35 by 1891.[16] Chadderton's former villages and hamlets Urban agglomeration|agglomerated as a mill town around these factories and a network of newly created roads, canals and railways.[17][28][29] The Chadderton landscape was "dominated by mill chimneys, many with the mill name picked out in white brick".[30] Neighbouring Oldham (which by the 1870s had emerged as the largest and most productive mill town in the world)[15][31] encroached upon Chadderton's eastern boundary, urbanising the town and surrounds,[32] and forming a continuous urban cotton-spinning district with Royston, Lees and Shaw and Crompton—the Oldham parliamentary constituency—which at its peak was responsible for 13 per cent of the world's cotton production.[33] These Victorian era developments shifted the commercial focus away from Chadderton Fold to the major arterial Middleton Road, by Chadderton's eastern boundary with Oldham.[11][28] Sixty cotton mills were constructed in Chadderton between 1778 and 1926,[16] and 6,000 people, a quarter of Chadderton's population, worked in these factories by the beginning of the 20th century.[34] Industries ancillary to cotton spinning, such as engineering, coal mining, bleaching and dyeing became established during this period, meaning the rest of Chadderton's population were otherwise involved in the sector. Philip Stott was a Chadderton-born architect, civil engineer and surveyor of cotton mills. Stott's mills in Chadderton were some of the largest to be built in the United Kingdom, multiplying the town's industrial capacity and in turn increasing its population and productivity.[35]

Terraced housing on Colshaw Green Road

The boomtown of Chadderton reached its industrial zenith in the 1910s, with over 50 cotton mills within the town limits.[17] A social consequence of this industrial growth was a densely populated metropolitan landscape, home to an extensive and enlarged working class community living in an urban sprawl of low quality terraced houses.[36] However, Chadderton developed an abundance of civic institutions including public street lighting, Carnegie library, public swimming baths and council with its own town hall. The development of the town meant that the district council made initial steps to petition the Crown for honorific borough status]] for Chadderton in the 1930s.[11][27] However, the Great Depression, and the First and Second World Wars each contributed to periods of economic decline. As imports of cheaper foreign yarns and textile goods increased during the mid-20th century, Chadderton's textile sector declined to a halt; cotton spinning reduced dramatically in the 1960s and 1970s and by 1997 only two mills were operational.[17] In spite of efforts to increase the efficiency and competitiveness of its production, the last cotton was spun in the town in 1998.[37] Many of the redundant mills have now been demolished. Non-textile based industries continued on throughout the 20th century and into the 21st century, particularly in the form of aircraft and chemical manufacture at plants in south Chadderton and Foxdenton respectively.[4]

Post-industrial history

During the second half of the 20th century, Chadderton experienced accelerated deindustrialisation along with economic decline.[17] Large areas of Victorian and Edwardian era terraced housing were identified as unsuited for modern needs, and were subsequently demolished.[38] However, the town's population continued to grow as a result of urban renewal and modern suburban housing developments.[4] During the 1970s and 1980s, redevelopment in the form of new shopping, health and leisure facilities contributed to the growth and renewal of Chadderton.[4][39] In 1990, the new Firwood Park, on the west side of Chadderton, was said to be the largest private housing estate in Europe.[39][40] Chadderton continued to be a regional hub for the secondary sector of the economy into the 21st century through BAE Systems and Zetex Semiconductors, though BAE Chadderton closed in March 2012.[37][41] Other major employers include the Stationery Office and Trinity Mirror.[4][37]

Economy

BAE Systems, Chadderton

Up until the 18th century, the inhabitants of Chadderton raised domestic farm animals, supplementing their incomes by the spinning and weaving wool in the domestic system. Primitive coal mining was established by the 17th century, and the factory system adopted in the late-18th century.[4] During the Victorian era, Chadderton's economy was heavily dependent on manufacturing industries, especially the spinning of cotton, but also the weaving of silk and production of hats.[17][32] By the 20th century the landscape was covered with over 50 cotton mills.[4] Industries ancillary to these sectors, including coal mining, brick making, mechanical engineering, and bleaching and dyeing were present.[17] Chadderton developed an extensive coal mining sector auxiliary to Chadderton's cotton industry and workforce. Coal was transported out of the township via the Rochdale Canal. The amount of coal was overestimated however, and production began to decline even before that of the local spinning industry; Chadderton's last coal mine closed in 1920.[42]

