Bredbury

Bredbury is a village of Stockport Metropolitan Borough in Greater Manchester, England. It was formerly an independent parish, and between 1894 and 1974 was part of Bredbury and Romiley Urban District. The village reaches to the lower slopes of Werneth Low, an outlier of the Peak District which rises to 900 feet between the valleys of the River Tame and River Goyt, head-waters of the River Mersey. The village has extensive areas of attractive countryside, both in the river valleys and on the slopes of Werneth Low.

It is served by Bredbury railway station on the Hope Valley Line from Sheffield to Manchester. Buses link the village with the neighbouring communities of Ashton under Lyne, Compstall, Denton, Dukinfield, Hyde, Marple, Marple Bridge, Romiley, Stalybridge, Stockport and Woodley.

Bredbury is home to the National Library for the Blind and contains a public library and two secondary schools.

History

The area must have been unattractive to the Brigantes settlers in pre-Roman Britain, with its bleak hilltop, the heavy clay soil of the intermediate land probably covered by trees and becoming marshy where the slopes flattened out, and the swampy valley floors. The rivers flowed more fully before their waters were dammed in the 19th century to supply Manchester, Stockport and other towns. However, where the valley of the River Goyt narrows at New Bridge, passage was possible, and here an ancient highway entered the village to proceed along the higher land to the north east. The Romans surveyed and constructed a road between the forts of Mamucium (Manchester) and Ardotalia (Melandra Castle at Gamesley) over this ancient track and this is turn became an 18th century turnpike road and the Liverpool to Skegness trunk road, the A560.

Some years ago a Roman coin was dug up on the edge of the road between Bredbury Station and St Mark's Church. The coin long antedates any Roman occupation of this part of the country, and may either have been lost when held as a souvenir or have been brought over from the continent in the course of trade.

As with the majority of hills, rivers and other natural features in this area, the names of the River Tame and Werneth Low are of Celtic origin. The name Bredbury is Anglo-Saxon and probably dates from the first permanent settlement. Names found in nearby villages suggest that Norse invaders found their way into the district, probably during the 10th century.

Bredbury comprised farm land bought by Lord Danton in 1014. It is likely that William the Conqueror's army, on its march from Yorkshire to subdue the rebellion at Chester, followed the main highway. Virtually all the townships on the way were systematically looted, part of the Harrying of the North. Bredbury seems to have been an exception, for reasons which are not clear, but the army apparently crossed the hill into Romiley, which although not on the direct route, is duly described as 'waste' in the Domesday Book of 1086.

Bredbury itself was mentioned briefly in the Domesday Book as being several hundred acres of land. The only occupants listed were duck and a sheep. Its value was placed at three pounds. There is no mention of Lord Danton's manor, but the 'lord' of Bredbury was the pre-conquest Anglo-Saxon thane, Wulfric.

Bredbury passed from the hands of Sir Richard de Vernon to the Mascis of Dunham, under whom it was held by the Fitz-Waltheofs of Stockport. A charter granted by the third Hamon de Masci, lord of Dunham, who died about the end of the reign of King John, confirms the ownership of lands in Bredbury to the Fitz-Waltheofs, and is of special interest because it affords an insight into the working of the feudal system of the period. A translation of the charter runs as follows:

"And I, Hamo, regrant to Robert, the son of Waltheof, Bredbury and Brinnington, with their appurtenances, as his inheritance, to him and his heirs, to hold of me and my heirs, by the service of carrying my bed, my arms or my clothing, whenever the Earl of Chester in his own proper person shall go to Wales. And I, Hamo, will fully furnish Robert, the sone of Waltheof, and his heirs, with a sumpter beast and a man and a sack, and we will find estovers (sufficient food) whilst he is with us in the field, until he shall be returned, to the said Robert or his heirs. And Robert, the son of Waltheof, shall pay to ransom my body from captivity and detention, and to make my eldest son a knight, and to give my eldest daughter a marriage portion, in consideration of which Robert has given me a gold ring."

The conditions laid down in this charter were usual under the feudal system, when military expediations into Wales were no uncommon tasks for the Earl of Chester and his underlords.