Since the deindustrialisation of the region in the mid-20th century, these industries have been replaced by newer sectors and industries,[17] although many of the civic developments that accompanied industrialisation remain in the form of public buildings; a town hall, public baths and library.[4] The few surviving cotton mills are now occupied by warehousing and distribution companies, or used as space for light industry.[43]

British aircraft manufacturer Avro built a factory in south Chadderton in 1938–39,[17][44] later known as BAE Chadderton. It was one of the largest employers in the area, producing a variety of aircraft models including Ansons, Manchesters and Bristol Blenheims.[44] During the Second World War|Second World War, 3,050 Avro Lancaster bombers were built at the Chadderton factory—over 40 per cent of the Royal Air Force's fleet.[17] Post World War Two the Avro Vulcan was designed and built, as well as the Avro Shackleton and Avro Lincoln. After the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Act 1977, Avro became part of the nationalised British Aerospace (now BAE Systems) and produced commercial aircraft for Boeing and Airbus.[45][46]

Chadderton has been described as a "relatively prosperous town ... which makes it a popular residential area".[4] Chadderton Mall is a shopping precinct located in the town centre, and is one of Chadderton's main concentrations of retailing. It was constructed in 1974, and opened in 1975. It includes an Asda supermarket and a variety of smaller shops.[47] The Stationery Office has a base in Chadderton, as does 3M. In 2008, 3M was the centre of a high-profile robbery of over 3,000 British passports.[48][49][50] Other major businesses include Costco and Shop Direct Group.[51] The Centre (formerly Elk Mill Retail Park),[52] is a retail park located at the start of the A627(M) motorway.

Sight about the town

Chadderton Town Hall was the seat of Chadderton Urban District Council. It is Chadderton's second town hall, the first was the former Chadderton Lyceum building (demolished in 1975). The current town hall, Chadderton's first purpose built municipal building, was designed by Taylor and Simister of Oldham, and was opened in 1913 by Herbert Wolstencroft JP, the then chairman of Chadderton Urban District Council. The architectural style was intended to have "a broad and strong treatment of the English Renaissance". It features "charming gardens and a beautifully renovated ballroom".[53] it received Grade II listed status in July 2013.[54] Since 2007, Chadderton Town Hall has housed Oldham Council's Register Office.

Foxdenton Hall, now fully restored

Foxdenton Hall is a two-storey Georgian mansion and former manor house, with an English garden wall bond exterior and its own private gardens. The original Hall was erected in the mid-15th century as a home for the Radclyffes, who had acquired the title of joint Lords of the Manor with the Asshetons of Chadderton, through marriage. This Foxdenton Hall was demolished to make way for a second Hall, built in 1620. The ground floor of that second Hall now forms the basement of the present Hall, built in 1700.[55] The building is described as "a dignified early Georgian house, particularly rare in this part of the country".[56] The Radclyffes moved out of Foxdenton Hall in the late 18th century, favouring properties they had purchased in Dorset, although they still maintained ownership.[55] Foxdenton Hall and the adjoining Foxdenton Park were leased to Chadderton Council by the Radclyffes in 1922, when they opened to the public. In 1960 the council took over ownership of the Hall, by which time it was in a state of disrepair. Following protest about funding and the condition of the building, Foxdenton Hall was restored in 1965.[57]

Chadderton War Memorial is located outside Chadderton Town Hall, and was originally erected "in honour of the men of Chadderton who made the supreme sacrifice and in grateful remembrance of all who served their county" during the First World War, but later, the Second World War. It is a granite obelisk fronted by three steps. At the front on a short plinth stands a bronze figure of an ordinary soldier, holding a rifle in his right hand. It was designed by Taylor and Simister and sculpted by Albert Toft. Chadderton War Memorial was commissioned by the Chadderton War Memorial Committee and unveiled on 8 October 1921 by Councillor Ernest Kempsey.[58]

Chadderton Hall Park is a public park by the River Irk in the north of Chadderton, spanning an area of over 15 acres,[59] in what were once the gardens of the manorial Chadderton Hall. At the end of the 19th century they were leased to Joseph Ball, who transformed the hall and grounds into a pleasure garden, complete with a boating lake and a menagerie.[60] The hall was demolished in 1939. The park is now owned by the local council, and was opened to the public in 1956.