By a general inquisition of tenures, taken 10 May 1288, to determine the services due to Edward I in the Welsh Wars, it was found that "Richard de Stokeport holds Bredbury of Hamo de Masci" and "makes service to our Lord the King with one uncaparisoned horse".

Some time during the 14th century the manor of Bredbury was sub-divided into two portions, the larger of which was held by the Bredburys, and passed from them, by marriage with an heiress, to the Ardernes. The remaining portion ultimately came into the possession of the Davenports of Henbury.

It would appear, however, that the manor of Bredbury was still held by the Stokeports, for in the inquisition post mortem of Isabel, daughter and heiress of Sir Richard de Stokeport, taken in 1370, it was found that the manor of Bredbury, with its appurtenances, was held from Roger Lestrange, lord of Dunham Massey, by knight's service, and that it was worth 100 shillings per annum.

In the same year, another inquisition was taken on the death of Hugh de Davenport, which records that he died "seised of two parts of the manor of Bredbury, and of land in Romiley and Werneth" and that Thomas de Davenport was his son and heir, aged 12 years. These lands remained in the possession of the Davenports for several generations The manor house of the Davenports in Bredbury was Goyt Hall on the banks of the River Goyt.

A schedule of owners of lands in the township shows that two lords of the manor in 1661 were Sir Fulke Lucy of Henbury and John Arderne, and that in 1672 Sir John Arderne owned Arden Hall, whilst Sir Fulke Lucy owned Goyt Hall. Shortly after this date the Davenports' portion of the manor of Bredbury appears to have been purchased by Sir John Arderne of Arden Hall, who thus acquired the whole manor.

Until the beginning of the 19th century, a Court Baron was held for the lordship under the title of the Court of the Manor of Bredbury cum Goyt.

The main road continued to be of importance, particularly for the transport of salt from Cheshire, throughout medieval times. In the 17th century there were as many as twelve smithies in Bredbury. Since one smith usually satisfied the needs of any one township, it may be that so great a number of craftsmen was needed to shoe the packhorses which moved in long processions along the important highway.

During the Middle Ages the wealth of England arose largely from the export of wool to the Netherlands, and the district had no share in this prosperity. By Tudor times, however, conditions had changed. Continental trade had been ruined by the Dutch War of Independence and home production of cloth was encouraged. By this time too, the wolves of Longdendale had been exterminated. Great flocks of sheep grazed on the moors and hillsides of the district, sheep farmers and weavers prospered, and established families such as the Ardernes and, at nearby Marple, the Bradshaws became wealthy and influential. The local industries based on thesheep farming, in the absence of ready water power, remained domestic - mainly handloom weaving and the making of felt hats.

In 1754, the population of Bredbury is recorded as being 597.The district was until quite late in the 19th century little more than a group of hamlets, including Barrack Hill, Harrytown and Hatherlow, but the Industrial Revolution brought a number of mills, some of which depended on the water power provided by the head-streams of the River Mersey, and the Peak Forest Canal along which more mills were built.

The days of the great local landowners ended in the early 19th century. William Arden, 2nd Lord Alvanley, succeeded to the Arden estates on the death of his uncle, John Arden, in July 1823. He was a bachelor who had spent a gay life in the circle of the Prince Regent, building up heavy debts in expectation of his inheritance, and meriting some brief but not unsympathetic appearances in the memoirs of the notorious Harriette Wilson. Within a month of getting the estates he had sold Underbank Hall in Stockport, and in 1825 most of the Bredbury lands were sold in lots, realising in three days nearly Â£154,000. There was a final sale, including the mansion of Arden Hall in 1833. William was succeeded by his brother Richard Arden, on whose death in 1857 the barony became extinct. The long connection of the Arden family had been broken, and for a century or more most of the old manor lands were held by a small number of families, such as the Horsfields, Hudsons and Vaudreys, until it became profitable to sell in turn to the building developers.

At the sale of the Bredbury estate, an area lying along the River Goyt was purchased by a Mr Marsden, who built a weir at Otterspool and planned to use water power to develop the valley from there to New Bridge as an industrial estate. However, he failed to secure the water rights. and by the time the lengthy litigation was over water power had been effectively superseded by steam.

The construction of the Peak Forest Canal by Samuel Oldknow, under the direction of Benjamin Outram, opened in sections in the 1790's and 1800's, had a striking effect on the village. On the one hand it provided a water supply and the transport of raw materials, fuel and finished products for the new mills. On the other hand it made possible the importing of lime from Derbyshire for agricultural improvement. The green fields and rich crops of the local farms were remarked upon by visitors, and with easy transport to the growing markets of Manchester and Stockport local agriculture was prosperous in the period following the Napoleonic Wars when elsewhere in the country there was rural depression.

The coming of the railways led to further industrial development, a steady growth of population and the fusing of the separate settlements into the village of Bredbury. The first line was the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway branch from Hyde Junction, which was opened to Hyde in 1858 and extended to Marple on 5 August 1862. The Stockport and Woodley Junction line, opened on 12 January 1863, was amalgamated into the Cheshire Lines Committee on 5 July 1865. The lines from Romiley Junction to Bredbury Junction and Ashburys were opened on 1 April 1875 and 2 August 1875, respectively, and on the latter date the branch from Brinnington to Reddish Junction was opened. On 1 February 1867, Midland Railway trains began to run through the village, as part of the Sheffield and Midland Railway Companies' Committee, to Manchester London Road, at first via Hyde and later via Reddish. The terminus was transferred to Manchester Central in 1880, trains running via Stockport Tiviot Dale.

In 1948, the tramway along the A560 from Stockport to Hyde and beyond was abandoned after less than 50 years use. The section through Bredbury had been opened in August 1901.

There are now few traces of the coal mining that went back to the 17th century at least and in the 19th century was one of the bases of life in the village. The last colliery closed in 1926 and spoil heaps were levelled at Ashton Road and Stockport Road East in the 1960's to make way for new industrial development. Brick-making too was carried on in the village, with Jacksons Brickworks at Ashton Road surviving into the 1970's, and there were several large het works, but the last of these closed in 1958.

Exors of James Mills were manufacturers of steel products for over 100 years, the company growing from a small building employing two men to the large Bredbury Steelworks on Lower Bents Lane, which at its height employed over 2,000 people. In the early part of the 20th century, the company began to roll steel and to produce bright steel, at one point becoming the largest producer of bright steel outside the United States. Other products were added from time to time, including cotters for locomotives and rolling stock, engineer's keys, taper pins, grooved fastenings for securing all kinds of assemblies, railway permanent way fastenings, rail lubricators and hot pressings of various types. In 1938 the company introduced lead-bearing steels to Britain, and in the 1960s developed free machining steels containing tellurium and an alloy replacement steel. The site has since been redeveloped for housing.

The firm of Lightbown Aspinall started making wallpaper in Pendleton, and in 1899, became part of the newly formed Wall Paper Manufacturers. In 1929, the plant was transferred to Brookfield Avenue, where the company produced Crown and Scene wallpapers and Crown Vinyl wall covering, employing 450 people. The site has since been redeveloped for housing.

Pear New Mill was owned by Combined English Mills and were spinners of superfine white hosiery yarn, employing over 400 people. The building has since been subdivided into industrial units.

William Crosland, an engineer and ironfounder, started business in 1855 in an upstairs room at Miller Street in Manchester. He was later joined by his four sons, and the company moved to Stockport Road West in 1894, manufacturing machines and cutting tools for the packaging industry and specialised tooling for the sheet metal trade. The site has since been redeveloped as an industrial estate.

In the 1930s, and after the Second World War, the growth rate accelerated with the coming of new industries, including engineering, chemicals, clothing, and textiles, whilst the village became an important residential area on the periphery of the Greater Manchester conurbation. A large bakery was erected on Ashton Road in 1951.

Comprehensive sewerage and sewage disposal services were completed and put into operation in 1938. After considerable pressure by the Government and the Mersey River Board, the Urban District Council agreed in 1966 to a joint scheme with Stockport County Borough, abandoning the treatment works at Welkin Road and the sludge beds at Brinnington, to provide for the rapidly growing population and the additional industry.

Bredbury has since thrown the shackles of the industrial mill into the River Goyt, and moved into the 21st Century. 12% of the local businesses are now powered by green fuel, a scheme developed by the local council to clean the air of Bredbury.

Churches

St Mark (Church of England)

The parish church of Bredbury is dedicated to St Mark.