Transport links

The Rochdale Canal and M60 motorway running in parallel

Major A roads link Chadderton with other settlements, including the A663 road. Opened by Wilfrid William Ashley, 1st Baron Mount Temple in 1925, the arterial A663, named Broadway, bisects Chadderton from north to south, and was "a major factor in the unification and modernisation of the town".[17] The A669 road, routed through Chadderton, connects Oldham with Middleton. At its eastern end is Chadderton's town centre. The M62 motorway runs to the north of the area and is accessed via Broadway at junction 21 and junction 20 via the A627(M) motorway, which terminates close to Chadderton's northeastern boundary with Royton. The M60 motorway skirts the south of Chadderton, near Hollinwood.[4] The section of the M60 through Chadderton was opened in autumn 2000.[61]

Chadderton is served by two railway stations just outside its western boundary, Mills Hill railway station at its border with Middleton and Moston railway station at its border with New Moston, Manchester.

The Middleton Junction and Oldham Branch Railway was routed through Chadderton. Middleton Junction railway station was within the town limits. Opened on 31 March 1842 it closed in 1966. On 12 August 1914 Chadderton goods and coal depot was opened. The depot was at the end of a 1097 yards long branch which came off the Middleton Junction to Oldham line at Chadderton Junction.[62] The line from Chadderton Junction to Oldham Werneth was closed on 7 January 1963, but Chadderton goods and coal depot remained open for a period.[63] Electric tramways to and from Middleton opened in 1902. Tram services ran along Middleton Road and terminated in Chadderton. The final tram ran in 1935.[64] The Oldham Loop Line closed as a heavy rail line in 2009, and reopened in June 2012 as part of a new Manchester Metrolink light-rail line from Manchester Victoria to Rochdale via Oldham. South Chadderton Metrolink station, Freehold Metrolink station and the former Hollinwood railway station are part of the conversion to Metrolink.[65][66] Proposals to extend the Metrolink system through Chadderton were announced in January 2016. The proposed link would add a spur between Westwood tram stop and Middleton with the line continuing to the Bury line near Bowker Vale.[67]

Churches

St Mark's Chuch
Healds Green Methodist Church

Chadderton had no mediæval church of its own,[68] and until 1541, for ecclesiastical purposes, lay within the parish of Prestwich-cum-Oldham in the Diocese of Lichfield. The diocese was then divided, and Chadderton became part of the Diocese of Chester. This in turn was divided in 1847, when the present Diocese of Manchester was created. The people of Chadderton had to travel to churches outside of the township's boundaries, including Oldham St Mary's, Middleton St Leonard's, and Prestwich St Mary's. The route of some of the ancient paths to these churches is preserved in the modern layout of some of the town's roads.[69]

Chadderton's first established church was St Margaret of Antioch which was consecrated in 1769 at Hollinwood, however late 19th century boundary changes means it now lies within neighbouring Oldham.[70]

A new Chadderton parish was created in the mid-19th century, and until a church was built, services were held initially in the stables of Chadderton Hall, and then in a temporary wooden structure opened in 1848.[71][72] The Church of St Matthew was opened for the parish in 1857 by the then Bishop of Manchester.[71][72] A steeple was added in 1881.[71] Following the construction of this church, four followed. There are now several Church of England parishes, and within them daughter and mission churches, serving the town.[68]

In addition to the Church of England, a variety of other Reformed denominations have been practised in Chadderton. Nonconformism was popular in Chadderton, and places of worship for Methodism, Baptist and Congregationalism were built during the 19th and 20th centuries.[68] Washbrook Methodist Church and School at Butler Green was built in 1868, but was demolished around 1970 to be replaced by South Chadderton Methodist Church formed from the amalgamation of five Methodist congregations.[73]

The Roman Catholic Parish of Corpus Christi was founded in Chadderton in 1878, following immigration to the region by Irishmen fleeing the Great Famine.

Chadderton also has a large Mohammedan mosque.

Sports

  • Football:
    • Chadderton F.C., formed in 1947 under the name Millbrow Football Club
    • Chaddertonians A.F.C., formed in 1937

The Art Nouveau Chadderton Baths was a public swimming facility opened in 1937.[4] Chadderton Sports Centre, built onto the Baths, was closed and replaced by the Chadderton Wellbeing Centre in January 2010. An application to demolish the Baths was made in March 2011,[74] but is now in private ownership with conversion work due soon. The Wellbeing Centre is a multi-purpose facility with a swimming pool, dance studio, library, gym, meeting rooms, and café.[75]

Outside links

("Wikimedia Commons" has material
about Chadderton)

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