Although the village is mentioned in the Domesday Book, Bredbury was without a church until the middle of the 19th century. The first move towards the establishment of a local church and parish, as distict from that of St Mary's in Stockport, was made in 1846, when an Order in Council marked out the boundaries of the "District of St Mark, Bredbury".

It was not long before a site for the church was secured through the generosity of John Sidebotham of Kingston in Hyde, and in 1847 the foundation stone of the new church was laid by the donor of the site. The church was consecrated on 17 January 1849, and the church school was opened in 1850.

Built of freestone in the Early English style, the church consists of a square tower having four pinnacles, a nave and aisles, and a chancel with a vestry on the north side. The tower is 70 feet high, occupying a commanding position, a contains a clock and a peal of bells. The windows consist of two lights each, the chancel window of three lights being filled with painted glass illustrating the Crucifiction, erected by William Collier Vaudrey in 1875, to the memory of his wife and her sister.

The Church School (now rebuilt), is on the opposite side of Redhouse Lane.

St Barnabas (Church of England)

In 1942 Bredbury Hall, with its 11 acres of land, was purchased by the Diocese of Chester to be used as a Mission Church and social centre for Lower Bredbury. On 16 May 1943, the Lord Bishop of Chester dedicated an altar in one of the rooms of the hall.

Later the new church of St Barnabas was erected nearby and was dedicated by the Bishop of Chester on 27 March 1954.

Bredbury Hall was then sold off.

Our Lady and St Christopher (Roman Catholic)

The Roman Catholic faith is ministered to by the Church of Our Lady and St Christopher at Barrack Hill, which was erected in 1932. A presbytery was added in 1952, and the church was subsequently enlarged and a parish hall added. Roman Catholic services were previously held in the chapel at Harrytown Hall.

Hatherlow (United Reformed Church)'''

Hatherlow Church traces its history back to 1645, services then being held in Chadkirk Chapel, and it was the oldest Congregational body in Cheshire. The first independent minister at Chadkirk was Gamallel Jones, who settled there in 1688 or 1689. In the latter year the "Meeting Place" at Chadkirk was certified as a licensed place for religious worship shortly after the passing of the Toleration Act. When they were finally ejected in the reign of Queen Anne, a new building was erected in 1706 on the site now occupied by Hatherlow Sunday School.

It is recorded in a statistical table of the dissenting chapels in Cheshire, begun about 1715, that the congregation at Hatherlow numbered about 300 hearers, including 10 gentlemen, 39 tradesmen, 26 yeomen and 8 labourers. These would be drawn from a very wide area.

The present church was opened as Hatherlow Congregational Church in 1845, although the burial ground surrounding it goes back to 1793. A day school was established in 1780 at Bredbury Old School on School Brow, and the building known as Top School on Gorsey Brow, now partially demolished, was built in 1830 as an overflow. The day school continued until it was succeeded by the Council school at Barrack Hill in 1909.

Hatherlow Sunday School was established in May 1817, and was held first at School Brow and then at the Top School. The present Sunday School was built in 1911.

The church has always been the centre of cultural activity in the district, and was the home of the former Bredbury Amicable Subscription Library, founded in 1822, and later of Hatherlow Botanical Society.

Places of interest

Arden Hall

Arden Hall, (Aiken, 1795)

The most famous of the halls of Bredbury, Arden Hall, erected in 1597, is now a ruin standing in a commanding position above the valley of the River Tame. For over two centuries it was owned by the Ardernes, who had other possessions in Cheshire and were a junior branch of the Arden family of Warwickshire, of whom William Shakespeare's mother was a member.

The building was at one time "a tall building, narrow in proportion to its height and length, built of flat stones or parpoints, and having a sturdy watchtower at the back, looking over the valley of the River Tame. It was surrounded by a wide and deep moat. On the front were three gables, two of them projecting from the face of the hall, the third being flush with it. The entrance doorway was in the side of the central gable, and was approached from the courtyard by a flight of steps. Passing through the doorway a heavy oak door on the right side opened at once into the Great Hall, and in the tower exactly opposite was a wide oak staircase, which led to the upper part of the house. The Great Hall occupied the whole of the ground floor of this portion of the building, and was about 33 feet long by 24 feet wide. At the end was a raised platform where the high table was situated, lighted by two loft bay windows, one at each end. The year in which some portion of the hall, if indeed not the whole of it, was erected, is fixed from the date 1597 on the spout above the entrance, and the initials and date R A 1597 on the right hand gable."

In the particulars of sale of 1825, it states that "the ancient mansion house of Arden Hall has been in part converted into a commodious farm house, with every requisite convenience", and it had already been let as such.

There is a tradition that Oliver Cromwell stayed at the hall and that there was a skirmish nearby between Cavaliers and Roundheads, but there is no firm evidence, although the access to the hall is called Battle Lane. However, Ralph Arderne, like most other local gentry, espoused the Parliamentarian cause, and saw action in several engagements.

Bredbury Hall

Bredbury Hall, approached from Dark Lane, has been so altered as to have lost every vestige of its former appearance. it was probably built upon the site of a former homestead, as some branch of the Bredburys is supposed to have settled here in early times.

In 1638, the hall was occupied by a branch of the Davenports, a connection of the Bredburys. In later times, the venerable building degenerated into an ordinary farmstead.

In the 19th century, it was rebuilt, and converted into a fine family residence in the Georgian style.

For some years prior to the erection of St Barnabas Church, services were held here. The hall, outbuildings and grounds are now used as a hotel and country club, and the buildings have been much modified to suit that purpose.

The great barn, 42 yards long of cruck framed construction, is medieval in origin although the original framing timbers have been overlaid by brick.

Bredbury Library

The original library on George Lane opened in 1937, and the capacity was doubled by extensions in 1962, comprising a children's room and reference room. The latter, now used as a Council information point, is a dodecahedral annexe, erected mainly out of funds collected locally, as a War Memorial for World War II, and contains memorial windows designed by a local artist and a Book of Remembrance for the dead in both World Wars. Further substantial extensions and alterations, including the conversion of the War Memorial room into an exhibition and lecture room, were completed in 1970.

In 1950, the Centenary Year of the Public Library Movement, plaques were unveiled at the Library in honour of Sir Ernest Barker, the Woodley-born writer on political and historic subjects, and Thomas Greenwood, the Woodley-born writer and advocate of free public libraries.

Bredbury Old School

Erected at School Brow in 1780 by John Arden, Lord of the Manor, and the freeholders of the township of Bredbury, on land enclosed from the Common of Barrack Hill, Bredbury Old School was vested in trustees who were to "appoint a proper and sufficient person to be Schoolmaster". The appointee was to enter into a bond with the trustees "in the penal sum of Â£200 at the least conditioned for the due observance of the several rules and conditions" set out in the trust deed, including that he "shall duly and properly teach and instruct children to read, write and cast accompts and that his wife or some sufficient person to be by him provided shall teach girls to knit and sew".

The building of larger schools and the passing of the Education Acts rendered the building obsolete, and by an order of the Charity Commissioners in 1889 the trustees, some appointed by the local authority, some co-opted, were instructed to "apply the trust income either in making payments by way of rewards or prizes to children attending public elementary schools in the townships of Bredbury and Romiley for good conduct, regularity in attendance and proficiency during a period of three years next preceding the award, or in the payment of exhibitions tenable at places of higher education." Later changes to the grant system made the second power ineffectual but awards of cash continue to be made to local schoolchildren a few days before Christmas, together with a traditional form of certificate.

The building has, since its closing as a school, been used for a variety of purposes, including use as offices of Bredbury and Romiley Urban District Council. By the 1950s, it had fallen into serious disrepair. Its re-roofing with asbestos cement sheets and the rendering of the walls modified the external appearance very seriously, but inside the original floors and timbers were still visible. After the repairs it was leased to Romiley Little Theatre as their club-house, and the surrounding land was let as allotments.

Goyt Hall

Goyt Hall, which stands in the valley of the River Goyt, midway between Otterspool Bridge and New Bridge, is a picture in black and white, and this not withstanding that the rebuilding of one of the wings has destroyed much of its old architectural effect. It is a half-timbered building erected by Randal Davenport about the year 1570, although William Davenport of Goyt Hall, who appears as witnessing a mortgage, died in 1542.

The marriage of the last of the Davenports to Sir Fulke Lucy in 1664 brought it for a time into the possession of that near kinsman of Sir Thomas Lucy, who features in the story of William Shakespeare's youth. This rather tenuous association was marked by the naming of the streets on the nearby Shakespeare Estate, an overspill development built by Manchester City Council.

Harrytown Hall

Formerly occupied by the Convent of the Nativity of the Sisters of Charity of Notre Dame d'Evron, who maintained Harrytown High School, Harrytown Hall dates from 1671, and is well-preserved in spite of being Gothicised during the Romantic Revival. The building has since been converted into apartments.

Local government

Bredbury Parish was included in Bredbury and Romiley Local Board, constituted in 1865, and in 1880 the civil parish was amalgamated with Romiley.

Bredbury and Romiley Urban District Council was set up in 1894, and was extended to incorporate Compstall Urban District in 1936.

Until 1953 Bredbury Ward returned twelve councillors to the Urban District Council, with Romiley Ward returning six and Compstall Ward returning a single member. In that year, Bredbury Ward was divided into Bredbury North and Bredbury South wards, and in 1959, there was a redivision of the Urban District into seven wards, with Compstall continuing to return a single councillor, and each of the others electing three. Romiley received three wards and a new Woodley ward was created out of Bredbury, the first time that the village of Woodley had been officially recognised. The remainder of Bredbury was divided into Bredbury North, Bredbury South and Bredbury West. There were further electoral changes in 1970 when the altered Bredbury North ward was renamed Bredbury Central.

Up to 1958, the Urban District formed one electoral division on Cheshire County Council, but in that year it was divided into Bredbury Tame and Bredbury Goyt divisions.

In 1952, Brinnington township was transferred to Stockport County Borough to enable a large residential overspill estate to be built.

The Council Offices were in Bredbury Old School on School Brow until 1919, when Bank House on George Lane was acquired and converted for this purpose. There were extensions in 1927, and in 1934 a new Council Chamber was opened. More substantial extensions were opened in 1962, replacing temporary buildings erected before the Second World War. The site has since been redeveloped for housing.

The Urban District Council's first acquisition of houses was at Vernon View, a terrace of which the construction was delayed by the First World War, bought on completion in 1922. In the same year the first Council estate was commenced at George Lane.

The Council subsequently owned over 2,000 homes, including several schemes for old people's accommodation incorporating welfare features. Of these, Royley Carr on Wild Street, a block of 23 single room flatlets with warden's house, lounge, laundry and guest rooms was opened in 1962. Later a warden scheme for the elderly on land sold by the Council was developed at Highfield Avenue by Help the Aged Housing Association.

In 1959, the Council intervened over Manchester City Council's application for a compulsory purchase order on 60 acres of land at Bredbury Green, offering two other sites in substitution so that the confirmed area was reduced to 24 acres, and the danger of a large overspill estate was removed. The City Council subsequently completed several relatively small overspill estates, which resulted in the "immigrants" being integrated more successfully than in some nearby areas.

The Council was for many years in the forefront of a campaign for the preservation and restoration to full use of the Lower Peak Forest Canal and the connecting waterways of the Cheshire Ring. The canal reopened in 1974.

In 1974, the Urban District Council was abolished, and Bredbury was included in the Stockport Metropolitan Borough, forming part of two wards, Bredbury and Romiley, each returning three members. The ward boundaries were subsequently adjusted, and in 2005 the wards were renamed Bredbury and Woodley and Bredbury Green and Romiley.

Although the area had traditionally elected Conservative politicians, with occasional victories for the Labour Party, by 2006 all elected positions were held by the Liberal Democrats.

Population

Figures include Woodley village

1754 597

 1851 2,990
 1881 3,733
 1911 5,876
 1931 7,154
 1951 12,020
 1961 13,921
 1966 17,700

Local people

John Agecroft (1716 - 1804)

John Agecroft lived in a cottage at Barrack Hill where, until the end of the 19th century, a crude bust stood in a niche on the outer wall. A canvass weaver, bookbinder and well known local eccentric, he is said to have conceived the idea of the bust from that of William Shakespeare at Stratford upon Avon, and to have made the matrix by pushing his face into the hardening mud of a ditch. The bust, or part of it, in the form of a death mask, was on display in the Council Chamber when Agecroft Road was named.

Richard Pepper Arden (1744 - 1804)

Born at Arden Hall, Richard Pepper Arden, the 1st Baron Alvanley, was educated at Manchester Grammar School and Trinity College, Cambridge. He was called to the Bar in 1769.

He was a friend of William Pitt the Younger, and entered the House of Commons in 1782, becoming Solicitor General in that year and Attorney General in 1784. In 1801 he bacame Chief Justice of the Common Pleas and was raised to the Peerage. He was succeeded in the title by his son, William Arden, born in 1789.

Edward McLellan (1870 - 1967)

Born in Redhouse Lane, the son of the village clogger, Edward McLellan attended St Mark's School. It speaks much for the quality of education there, under the headmaster Silas Whipp, that without further formal education he was able to enter Hartley College, the Primitive Methodist Ministers' Training college, from which he embarked on 47 years of active ministry. In 1931 he reached the highest point he could attain in his vocation when he was elected President of the Primitive Methodist Conference.

He published many articles and stories in magazines and wrote a number of books on religious subjects. He continued to preach to an advanced age, and conducted services after his 90th year at both Woodley and Greave.

Thomas Platt (1745 - 1824)

Thomas Platt of Dark Lane House was claimed to have established a Sunday school some years before Robert Raikes, the usually accredited founder of the system. In recruiting for Stockport Parish Church choir, he found that many of the boys and girls he gathered could not read, and so instructed them on Sunday evenings. When Raikes's system spread to Greater Manchester, Platt became the paid headmaster of one of the Stockport Sunday schools.

Robert Robinson (1726 - 1791)

A dissenting minister and polemic, whose controversial sermons led him into frequent troubles with his congregations and commercial interests, Robert Robinson held pastorates at Congleton, Dukinfield and Failsworth.

After his dismissal from Dob End Lane Chapel in Failsworth, he moved to Barrack Hill Farm in the 1770's. he was buried in a field near his house, where the place was enclosed by a wall. The enclosure was a square red-brick structure below School Brow, out of which elder bushes grew.

It was reputed that he was laid in a coffin with a glass panel over his face. James Cocks, in the Memorials of Hatherlow, gives alternative reasons for his mode of disposal. One is that he had a horror of premature burial, and his relatives were instructed to visit his grave periodically to check that he was still dead. An alternative explanation is that he feared the attention of the "resurrection men". A further account is that he had for many years protested against the indecent manner in which funerals were commonly conducted, and so was prompted to prepare a private cemetery on his own land.

However, it appears that the disposal was without ceremony, at break of day, eight days after his death, which gives some credence to another explanation that, because of his disputatious life, his body was not acceptable to the controllers of consecrated ground.

At one time anyone could see the coffin, and large numbers came out of morbid curiosity, especially on Sundays, so that eventually because of the scandal the place was enclosed by a wall.

Peter Charles Snape (Born 1942)

Peter Charles Snape, who lived at Greenwood Gardens, was a railwayman and Bredbury and Romiley Urban District councillor representing Bredbury South ward. He was elected as Labour Member of Parliament for West Bromwich East in 1974, after which he moved to live in Buglawton. However, he retained links with the Bredbury area, serving for a time as a director of Stockport County football club. He held a number of government posts before he stood down in the 2001 election.

He was the Member who formally proposed Michael Martin to be the new Speaker in 2000 and was made a life peer in 2004.

Mike Yarwood (Born 1941)

Mike Yarwood, brought up on The Broadway, was Britain's top rated impressionist on television from the mid 1960's to the early 1980's. He was one of the star's of British television in the 1960's and 1970s, with his own prominent shows, which changed between BBC and ITV (ATV and Thames Television) based on high profile financial deals. He belonged to the same television comedy generation as Morecambe and Wise, Dick Emery, Frankie Howerd, Stanley Baxter, The Goodies, Tommy Cooper, Benny Hill, Eric Sykes, Bruce Forsyth and magician David Nixon. Though he had made a short appearance with Tony Hancock in Hancock's Half Hour in 1961, he owed his initial success to the Sunday Night at the London Palladium variety "spectacular", on which he first appeared in 1964. His appearance coincided with the senior political career of his most famous 'character', Labour Party leader and Prime Minister Harold Wilson.

At its height, his TV shows, which were based on a variety mix of comic sketches, guest musicians, and a "swing'" song sung by himself (introduced by the line, "and this is me", which became the title of the first of his three autobographies), regularly attracted more than 10 million viewers (beating the James Bond film You Only Live Twice in a "head to head" battle in 1977).

His show attracted high profile guests such as ex-Beatle Paul McCartney (1977) and chart-topping Eurovision winners ABBA (1978). Among the prominent British personalities he portrayed were Eddie Waring, the famously impossible to understand rugby league commentator, Brian Clough, the controversial soccer manager, Robin Day, the then top political interviewer on the BBC, Alf Garnett, the "bigot" from Till Death Us Do Part and Wilson's Conservative Party rival Ted Heath Yarwood's impression of Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe was unconvincing, and he knew it. It was his willingness to tackle politicians as well as entertainers that made his act stand out. His performance as Harold Wilson became a legend and his instantly recognisable trademark. He briefly caused some controversy by including the Prince of Wales as one of his regular impressions.

His Christmas Special became one of the highlights of Christmas Day television viewing. Yarwood was the subject of a This is Your Life special, presented by Eamonn Andrews on 31 May 1978.

Yarwood's characterisations also created catchphrases which came to be identified with famous figures, even though they never actually used them. The two most famous were "silly Billy", as spoken by his caricature of British Labour Chancellor Denis Healey, and "I mean that most sincerely, folks", which his caricature of Opportunity Knocks presenter Hughie Greene used so often people believed that the real Hughie Greene actually said it - he never did.

Yarwood's career hit its heights in the 1970s when he was one of a stable of stars under the BBC "Light Entertainment" maestro Bill Cotton, including Forsyth and Morecambe and Wise, largely assembled from talent developed in the 1960s at ITV (Benny Hill was one of the few left on the then ailing ITV network). Their defections in the late 1970s back to ITV (where all bombed, with badly designed ITV shows created for them, and in particular the fact that their best scriptwriters were still under contract at the BBC and so could not work for them on ITV) marked an end to the heyday of the 1960's/70's era of television comedy.

Yarwood, a later defector to Thames Television, saw his career go into decline in the early 1980s, as most of his most famous 'subjects', including Heath and Wilson retired from public life or died, the premiership being held by Margaret Thatcher, whom he proved unable to master (she was played on his show by Janet Brown). His career never recovered from the loss of some of his most loved characters. In addition, his battle with alcoholism and stage fright badly affected his career, making him unreliable and temperamental and affecting the quality of his output. It also broke up his marriage.

His Thames show was cancelled and he disappeared from broadcasting. Subsequent attempts to resurrect his television career failed, as a new generation of sharper political satirists, made his lightweight "look who I can do" style of comedy seem dated and weak, though he did make an appearance on the satirical show Have I Got News for You.

In the late 1990s ,he underwent treatment for depression.

Hotels and inns

*Arden Arms on Ashton Road
*Bredbury Hall on Dark Lane
*Cow and Calf on School Brow
*Crown Inn on Stockport Road East
*Greyhound on Lower Bents Lane
*Horsfield Arms on Ashton Road
*Lowes Arms on Hyde Road
*Queen's Arms on Higher Bents Lane
*Rising Sun on Stockport Road East
*Roaring Winds on Beacon Road
*Sportsmans Rest on Higher Bents Lane
*Spread Eagle Hotel on Hatherlow
*Travellers Call on Stockport Road West
*Yew Tree Hotel on Osborne Street

Sources

*Aiken, John (1795). A Description of the County from 30 â€" 40 Miles Round Manchester
*Cocks, James (1895). Memorials of Hatherlow
*Cocks, James (1924). Annals of Bredbury Part 1
*Earwaker, J P (1880). East Cheshire
*Bredbury and Romiley Urban District : The Official Guide (1970)
*Biographical Notes on Sir Ernest Barker and Thomas Greenwood (1950)
*St Mark's Centenary Booklet (1949)

Bredbury: Encyclopedia BETA

Contents